Youth for Christ, Gitega

Here's a little insight into what our evenings were like when we spent time at the Youth for Christ orphanage in Gitega, Burundi.... plenty of dancing and lots of good times!

Back in Belfast

I'm in a dilema....

I'm sitting here trying to figure out if Belfast is actually cold, or if it's just the fact that I've been in near-equatorial Africa for 6 weeks that is skewing my judgement.... Regardless, it's colder here! Though I think i'm okay with that, it's funny how you miss things like clouds!

So, I'd say you can guess from that last paragraph that I've arrived safely home on Northern Irish ground! It was quite the trip with a few overnights gaining us a few extra stamps on our passports, but before we knew it, we were flying high over Loch Neagh, preparing to land!

I'm staying at home tonight before heading off to Closkelt tomorrow (the other YWAM NI base) to debrief with the DTS before they leave next weekend. It's hard to believe that this busy year is coming to an end, at least this part of it.

This blog has been missing pictures for a few months... So, here's a very select few just for now!

Rwanda & Burundi team at Lake Tanganyika in Bujumbura.

The pastors from the conference in Buhiga:


Playing with the parachute at the orphanage!


Prepare for a few more great pictures to appear over the next few weeks on this place, none really taken by me! Our team had some talented photographers...

But for now, I'll leave you with a little comedy... You may remember a few weeks ago when I told you about the over-zealous Burundian Westlife fan I met in the internet cafe? Well, I received an email from him where he makes it clear he still believes I'm holding out on him with their addresses... An excerpt can be found below:

Hello .
My friend it's me Tonny Billy Clinton the small boy that you talked about westlife in the cyber . Now I wanna that you'll be my best friend as the westlife Please tell them everywhere you see them that in Burundi there is a boy who love them.
Bye bye

I'm afraid I'm likely not going to be able to pass on the message...but if there's anyone out there with access, be sure to pass it on to the boys!

Blessings,

Tom (Back in Belfast!)

Shortest update....

This is going to be a quick one! I have 9 minutes left at the internet cafe.... So, we just arrived back in Rwanda safely after our time in Burundi and then a few days relaxing and debriefing by Lake Kivu, a beautiful place.

It's been a busy time, and we're just about ready to get on a plane to head back to (i hear tell of) sunny Belfast! It's been a great few weeks since i last got to internet. We've had some incredible times of ministry, and some great experiences of God here in these countries. I realise this is pretty brief...but i can't even start to think of recounting tales!

We leave on Thursday from Kigali, spend the night in Ethiopia, then fly to London, spend the night there, and back to Belfast on Saturday! So, it's going to be a long travel! Please pray for us as we travel, for safety and that all our connections would be met in time!

Blessings from Kigali.

tom


God is good, all the time.
All the time, God is good.

And now for something completely different....

So, i realised that with the exception of that last 'westlife' related blog, the last few entries have been pretty serious, so i thought i would make you aware of a few good things that have been happening here in Burundi, good...and weird...

- Discovering on the plane that chocolate jelly isn't nearly as delicious as it sounds....not even close...

- Lying underneath the darkening sky on concrete heated by the hot african sun and a back worn out from a day lugging bricks around, watching the stars pop out one by one, reading the passage in Job (somewhere around Job 39 i think...) about how the Lord is the creator of the Heavens.

- Sitting outside the house in the early morning and seeing items such as buckets, bunches of hundreds of bananas and bags of sweet potatoes 'walking' by. (Our fence is about ( and a half feet tall, the height of the average burundian woman walking by with a full load on her head!)

- Buying 15ft of sugar cane for 25p...that should keep us going for a while!

- Seeing the look of peoples faces when they realize that reconciliation really could work and just might be the answer for the country...

- The house we stay in being inundated by HUNDREDS of large flying insects during a particularly heavy evening rainstorm... i think i saw a side to amalia i never knew existed...and didn't want to!

- Washing dishes in buckets with the sun on our backs and a breeze on our faces.

- Singing goodnight songs together as a group to Danny, one of the orphaned babies at a place we were staying.

- a whole lot of laughter!

This is just a snapshot, and i gotta go here, but i look forward to being a little more specific, and also sharing pictures sometime in the near future!

You should know that things are well here, the team is safe and well, burundi is still a little uneasy, but things are great and we're walking in the will and power of God, so keep praying for us, and we'll let you know how things progress!

Please pray in particular for me as i try and figure out what it means to lead this outreach not in MY power, but in God's.

Nagasaga from Burundi!

Unexpected conversations...

You can leave the island, but you can't escape it...

I'm sitting in this internet cafe listening to westlife on my computer, and i cant turn it off! I told the guy that they were from the same island and now he's trying to convince me to give him their email addresses.. he thinks im holding out on him... i am not... "I would give you them if i knew them", I promise earnestly!

He did however want me to write down their names for him.. i worringly remember nicky, mark and kian... i think im missing one...

Answers on a postcard to the internet cafe in Gitega!

Go in Peace?

Finally found some internet! In fact, not just internet, but electricity! We've been out in the sticks for the last week, so facebook and all those luxuries have been hard to come by! But it's been a great week. We have been running a pastors conference in reconciliation and peacebuilding, and it was an incredible time. The team has done amazingly, really stepping up to the plate and preparing so well for the talks we've been taking. I've been so impressed and blessed by seeing them work so well as a team and also individuals this week!

However, the interesting thing is that it was a week that very nearly didn't happen!

Cast your mind back a week to Sunday morning. Rema Ministries, the team running the conference has arrived and is packing our stuff on top of their landrover ready to leave in a few minutes. At this point in time, someone hands me the number for the US embassy in Bujumbura. I call them to make sure that it was okay for us to travel upcountry, what with the trouble that had been going on. He tells me that there is NO WAY we should be travelling upcountry, and that they are currently ''hunkered down'' in town! So, this changes things for us.... I gathered the team together and we sat down and talked and prayed about this recent development. As you can imagine, we were a little on edge...

We prayed and felt God telling us to ''go in peace and protection", but i remained very aware of this warning from the embassy... We asked the head of the ministry Theo, an incredible man, what he thought. He called the 2nd in command of the police in Burundi! We're running in well connected circles! And HE said the compelte opposite of the embassy, that upcountry was completey safe and the city is the dangerous place! So, we are faced with this crazy decision... Two pretty reputable sources saying completely differnet things! So, what could we do?
We went to prayer again, and heard the same thing, that we should go in peace. After a quick early morning wake up call to the head of YWAM NI back in Belfast to confirm our decision, we decided to go with the advice of those on the ground in Bujumbura, and who likely know the situation, and headed upcountry!

We believe we made a wise decision and one based on God and His plan for this outreach. And we were so blessed by this past week of ministry and the pastors we met, that we realised that this truly was God's plan for us this past week.

We recognize God's hand in our outreach and the things that have happened, that He truly has been our protector! Things are still touch and go in Burundi, so we appreciate your continued prayer and thoughts!

We are staying and working in an incredible Youth for Christ orphanage this week, the kids are amazing, and we're looking forward to playing with and learning from them, seeing God's face in them this week after the pastors last week!

Hope all is well wherever you read this from,

Blessings,

tom

The Reality of Reconciliation

Hi friends,

Burundi is not a place that often makes it onto the news, for some reason the problems and issues here never really make it onto the world scene. So, I’m sure you aren’t aware of the last few days in Bujumbura. Here’s an excerpt from an email that an amazing contact of ours here Simon Guillebaud sent out, before you read it though, know that we are all safe and sound on the team:

‘Last night was the biggest attack on the capital for several years. Earlier in the day policemen were stationed on every street corner and rumours were flying around. Then at about 8:45pm gunfire and shelling kicked off in a big way as the FNL rebels embarked on an audacious/futile attack on various military installations about town. We had fourteen people in our lounge for home-group at the time. It is a surreal thing to listen to the big thuds of shells landing, the occasional whoosh of a rocket hurtling through the air, and the rattling of machine gunfire whilst knowing that it is all real, that people are dying - maybe friends - certainly plenty of innocents caught in the crossfire.

This morning I rang various people to check they were OK. American friends across town had a gun battle going on right next to them on the street. They shifted their 3-year-old and newborn into the corridor on the floor and the kids managed to sleep through the incredibly loud noises. Ours slept through as well, but it was all a bit further away from our part of town. Shadrach, who works for us, came to work and asked to be excused. Two of his children were missing, as they’d fled during the night and got separated. He’s looking for them right now.’

So, there it is. As you can hear it’s been a crazy few days. We could hear these events unfolding pretty clearly from where we’re staying in the capital. This is something that for us isn’t commonplace at all, but for those whom we are working and staying with, this used to be an everyday way of life that everyone hoped would stay in the past.

So, this blog is a call out for prayer for our team, and also for this country. We as a team have prayed about our program over the next few weeks, and we feel God telling us to keep it the way it is. He is our protector and our provider, our strength and our shield. Please pray as we travel upcountry that we will have a safe journey surrounded by God’s overwhelming presence.

Some of you may think us crazy for staying, but you should know that as Simon said, hopefully this is an isolated incident. Also, unfortunately this is the consequence of seeking to work in reconciliation. Divison and violence is real and exists in the world today, and this is just a small part of it here in this corner. As the word says, God ‘gave us the ministry of reconciliation’ (2 Cor 5:18) and to truly be involved in this ministry, to be peacemakers, I suppose it means that we have to go to the places that are in need of peace.

You should however know that we are not taking unnecessary risks or putting ourselves in places of obvious danger. We seek to be as 'wise as serpents and innocent as doves' (Matthew 10:16), wise in the way of making smart decisions about things like this, and innocent in remembering that we have a God who is assuredly our protector, living in the realisation that being here in Bujumbura at this time and in the will of God is a much safer place that safely back at home in Belfast outside of His will. Our God is a faithful God, and we believe in His sovereignty and love for us.

Please pray for us as we live and minister here, and also for those who live here and those perpetrating this violence, that they would be convicted of their actions and lay down their weapons.

One quick story…

Around about 8:30 the other night, a few students and I sat down to discuss a few things that have been causing conflict on the team, a slightly tense situation ensued, and then the fighting started in the background. Although we realised that we couldn’t continue on without these team issues being solved, this fighting in the background served us as a reminder that we are here in Burundi as a team, that if we can’t sort out these relatively minor issues here, then what chance does this country have of even beginning to address it’s history of conflict? What chance does OUR country of Northern Ireland have? We seek to live lives that not only teach about reconciliation, but LIVE it too. A group that loves each other deeply and ministers out of this spirit of unity and love.