Update Report from Burundi visit 18th-27th October 2007

Below I will try to give a comprehensive picture of what has happened this trip, along with the current state of our partners and the nation, both for information and for prayer. Here goes:

The State of  the Nation:

It’s a real mess. This was extremely discouraging. The poverty is crippling. Colleaugues and friends came out with extraordinary comments that life was better during the war, because then the price of foodstuffs was more reasonable, so they actually had enough to eat. The price of beans (very basic foodstuff) has risen from 600FrBu to 1500FrBu in a few months, for example. The money has been devalued because of the political impasse, and there is a serious lack of foreign exchange, so the dollar is up 20%, deeply affecting the population at large. Crime has become so rampant that many poor people working the land for crops can’t be bothered to carry on, because they know their crops will be stolen. So instead they literally say that that is what they’ll do, they’ll steal when the harvest comes. This means less crops are being produced. All public schools and universities have been on strike this month.

The corruption and human rights abuses are as high as they ever have been, it seems. Hoped for improvements have failed to materialize. Lots of scandals are being publicized. Ironically, press freedom is greater in than probably any other country in Africa . They are publishing whatever filth they find, and it highlights all the bad stuff going on.

The President is trying to do his job, but it looks clear that others around him are pillaging the national coffers for their own end. He is between a rock and a hard place, being leant on by the international community to give concessions to the opposition parties, who are holding out for more power, and so things have pretty much ground to a halt. Meanwhile, the instransigent last rebel movement, the FNL, has fragmented, with different sub-factions. There were two bombing sessions during my visit, with maybe a few dozen dead.

Basically, the situation is as bad as it could be, bar a return to full-scale war, which seemed totally unlikely a year ago yet is being talked about again.

Please pray for righteous government, for exposure and punishment of corrupt elements, for accountability of those in authority, for the President to stay alive and have the courage and power to push through healthy reforms, for compromises between the government and the opposition parties to be made so that the political deadlock is broken, for the Church to be united and to play its role in the shaping of the country, for good rains to produce good crops, for the splintered FNL to totally lay down its arms, for a fair and honest judiciary, for an end to human rights abuses.

The State of GLO ’s Partners:

After all the above discouragements, prepare to be encouraged! It was such an energizing week in terms of seeing how healthy our work is going.

Scripture Union continues to go great guns. It has a very high reputation, the systems are all in place for stability and transparency. They are bombing around the country doing great training in evangelism, discipleship, AIDS awareness. The Bible reading notes for the coming year have been written, edited and printed in record time for dissemination through local churches. The general ambience in the team is superb. We went upcountry together to go preaching, which was fun and impacting. The conference centre work had ground to a halt, but that was nobody’s fault expect the bureaucracy of trying to get our first container out of customs.

The total highlight was receiving news that all our goods from will be exonerated, i.e. we won’t have to pay 30% tax on everything, praise the Lord! That is a superb answer to much sustained prayer and visiting and meeting umpteen governmental departments. In real terms it will save us between $100k and $150k of God’s money to be used for His glory. I am so happy about that. Hopefully we can all the containers from as soon as possible now so that we can open the Centre by mid 2008.

A big prayer concern is for the health of the General Secretary, Munezero, who has been sick since April and continues to hold the fort in great weakness. Also, the Legal Representative’s wife, Francoise, has been in a coma for six weeks and seemingly came back from the dead. She is paralysed on one side still and can barely talk. Let’s pray for both of them to return to full health. Otherwise, prayers for continued unity, for the Bible reading notes to sell out almost immediately to maximize their benefit, for the AIDS project and the evangelistic work to have the greatest impact possible, for the remaining containers to come quickly from India, for all of them to get through customs safely without breakage or theft or extra charges or delay,

Youth for Christ are also doing so well. It was an incredible joy to blast upcountry and go and see how building for the orphanage has progressed. When I left there were eight orphans, now there are twenty, and it really feels like a community. They are in two separate houses with a house mum in each. The house mum gets money to budget and cook whatever they want, so each house is distinct, they pray as a house, and now that the school is built, they pootle off to school in the morning in their green Australian-school-donated uniforms. It was beautiful to see them being frog-marched into class, aged two to eight! For prayer, there is a very dysfunctional pastor in the area who controls a lot of things, and his jealousy has been aroused. He feels threatened by Freddy, the National Coordinator, and has been seen snooping around, maybe trying to get some of YFC’s land taken back off them. So because of that, we have cracked on with laying the foundations of the clinic at the far end of the site, to lay strong claim to the land. Also a big water pump system is being installed to pump water up the hill to benefit not only the orphanage but also the whole community, who are also benefiting from the school. This is all plain fantastic!

What with the Christmas appeal for cows to start a dairy farm well underway, I went to check out some land for the farm, and it looks like that land will be bought this week for $10k with GLO money. It is 20mins out of the capital, and is perfect as a place to rear cows. It is 600m by 60m, i.e. massive, and I suspect the price will increase fivefold in the next few years, so it is a superb investment within the context that land is being snapped up all over the place by anyone who has any money to put down. This was a real scoop, through a local trustworthy Pentecostal official who wanted to help us. So in due course we’ll just need to build a walled compound for the cows, and get milking. This area is the best for cows, who produce far more milk here than anywhere else in the country, because of the quality of the stuff they munch on. We could sell off several plots in due course without even being affected as the original plot is so huge.

Let’s pray for that land to be bought quickly without hassles, for the orphanage site to remain uncontested, for building work to continue without wastage or corruption, for the health and safety of the children and carers, for all the clubs to grow in depth and numbers, for many young leaders to be raised up, for Freddy’s wife Josee who is due to give birth in a few weeks like Lizzie.

Harvest for Christ has caused a sensation throughout the Christian community in with their summer evangelistic campaign. They rock! In conversation with Onesphore, he made the following comments:

• Those who went to evangelise are now turbo-charged and people in their churches are trying to get them to tone it down, but they go everywhere preaching.
• They have developed incredibly in maturity from being practitioners stepping out and actually doing the stuff.
• Churches visited are edified and stirred into life.
• The campaign involves reaching out to those who are really unreached, who don’t or can’t or won’t come to church, on that level it is irreplaceable.
• There are huge results with small means - 33,000 people were reached in a profound way for just $13k; and they could transmit a complete message, with interaction, unlike at crusades, because they are on the ground, people can ask questions, therefore those who convert know what they are buying into.
• On the ground is the best training possible, keeps the youth out of trouble in their summer holidays,  as in July they are praying, and in August they are preaching, and then it’s back to school!
• They are living the unity of the church which they preach, with the teams sent out from different denominations. So it’s a good challenge to divided churches on the ground, and they feed new converts into a given church not necessarily of their own denomination, thereby producing a generation in solidarity as the body of Christ.
• They are stirring up an evangelistic movement countrywide, and stirring up pastors and churches to fulfilling the Great Commission.
• Yes, he said, revival is on the way, because what they are doing involves proclamation of the Word and demonstration of His power in miracles.
• In crusades, one person preaches, here it is hundreds getting the chance to exercise their gifts.

Those are some of his comments in random order. I wonder if there is anything going on across the planet which is more obviously apostolic and wonderfully fruitful. It blows my mind. There is a gifted couple in the States who might come across to work with him and help take it to the next level. The organization is growing fast from virtually nothing, so a legitimate concern is that it needs to build capacity and not move too fast, but Onesphore is simply a wonderful brother, an inspiring leader, an energetic practitioner, and a strategic visionary, and money can’t be better invested than in getting alongside him and helping him see his God-given dreams come to fruition. Amazing!

Let’s pray for lasting deep fruit from the summer outreach, for Onesphore’s leadership to remain anointed and impacting, for all the training seminars they do, for them to be able to handle and keep up with the growth of the organization, for financial provision for their big dreams.

Evangelism Explosion is being overseen by directed by Onesphore (above), who is also doing a theological degree at the same time, what can you say?! EE is thriving, Onesphore and his colleague have trained many people up, it is being used to see many come to faith, and requires very little financial backing. Again, just wonderful.

Let’s pray for Onesphore again, amidst his myriad responsabilities, that he can (as he is) train up someone else to run this program (I forget the guy’s name), that they will have wisdom on which invitations to respond to in terms of where to run clinics, for key people in each clinic so that the program goes back and gets implemented in as many denominations and organizations as possible.

UGBB (student evangelism) is going steadily. I am satisfied by their progress, bearing in mind they are rebuilding after the crisis of a few years ago. Not much to report, but it is a strategic ministry on all the campuses which needs GLO’s support.

Pray for consolidation and growth of the ministry, and other financial partners so that they can move forward as an organization, for Zenon as its head that he leads with anointing and vision

New Generation continues to struggle, because they have taken on more street children than they can handle. They have twenty older ones who have now left school and are a pain in the neck, causing aggro for the younger better behaved ones. So I agreed to provide funding for all of them to have some money to leave the project and be able to start up their own mini-business venture, meaning they will no longer be looking to NG to provide food and lodging. NG has committed to not take in more children, so that hopefully as the income-generating projects take off, they will be able to consolidate and move beyond crisis/survival mode. There wasn’t enough money even for the kids to eat when I was there, because their bus was broken down, and that usually generated $30/day which paid for all the food. So I paid an advance of $3k to get the motor fixed.

On the actual bus project, Ubuntu (grace) Express, it’s been a struggle to make a profit, but we are hopeful. The busses are consuming way more gas than was anticipated, so changes in the engine have been made. That was eating into the profits significantly. But it is still generating $1,500 a month. The potential is much higher though, and needs to be to finance the whole streetkids project. Repairing NG’s other bus will also mean when of the two Ubuntu Express busses needs fixing that it can fill the gap and not cause disruption in the transporting of passengers upcountry. The quicker they can scale up with a few more busses the better. They are working very hard on it, and it just had to succeed. I find our relationship strained because they are always begging and never understanding that agreements are there to be adhered to, but I’m sure I’d likewise come crawling back in desperation if I couldn’t find money to feed the kids. It’s a tough one.

 APRID (Muslim evangelism) is continuing to rebuild following the crisis of a few years ago. They are working hard on very limited funding, and are very frustrated to see Muslim evangelistic teams bomb around the country with good sound systems spouting rubbish about Christianity but drawing many through Islam’s largely one-way door. I gave them a laptop and hope that the next team coming from the can bring out a sound system to be used in evangelism for them. I know their lives are so very hard, and would like to see some people get behind them with increased funding, it is a crucial ministry.

Pray for continued Barnabas Fund support for them, for provision of their daily bread and more than just survival, for protection of the evangelists and their families, for lasting fruit, for the integration and provision of the new converts who are usually kicked out of their families and persecuted, for the masses not to be converted when faced with those crass misrepresentations from the itinerant Muslim evangelists, for the continued rebuilding of trust after the debacle of a few years ago, for Josee H’s repentance, for the equipment they need to maximize their outings, for openings to work and highlight the issues in the whole Church, for wisdom in how confrontational or not their approach should be, for Jean Berchmans to lead well.

Oof, long report! I think it gives a clear enough picture of what is going on. In summary, doing terribly, GLO work going amazingly, still so much needed to be done, God help us to play our part.

Yes, let’s pray that GLO continues to be used in an amazing (and ever-increasingly strategic) way as a conduit for the blessing of the Church in and the country as a whole. Let’s pray for wisdom as we move forward with all our decisions, for further financial breakthroughs, for the right people to be drawn to us as increasingly people are asking to come, for this coming year’s teams to have a deep impact, for the broader GLO team to be blessed and challenged and stirred up as a result of their engagement with prayer letter and other correspondences, for the book to break into the US market, for baby Grace to arrive healthily so we can get back to Burundi as a family in January, for the board to be on the same page and to maximize our corporate potential, for networking opportunities here and there to be maximized, for our own walks with Jesus so that all is done in the right Spirit, at His pace, with the right motivation, hearing the right voice, heading in the right direction. AMEN!

Simon Guillebaud (27/10/07)