Burundi Team Updates (7/2/09)

Matt Macy, Monday night, June 29: Team A has traveled to the Congo today and will likely be away from internet and away from blogging until they return to Burundi this weekend. Team B, the team which includes Saltshaker students, left at 7am from the bus station in Kigali, took a new unknown-to-our- missionaries paved road through a freshly built, very nice border crossing into Burundi (which meant that Burundian servant leader Pontien didn’t find us at the old border – he was waiting for us with fantas and scones) and we arrived to Bujumbura at 1pm. We had a nice reception with a light lunch, checked into an unexpectedly nice guest house/hotel that has just been built, had an afternoon of rest (including a visit to Lake Tanganyika), lots of conversation and laughter, a late supper, and everyone is now in bed! The chance to rest is great as we’ve been pushing it pretty hard in the schedule up to now. We look forward to getting visa work in the morning, then traveling about 100 miles up country to Gitega which will be our base for the remainder of the trip. Please pray for our team as we prepare for teaching Burundi Youth. Also, pray for Team A as they have a busy schedule of teaching and other ministry in the remote village of Abeka, Congo.

Megan Frazier, Sunday night, June 28: What a wonderful day of worship!!! Our team was split up into several smaller groups and we visited different Friends Churches here in Rwanda. It was such a blessing to have Brad and Chelsea Carpenter, Gary and Connie Young, and Willard Ferguson (all past or present Rwandan missionaries) to go with each small group for translation and experience! Mid-America Friends Church was represented well in the Rwandan Friends Churches today, and we all gave greetings from you and received greetings to bring home to you, so “Greetings, from Rwanda!”

We have experienced God in many different ways today!! Here are just a few:
Donnie Hinshaw was able to preach in an all English speaking service early this morning and really related to the people in a cultural way. Jennifer, Casey and I were able to perform a ballet dance for the church during the same service. Worship really flows from these two talented young ladies when they dance. I was privileged to worship with them! We also experienced the Genocide Memorial today, which words cannot explain. I won’t even try. We had a good time of debriefing and sharing with David and Debbie Thomas and Brad, sorting through our thoughts and emotions about the memorial. Even though the genocide was absolutely horrible, God has used it for His Kingdom!

The Rwandan Friends Church has exploded since the genocide in 1994! People have come to know our Lord and Savior because of this! Deb, Matt, Michelle and I were able to go to the orphanage where Caleb Macy and Kaylie Kinniburgh were adopted from, and we were able to hold several of the babies and play with the toddlers for a short while. The children in that specific orphanage are taken care of very well, and it showed us how much God loves His children! We were also blessed to receive a tour of David and Debbie’s property, to see all of the wonderful and creative ways they are trying to better the lives of the people who are stuck in poverty here in Rwanda.

Seeing the Moringa trees was the absolute highlight!!! We ended our day with a powerful testimony from David Thomas.

God has been so good!! He is in our midst, all the time. Thank you for praying for us, and please continue to. The students are doing great (for those of you parents who are wondering)!!! This is such an amazing opportunity for all of us to be on this trip! We are all still trying to recover from jet lag, but we are looking forward to going to Burundi tomorrow! Until next time…God bless all of you at home!

Update from Andreia Leineger: Hey! I love Africa. The food is amazing, God's creation is beautiful, and the PEOPLE are truly a joy to be around. Today was pretty relaxing. We had to get visas for our stay in Burundi, and since none of the students on our team can really um, speak Kirundi, so we can't talk to the officials, we chilled at one of the churches in Bujumbura from about 9 to 4.

Being able to fellowship and get to know the other members of the team even better was great, and we were extremely grateful to Fidel and Pontien for helping us with the visas. Also, praise God for being able to get them so quickly, as normally, according to Michelle, it takes 2-3 days! Anyway, I think we all bonded even better today and really grew as a team. We played a LOT of cards, mainly Phase 10, which is a great game, if you haven't played it, you should check it out. We were all really clean because of the BEAUTIFUL guest house that we stayed at in Bujumbura last night, which had HOT showers and, of course, more great food! It had a workout center, and was unusually modern for Burundi, so it was really wonderful to be able to stay there. Also today, in our 7 hours of down time, we walked to a Bujumbura grocery store for snacks. Most of the girls chose to have our first African ice cream, ever, and it was DELICIOUS. I had chocolate. At about 4, we all got in two vans to drive to Gitega. I would say we piled, which is what normally happens, but we had two bus vans and a pickup, so there were only two to a seat. That was WEIRD, because we weren't used to it! It was great to be able to stretch out though. The road to Gitega has many sharp turns and is constantly going uphill, so it was like a roller coaster, but in a Burundi bus. The scenery is GORGEOUS here. Seriously, there is so much GREEN. All the way up the hill, we could see mountains, trees, and streams. That beauty was made even better because the sun was setting at the same time. I took lots of pictures! When we arrived, it was already dark, so I can't really tell you what the town of Gitega looks like, but the guest house was very welcoming. They even have courses for their meals. We ate our soup and bread and figured that was it, but there was so much MORE! I'm full of amazing food. We had to unload all of our suitcases and separate them out because we¡¦re not all staying at the same place. The "older folks¨ (Mae called them that, not me!) are staying down at the Magarama Friends Church guest house, which is our base for meals and team meetings, and the youth are staying at a big guest house owned by the Mennonites called Miparec. Also, after dinner, we had a wonderful time of fellowship with Pontien, Fidel, David Nyanzima, pastor of the church here and his wife, who are also the owners of our main guest house. We sang a song and had a concert of prayer, giving thanks to God for His protection, beauty, love, the church in Burundi, fellowship, and many, many other things. We heard some of the story of the Burundi genocide from David, and Dave Kellum shared the story of David's brother martyr during the genocide. It was an extremely moving story. After that, we went to our guesthouse and got settled in. Tomorrow is Independence Day, so that should be a great time to be in Burundi! Thank you for your prayers for our team, the Congo team, and the Aguascalientes team. I love you all and miss you lots, but I am having an amazing time and learning so much from the wonderful people here. Thanks again!

Love, Andreia