PRAYER LETTER NO.1

Sunday, 20 September 1998 00:00

Until December, my address is: B.P.17, Byumba, Rwanda Dear Tigers,  How's it going? This is my first prayer letter since I was last in Rwanda 16 months ago. In the meantime, I've finished a year at Bible college and I'm now off on October lst to Rwanda and Burundi for a minimum of 2 years. The plan is to spend the first few months with my Granny at Byumba in the North of Rwanda, so that she can teach me the language, and then I'll move down to the capital of Burundi, Bujumbura. I'll be sending out these letters every few months to keep you up-to-date, and my aim is that they have the reciprocal purpose of you guys praying for me, and my challenging, encouraging and motivating all of us in our daily walk with the Lord. That's the plan, and I welcome any feedback, positive or negative. Why Burundi? Well, as this last year progressed, I was seeking the Lord about my future, desperate to be doing exactly what He wanted. By June I was still looking at Cambodia, universities and schools work, and youth work with several churches, all of them very appealing because they'd involve flat out evangelism. But I simply didn't sense any of them was quite right, so I held back from committing myself. Then the head of Mid Africa Ministry (MAM) came to see me and outlined the need in Burundi — missionaries had been kicked out in 1993 and now the government was actually asking the Church to get back into the schools, such was the degenerating state of the youth countrywide. The buzz-words were mission, youth and evangelism, and as he spoke my heart leapt and I asked the Lord if that was why I'd held back so long. "Ill get back to you soon." My wonderful vicar and I set aside a day to fast and pray to see what the Lord had to say about Burundi. So there I was, at my old marketing job at Going Places in Woking, staring at the computer screen and praying: "Lord, I don't know how you could possibly show me anything today about Burundi as I'm sat here, but please do. I need to know." And immediately I rang up a mate who said: "Simon, someone's just rung me up asking if I know anyone interested in working in Burundi!" Great stuff! What will I do? I will need to adapt my ideas to whatever situation I find out there, but my driving passion is evangelism. So I want to work alongside churches and in schools to train young people in evangelism and discipleship, in order that we may systematically work through areas and not only see people come to the Lord but also built up in their faith. The perennial problem with evangelism in Africa is that it is so hit-and-miss and there's little follow-up, and therefore nominalism is huge. People ask how the genocide could have taken place in such a 'Christian' country, yet statistics betray the fact that the vast majority of professing Christians are only nominally so, with limited understanding of the cost of discipleship and its all-encompassing nature. How do I feel? Today, as I was spending time with the Lord, Deut. 8v5 really struck me: "Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you." The closer it gets, the more I dread the loneliness which I know is part of the deal. For those first few months in Rwanda, the next youngest white English-speaking person in the whole town is my Aunt. We get on well, but I'll so miss having a real laugh. In terms of letting my hair down, there's no telly, sport, pubs/clubs (for cultural reasons), curry(!), etc; in fact, the most realistic option seems to be scrabble, and even then I'm up against a century of combined experience in my Granny and Aunt, so that's a dead loss! The loneliness is what I've always struggled with the most, ever since my year out in the bush in South Africa before Uni. That time was the making of faith, and I know God will further work in me in terms of pure dependence on Him. I'm leaving behind a lot of great mates. Had I remained in England, I would have liked to be part of a church in the East End of London, which a dozen or so have recently joined to get stuck into the community. They are a group of individuals who are passionate for the Lord. One of them is taking a 66% pay cut to be more effective in reaching the Bangladeshis there. He also gives about 20% of his income to the Lord's work. Isn't that amazing? And yet on reflection it's not really amazing at all. If we truly believe what the Bible says about eternal life and non-believers facing a Christless eternity, then hopefully we can realign our priorities and stop living as though this life is our home. We just don't belong. I use him as an example because most of the recipients of this letter are young and we have the whole of our lives ahead. So how are -we going to live it? Wang Mingdao, the Chinese man of God who spent 23 years in prison for his faith, said: 'Tell the West, many of your young people start well, but few finish well.' C.S.Lewis said: 'Anything that is not eternal is eternally out of date.' Doesn't that put into perspective what we are aiming at, our goals, priorities, securities, cravings for recognition and status etc? If they are a means to an eternal end, great, but if an end in themselves, absolutely worthless. There's the challenge for all of us- to walk the walk and not just talk the talk, so that Jo Bloggs on the street sees that it's real And the extent to which we are prepared to count everything else with the apostle Paul as rubbish will be the extent to which we believe Christ died as the only way to reconcile sinners to God. Is it true? Then Likewise Christ's love must compel me, and wherever I am He has to be the point of reference for every single decision I make. This is the prayer I read out at church when they prayed me off: 'Disturb me. Lord, when my dreams come true, only because I dreamed too small. Disturb me when I arrive safely, only because I scaled too close to the shore. Disturb me when the things I have gained cause me to lose my thirst for more of you. Disturb me when I have acquired success, only to lose my desire for excellence. Disturb me. Lord, when I give up too soon and settle too far short of the goals you have set for my life. Amen.' Anyway guys, thanks loads in advance for your thoughts, letters and prayers. In order to pray more specifically and effectively in terms of understanding the nature of the ethnic hatred and also the spiritual battle (same enemy with same aim but often very different tactics), I hugely recommend you read The African Apostle by Penny Relph (Published by International Media for Ministry, P.O.Box II, Tunbridge Wells, Kent). Easy read, nice 'n' short, but challenging stuff, about an amazing man of God I met last year shortly before he died in an air crash. So please pray for: - peace and righteous rule in Central/East Africa at this very dodgy time. - discipline and patience in language learning so that I can be effective in using it as soon as possible. - preaching of God's Word empowered by His Spirit to draw people into a lasting relationship with Jesus. - cultural sensitivity so as to avoid numerous potentially offensive faux pas. - health, as my C.V. of tropical diseases is quite long enough already. - safety in general as people are still constantly being killed. - the appropriate accountability structure, hopefully under a wise mentor who understands and shares my vision. - mates! One soul-mate to relate to, pray with and have a laugh with will do. And implicit dependence on the Lord when I am lonely. God bless you all, Simon Guillebaud