PRAYER LETTER NO.38.
www.greatlakesoutreach.org
Dear Tigers, 24th August
These are potentially historic times for Burundi. Imagine listening to shells landing and bullets being fired, on and off, for the last twelve years. Rape and pillage have been routine experiences for many, including plenty of my friends. Twelve years is a long time… but God’s people have continued crying out to Him, clinging to their hope in Him, and reaching out to the lost for Him. Freddy, my best Burundian buddy, once pleaded with me, “Simon, please don’t stop shedding tears for Burundi, because many of us Burundians have no tears left to cry.” Well, many tears later, our hopes are rising. Freddy just wrote to me:
“Peter Nkurunziza has been elected as the new president of Burundi with 91.5% of the votes. When he was asked to say something to the nation after the elections, he thanked God first, he actually prayed. The second thing he did was to thank God's servants. He said that in 1999, a pastor gave him a prophecy that he was going to be the president of Burundi. He said that while he was still fighting as a rebel in the bush (before becoming a Christian), he lost most of his friends and God protected him until today. The TV showed many photos of him when he had wounds. Peter is a very humble man. We believe he will lead nicely our nation. We're so thankful to God for what HE is doing in Burundi. This is going to be a new chapter in this nation where people are both physically and spiritually hungry. As I am writing this message I hear voices of people singing - we're having an all-night prayer meeting at our office. We fully believe that things are going to change here in Burundi.”
I have also just received this email from Onesphore, an incredible friend whose ministry we support, to highlight the openness and opportunities in Burundi:
“Last week we sent forty eight young people into the bush to different unreached areas, without money or supplies. They simply had to trust God and go. We have just all met up again and the feedback was amazing: they shared Christ with 1800 people, of whom 1,200 responded positively and wanted to receive Christ as Lord and Saviour. Many idols were burnt. Witchdoctors were challenged. There were ten miraculous healings. Those listening didn’t want to let our guys leave – church members and pastors cried upon our departure, and have already written pleading that we go back soon.”
Indeed, these are exciting days for Burundi. The obstacles still remain huge, however, with one rebel movement still refusing to lay down weapons. Another eight were killed just outside the capital the other day in an attack. The poverty is crippling, corruption is rampant, famine continues in the North, banditry is on the rise, and a whole lot more. Please continue to pray for Burundi, and particularly this new President. He has an onerous task ahead of him – it’s a poisoned chalice almost, with many of his predecessors in such a position ending up murdered – yet he has called on God’s help and so will we.
Other great news is that the team from the States a few months ago proved to be the catalyst for a mini-revival on the main university campus, with twenty five students giving their lives to the Lord at the extraordinary meeting we convened. That was followed by a national student congress a few weeks later, to which far more came than were invited(!), and the result has been a massive groundswell of support for the movement, with people re-envisioned, mobilised, equipped and sent back on fire to all the campuses around the country. This is all the more important as our Muslim neighbours are strategically targeting the universities.
On a personal level, Lizzie and I have been travelling around the UK, speaking at many churches and conferences. Things have gone well. Little Bilbo Gilbo is progressing well, and Lizzie is looking beautifully more rotund by the day. She will stay in the UK whilst I fly back to Burundi in a few weeks. We’ll have a tricky few months apart but I’ll be back for the birth in December. Please continue to pray for a healthy delivery. We thought we’d lost baba a few months ago, and truly believe that your prayers at a critical time made the difference.
I was speaking at the Detling conference on the theme ‘Change the World’ – that we are all called to be world-changers, that we truly can change the world, that it won’t be easy, that we’ll need to be dangerous people, dreaming dreams, taking risks, acting out those dreams with open eyes to see them come to fruition. I have only been in Burundi for seven years. However in that time I have been part of seeing thousands of lives touched and transformed. With the likes of Freddy and Onesphore, and your prayers and financial backing, we are seeing that land transformed for Christ. It has been dangerous, costly, crazy, exciting, depressing, crushing, exasperating, and a whole lot more. We are not claiming premature victory. There is a long way to go. But we will get there! The battle is the Lord’s, the victory is His!
So He invites all of us to be part of this incredible adventure. I read the other day: “The eyes of the Lord are still searching out those willing to live their lives above the gunnels of mediocrity and beyond the realms of inevitability. In our cynical age, God is looking for those naïve enough to believe that the world can still be changed, those simple fools whose vision is to live and die for Christ alone.”
Well, call us naïve, or simple fools, but here’s to changing the world, starting wherever He has stationed each one of us!
“Go today - not in peace - but in the restlessness that leads to action, whatever God would lead you to do.”
Simon Guillebaud
Great Lakes Outreach
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