Burundi

The airport in Bujumbura, Burundi, is a cavernous, colonial building. There are three entrances from the apron; one for arrivals, one for departures and one for important people. There are police guarding the entry for important people to make sure that no one has delusions of grandeur. The bank at the airport doesn’t have facilities for credit cards and the visa had to be bought at the airport. I had to borrow some money from some church members to buy my visa. On the way out the boarding passes were written by hand.

There is no doubt that Burundi is a poor country. According to the CIA World Factbook[*], Burundi is the 4^th poorest nation in the world, with only Somalia, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo (195^th) poorer. Burundi can be contrasted with her northern neighbour Rwanda, which lies 22 places higher on the poorest nations table. The first non-African country on that list is Afghanistan at number 185.

Both Burundi and Rwanda have similar ethnic structures but Rwanda is better know for the fact that she experienced a huge convulsion of ethnic violence in 1994 when approximately 800,000 people were killed in 100 days. The ethic violence in Burundi occurred over 10 years between 1993 and 2003 and there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that even more people died. However, since that time the country has been seeking reconciliation and is much more peaceful.

The CIA World Factbook also tells us that 68% of the population in Burundi live below the poverty line and 40% of the people in Rwanda live below the poverty line and 36% of people in Afghanistan live below the poverty line. This brings us to the major problem in Africa today, grinding poverty. When people struggle every day to find enough to eat they have little energy to lift themselves out of the poverty cycle.

The Bride of Christ Worldwide Church in Burundi is working to prepare the Church for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. When the Lord returns to the earth He will take His bride away and then there will be the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev 19: 9, 17). These people also take James 2: 14-16 seriously, which is very important in country where many people are poor and hungry. The people in this church regularly feed hungry people near their compound. They don’t have a building to worship in but a walled enclosure with corrugated iron roof and an earthen floor and are looking to the Lord to help build a church as headquarters for all their outreach and development work.

They have developed a system to train people in various trades and a development bank to provide low cost, long repayment loans to people in Burundi. Young people have opportunities to experience work at approved sites. There are opportunities in many areas including building trades, car mechanics and hospitality. When the students have graduated they have access to low cost, long-term loans to buy tools and establish their business.

The church has also been involved in some other projects. They have helped some poor farmers in the provinces to plant Moringa[†] trees. These produce seeds containing oil when harvested they help improve nutrition and boost food security. For farming families living a hand to mouth existence these trees can provide nutrition for their growing children. As time goes by these farmers can grow more trees and have a cash crop. Pastor Jean-marie Nibizi was in the process of negotiating with a middleman in Rwanda to sell the seeds so that they could be pressed to make oil and sold to provide an income for these farmers.

They were also developing some cottage industries in some communities. Burundi has over 150 rivers that can be dammed but people washing clothes and animals and bathing themselves have polluted these rivers. The pastor has also developed a solar powered system for purifying water using simple water bottles. He has also manufactured a simple solar light. Local people working in their own homes can produce all these things and develop an income stream for themselves.

I visited Burundi in May 2013 to give some in-service training to their pastors. Some of the pastors had to come from other towns. It cost them two days average wage to come to the training sessions and another two days wages to get home again. They stayed for the entire time of the course. My main aim was to teach these church leaders to understand and interpret the Bible. Once they learn how to do this and gain some experience they will be able to train the next generation of leaders.

I believe that a local church should be led and trained by local people as soon as these people are ready to pass their skills on to their own people. We had a worthwhile course with about ten local leaders learning these skills.

While I was in Burundi, I was asked to conduct a crusade in the local church a Roziba. My first question was, how could a simple Bible teacher run a crusade? The answer is simple: just stick to the simple message of the Bible, speak well of the Lord Jesus Christ and trust the Holy Spirit to work.

Burundi offers many opportunities to invest and the rewards are out of this world. There are many opportunities for people to be involved in the work, either by staying at home and praying or visiting for a short time. Everyone who wants to go will have to pay their own airfares and other costs and it is a good idea to have US dollars when you arrive in the country

Burundi has two national languages, Kirundi and French. Anyone who can’t speak either of these languages will need to have an interpreter.

Many people, today, are telling us that the twenty first century will be the Asian century. However, Africa is full of many young people who are hungry to learn and develop themselves if they are given the opportunity and this century could well prove to be the African century.

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[*] The World Factbook 2013-14. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2013 .https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html

[†] Scientific name: Moringa oleifera