Mendedo gives Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech

The Rev. Dr. Tilahun Mendedo, president of Concordia College Selma, Ala., spoke at Concordia University, Nebraska on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 17. The event was part of Concordia's "Looking Beyond Speaker Series."  

Mendedo’s speech, “Where is that Dream?” shared some of the struggles he experienced in his birth country of Ethiopia and some of his challenges and successes here in the United States.

Mendedo told the audience of how he did not own a pair of shoes until he was in ninth grade and how he pursued a scholarship to come and study in the United States. He contacted over 300 institutions before receiving a scholarship offer to attend Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Ind. 

“Getting the American dream is like running a marathon,” explained Mendedo. “I say this as someone who knows what it is to live without a dream and one who now has a dream.”

Although Mendedo shared his personal journey and dream with his audience, he left them with a charge to look at the dream as more than a personal quest. “We need to live a dream that lifts up a community.  Are we passing that torch to the generations of today?”

Before assuming his position at Concordia College Selma, Mendedo served as an evangelist, youth leader, church elder, Bible school teacher, project director, curriculum advisor, school administrator and counselor for the quickly-expanding Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus. He also has served and counseled Lutheran churches in Africa, Germany, England, Canada and the United States.