Burundi Team Updates (7/7/09)

Charity Sandstrom, Tuesday, July 7: Hello from Gitega! Five of us from the team spent the last two days giving a seminar for the Burundi pastors.

Willard Ferguson, Donnie Hinshaw, Sue Hays, Elizabeth (Dawn) Todd and myself had only a little warning that we were going to be in charge of the seminar and needed to come up with teaching for two mornings. I felt very intimidated and wondered what I could possibly have to teach these men and women about ministry. With a thirty minute drive in the Land Cruiser and about a ten minute organizing meeting, the five of us found that God was leading our hearts in the same direction.

It has been amazing to see God at work in the last two days as we talked with our fellow ministers about shepherding God’s sheep—the church; the importance of holiness in leadership; the necessity of having good family relationships especially marriage; caring for the church members; God’s calling and a challenge to have a reproducing ministry (ministers training and encouraging more ministers). All of our topics flowed one into the next. God spoke to the hearts of the pastors and our hearts as well! We all learned that pastors are the same everywhere, with very similar concerns, struggles and joys. We laughed, we prayed and sang together, and I left today’s time together thinking I had made some friends.

We also made a presentation today of the ties that were donated and some agenda/day planners to the Burundi pastors. They were very gracious and thankful. They sang a song and clapped in appreciation. Matt Macy handled the protocol, Dave Robinson and Chuck Mylander both prayed prayers of blessing over the pastors, their families, and churches.

After the presentation several of us who had not been to the Kibimba Hospital had a tour given by Dave Kellum. He showed us around the hospital and pointed out the new operating room—now there are two; the emergency room; the lab; pharmacy; the new maternity ward; the new storage building; the shipping container also used for storage and the new AIDS unit. The hospital received the #1 rating out of all the hospitals in Burundi, up from #3 two years ago. Someone said today that there are people at Kibimba Hospital from all 16 provinces in Burundi. Praise God—Iman ‘Ishimwe!!

The hospital has been seeing so many patients that they had to add a billing office! Mostly those bills go to the government who has started a healthy baby initiative that pays for prenatal and newborn care. The hospital has been averaging 240-280 babies born every month, with an average of one c- section a day. Today we saw some babies born recently that were dressed in Friends Women layettes! The new maternity ward, built two years ago, is so full all the time that they are building a new new maternity ward!

The AIDS unit was paid for by a Swiss grant. They encourage testing, treat the sick, educate those who test positive on how to continue to have a good life even with AIDS, and help AIDS orphans. I probably have not even begun to cover the improvements at the hospital in the last few years. God is doing so much to touch the lives of the people in Burundi through the work of the Kibimba Hospital.

July 7, 2009 Blog by Stephanie Pribble

Today part of the team spent the morning at the Kibimba Hospital. Dr. Elise was out for the day so we were only able to just kind of observe, but we made it over to the maternity ward just in time to see a baby delivered. It was so exciting, and all of you Friends Women out there would be really excited to know they used one of the layettes so we got to see it used first hand! The maternity ward they have now is fairly new, but they have outgrown it so fast and the area is so cramped that they have already started building a new one.

It was great being able to spend the past couple days at the Kibimba Hospital, God has truly blessed this place!

July 7, 2009 Blog by Allison McElroy

Hi everyone! I am sitting in my room at our wonderful guest house in Gitega. I am writing to you about our youth seminars that took place yesterday and today. Yesterday we arrived in Kwibuka and started playing Mexican Duck Duck Goose with the Burundi youth. It was so much fun. After relocating to a much bigger playing area, we started the game right back up. After a small incident (Matt tackling a poor, innocent Burundi youth), we played Little Sallie Walker. It was so much fun to see the youth mimicking our crazy American dance moves and seeing how poorly we lack dance skills compared to the Burundians!

They can really move! I think it was also quite hilarious to see our teammate Ray (who has a long beard and very long hair, Jesus-esque) try and play Little Sallie Walker. He would run up to a group of youth and they would just SCATTER! Hahahahahaha. It was quite hilarious. We settled down and headed to the church. After a few praise and worship songs, we moved right into teaching. We had teaching from a few of our youth and also had a skit about Truth. Then we continued to teach, along with hearing a great short sermon from Ryan Kendall. God was truly speaking through him. We ended our time together and invited the youth back to the next day.

Today we had a considerably smaller group than yesterday. We arrived to find out that some students were retaking their exams and some could only come yesterday. We were reminded by our translator that God knew which students would come back and God knows how we will speak to them today. It was very comforting to know that. We continued in a circle teaching from our seats instead of the pulpit. We had two teachings from Allison and Jen and then had the joy of having a teaching from a Burundi youth. Then Wayne spoke, and another Burundi student gave us a small devotion on the spot. Next, Megan gave us a testimony and we had one last Burundian give a small devotion. It is amazing how God can speak to someone without any preparation time, and it still be just as moving as a fully prepared, 3-point sermon. Matt came to a closing and we sang the song “Awesome God” back and forth between English and Kirundi. It was comforting to know we are singing in two languages but God understands both completely! The two days of seminars went extremely well and we had a great time spreading the Word of God to the Burundi youth.