What I Learned in Burundi

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TRAVELING
1. Every trip seems longer when you're on bumpy roads that keep you from reading, sleeping, or sitting in one place for very long.

2. If you're on a dirt road that turns to mud because of all of the rain, and you come to a hill that you keep sliding down despite 4-wheel drive, all you need is the equivalent of $2 to pay about ten youth and one old man to push your car up the hill.

3. If your battery dies because you made a five minute stop but left the lights on, you can probably find someone who will take the battery out of their car, connect it to your battery using wrenches and only charge you $2 for the service.

4. Rainbows are worth stopping for.



DROP TOILETS
1. No matter how little water you drink, you will still have to use a drop toilet an average of three times per day.

2. Wood and cement floors are vastly preferable to tin ones that ominously creak and bring up horror stories you've heard of people falling through drop toilet floors.

3. Not just any drop toilet will do. At schools visitors are only allowed to use the teacher's toilet (not the students) and at some churches there are VIP toilets for pastors and visitors that are cleaner and which have less steep and/or more solid flooring. If you start walking towards the wrong one, you will be gently guided towards the correct toilet even if it's farther off and you just really need to go now.

BUILDING
1. Everyone is building something. It could be a church a school or a clinic, but everywhere we went there seemed to be bricks, stones and people working away.

2. Building is cheaper in Burundi because they can make there own bricks. The soil is ideal for brick making and, unlike Rwanda, there's no law against cutting down trees to use to fire the bricks.

3. In some places the church members bring stones for new foundations each time they come to church. They carry them on their heads, drop them off in front of the new building site, and, when enough have been gathered, they start building the new foundation.

4. Everyone contributes to the building of a new church. Those who are able make bricks, build the foundation and walls, etc. Those who don't have the physical strength bring food to feed the workers. Each family in the church donates bags of cement, tin for the roof, or becomes responsible for buying a window or a door. In this way the Friends Church in Burundi is moving towards its goal of eventually having a church on every hill.

BECOMING FAMOUS (at least with the pre-teen crowd)
1. It's very easy to collect a mob of people. Simply walk through a school yard or any other place there are children and you will instantly become the center of attention. (Note: this apparently only works for white people.) You may feel like the pied piper as everywhere you go, you will literally be trailed by 100's of children.

2. Shake one child's hand, and there will be a hundred more waiting. Maybe not as good as being asked for an autograph, but it definitely makes you feel loved.

3. Break out a camera and all chaos could ensue. If the flash goes off, be prepared for squeals and loud exclamations. If you make the mistake of showing some of the children the picture you just took of them, you will soon be mobbed by others wanting to have their picture taken too.

THREE PILLARS OF THE BURUNDI FRIENDS CHURCH

1. Evangelism:
Stories are told of men walking two full days in order to reach a church plant location, preach for the weekend and then walk home again.

Leaders are being trained in every church to teach small groups and eventually become teachers and pastors at new church plants.

Churches look for where people are coming from on Sunday mornings. Some church attenders walk an hour or more to Sunday services. Their home communities become the next targets for new church plants.

Pastors take one day a week to visit families in their communities, they take believers along with them who have experienced God's power in their lives, and through their testimonies new families are coming to Christ every month.

2. Education:
Almost every church we visited had a primary and secondary school on its grounds. Often times the church would start the school, and the government, after seeing the good work the school was doing, would provide funds to expand the school and pay more teachers.

At Kibimba there is also a theological training school and a technical school which teaches woodworking and mechanic skills.

The yearly meeting also sponsors a yearly VBS program which thousands of children attend.

3. Health: Many churches also have a clinic or a hospital on their grounds. They serve their communities by providing much needed services especially for pregnant mothers and those with HIV/AIDS.

STORIES ABOUT MISSIONARIES
1. Building: Missionaries directed the building of many of the first churches in Burundi. One missionary didn't have use of his legs, but that didn't slow him down a bit. He had such phenomenal arm strength that he was able to walk around using his crutches. He could also easily climb onto walls and help with the building there. In order to make it easier to supervise the work, he had the church and the school built as one building.
2. Saddened by Death: At one missionary station we visited the graveyard where missionaries who died on the field were buried. There were the graves of two young children who had died soon after birth. There was also the grave of a missionary who had died during a hunting accident. While hunting he and his hunting partner came across a leopard. As they backed away from it, he tripped and the leopard sprang on him. His partner shot the leopard, but the bullet went through the leopard killing the missionary. Very sad for all involved.

BURUNDI INGENUITY
Don't have a step ladder? No problem, just use the pulpit. Don't have money to buy a drum set? No problem, just make your own.