RockTheDesert

Cubes

We use a fantastic evangelism tool called the "Evangecube" when we go on short-term missions with e3 Partners. It's really just a cube where each of the 8 sides contain images which depict the Gospel, which we share in our own words. We rely on our Ministry Partners to translate the message and fix our bumbling, nervous mistakes. Check out SimplyShareJesus for a great demo. We love using the 'cube. We've found that people are extremely curious about the pictures and are eager for us to share the meaning of the pictures. When we go to Burundi in November '09, we will be using the Evangecube for evangelism & discipleship purposes and the HIV/AIDS Hope Cube as part of our Medical Clinic outreach.

 

Disclaimer: neither one of these cubes should be confused with the following cube...

Mwaro, Burundi

Herve is our e3 partners "man on the ground" in Burundi. Due to security concerns, the North American team that was scheduled to arrive in Burundi in August for a church-planting campaign pulled out about a week before departure. In spite of this and because of the preparations already made in-country for this campaign, it was decided that the Burundi pastors committee would continue with the work as scheduled. They mobilized teams of nationals to partner in the work with them. The following summary from Herve is a testimony to God's sovereignty and grace. God's work was accomplished. Lives were changed for eternity. Churches were planted and strengthened. God was glorified.

HERVE'S SUMMARY

E3 Partner’s Ministry August 2009 Mwaro Campaign has just been successfully completed. We experienced much opposition from the onset. The team of missionaries that was planning to come did not, due to security concerns. This was regrettable, but by the grace of God we were able to complete the campaign with Local ministers. As a dear friend once told me “there is no safer place than where God wants you to be.” I can understand why the enemy would not want the Mwaro campaign to be conducted, though. The Province of Mwaro and its capital in particular have long been known to be the Hub of witchcraft and satanic practices. One particular practice known as “kubandwa” involves calling the spirit of ancestors and giving praise to one called “Kiranga” supposedly the direct representative of God. It’s a modern day cult to baal where offerings and sacrifices of animals are made to a local divinity. Many people are bound by this cult and so maintained in ignorance and poverty.

We arrived in Mwaro on Wednesday the 19th of August and set up the teams according to the different churches. We had originally planned to work with 6 churches but at the last minute one church was unable to fulfil their engagement. So we worked with 5 churches. Two churches were strengthened and three new churches established. We regularly encountered obstacles, but none that our Lord could not give us wisdom to overcome. For instance when we arrived in Mwaro we were advised that the Gas Station had no Gas so we had to have it sent from Bujumbura by bus. Eventually the gas station received gas and we were able to get our refills from Mwaro. 

It was a real blessing as every morning the whole team gathered to worship and praise God before setting off for evangelism and meeting every evening to give thanksgiving and praise to God for His faithfulness during the day. God was gracious to us to make it so that the advisor to the Governor was a personal friend to one of our Ministers, Pastor Avite who happens to be on the committee, so we had no problem with authorisation to complete the campaign.

Each day brought its load of praise reports, like one of our Ministers as he was evangelising met two young boys who were distraught, and so he took time to listen to them, and he found out that they were on their way to visit their father who’d been locked up in the local jail falsely accused of having stolen a goat. So he prayed with them and they received Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, and so he asked them, do you believe that Jesus can set your dad free from jail? To which they eagerly answered yes. So our minister walked with them to the Local jail and spoke to the Local authorities, and they told him that the man’s case had not yet been heard. But since the Local Superintendent thought that the case was shaky and that the evidence against the man did not hold, he released him there on the spot. And so the young boys were reunited with their father, they praised God and thanked him and decided to follow Jesus. 

When we arrived in Mwaro, there really was a gloomy feel about the area, like an oppressive cloud hovering over the town, but as the days went by the atmosphere cleared and we could feel a gentle breeze of peace breathing upon the town.

It so happens that this is the area where we’re from on my dad’s side so I was blessed to see two uncles and an aunt confess Christ right before me, and I witnessed to another Uncle who is a staunch catholic and although he did not pray the prayer of confession, because I think he felt a bit awkward, as I found him at the bar of the Hotel where we were staying having a beer, he nevertheless promised he would come to my church in Bujumbura since he also lives there . I will make sure to hold him to his promise.

The pinnacle of our week of evangelism though was on Monday. We had all agreed when we arrived in Mwaro that we would fast on this day and head to a brook called “Gasumo”. This is the centre of witchcraft in Mwaro the Mecca of sorcery in Burundi. This place is reportedly where all witches, sorcerers and enchanters come to get their power and pay homage to the object of their worship. This for lack of better definition is the very  altar of baal, the devil’s lair. We arrived there after a trek through a wood. Seemingly this appeared to be a beautiful place, a brook with flowing water and lush vegetation, but immediately upon arriving we were all overtaken by feelings of nausea, and a powerful spirit of oppression came upon us.

We all immediately started rebuking and calling on the name of the Lord. We arrived there at about 9 am and we stayed there worshiping, praising God and listening to the word of God until about 4 pm. Not too long after we arrived the oppression left. There were about 30 people altogether and we had a wonderful time, an incredible feeling of peace pervaded in the whole area.

When we arrived on site we found food that had been carefully laid out in sacrifice to the divinities. There was one particular set out that was described to us as a lay out to call for the death of someone. Of course we tore it apart and prayed that whoever that had been set up for, would be saved and live long.

The week of evangelism was very successful, resulting in 3,240 presentations of the Gospel and 1,456 people confessing Christ as their personal Saviour and 213 follow ups. There was 3 new churches established and 2 Churches strengthened.

May the name of our Lord be praised now and forevermore.

 

Carol's Rwanda Story

Team Berryman spent 25-days this summer in Africa on 3-different,consecutive, church planting campaigns with e3 Partners Ministry. This is just one story of God’s redeeming love that we wanted to share with you!

Carol, an e3 staff member from Texas, visited this very small house (not much bigger than the vans we ride in). Carol spent time talking with a woman and her five children. The woman confessed that she used to be a faithful Christian but after she was married, her husband led her away from the Lord. One day he took another wife and abandoned her and the kids. The woman realized she needed to get her spiritual life back on track and is thrilled there will now be a church within walking distance she can attend. Wow! Carol prayed for her and her children, and she came to the afternoon meetings at new mission point.

Although the woman and her children had a decent set of clothes to wear, it was obvious that they were very poor. Because of their faithful attendance to the meetings and re-dedication of their lives to Christ, our ministry team wanted to bless them. We gave the family six (donated to us) Christ Lutheran School shirts. We stressed that the gifts were from the church and that all praise and thanks should go solely to God. Thank you Christ Lutheran School for your generosity!

Hebrews 13:16 “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

Burundi - Rwanda Border

Here's a story from Dan (aka @daninreallife). I was only able to stay for the first 1/3 of the month-long e3 campaign. I was on my way back to the USA when this event took place.

Due to the generosity of our friends at TCM International, we were able to be driven from Bujumbura to Kigali -- my first African border crossing by car.

  Tricia posed with the SUV that had our luggage securely tied to the roof. The rope was a ¼” strand of rubber from a used tire. No photographs while crossing the border, “Not Allowed!”

A Rwandan customs agent, dressed in military uniform, told us to unload the truck and open all our bags. I had one suitcase filled with over 100 Evangecubes that I thought would be confiscated or I might possibly have to pay an import tax for. I protested each bag until the “cube” bag. Sure enough, the soldier found a jackpot. He wanted me to explain why I had so many “cubes” and what we used them for. I opened one up -- when he saw the picture of Jesus he was satisfied the “cubes” were not contraband and instructed us to load up the truck. 

I instructed Manasseh, our Rwandan leader, to share the gospel using the “cube.” My motivation: he inconvenienced us, now we will inconvenience him (I know, I’m not going to win the “Missionary of the Year” award, [again]). We slowly re-loaded the truck while Manesseh shared the gospel.

I started to worry, “What about the cars behind us?” Not to worry -- it’s Africa – very few people own/drive private vehicles. We are it. There are lots of trucks and buses but no cars.

The soldier’s boss, dressed in a suit, appeared and listened for a while. Now I’m worried that we got the soldier fired. Miraculously, the boss is already a Christian. He appreciated our message.

The soldier ended up praying to receive Jesus. Unloading then re-loading the luggage turned out to be worth while after all!

Burundi - After Hours

Much to our great surprise, some pretty decent food can be found in Bujumbura, Burundi. Each time we've worked in or near Bujumbura while on mission with e3 partners, we usually eat a couple of meals at The Ubuntu Residence - they have a beautiful restaurant called The Kiboko Grill. We usually begin with a round of Coca Colas or Fruto (passion fruit juice) and a couple of plates of samosas, which are like little meat turnovers. Then we order wood-fired pizza. The margarita pizza is just good old cheese pizza on a thin crust. The napolitan pizza has chunks of salami on a thin crust with cheese. At the end of a long day of bumpy roads in crowded buses, evangelism, preaching, singing, hanging out with the crowds and the translators and the pastors, nothing could be better than this meal, served outdoors under the inky night sky with Lake Tanganyika just a few steps away.
 
By Tuesday night we were ready for a round of Cokes & pizza. So we piled into the van and Manuel drove us to The Kiboko Grill. En route to the restaurant, Dan and Herve started telling stories about the hippos that graze along the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Herve confirmed that there used to be a lot more hippos but they were scared away by the war. Lake Tanganyika also used to boast a 22 ft long crocodile named Gustave! FYI, Lake Tanganyika is the deepest lake in Africa and holds the greatest volume of fresh water.

When we arrived at the Ubuntu Residence we entered the courtyard of the restaurant. We suddenly were blinded by flashbulbs from paparazzi. There was a long receiving line of formally-dressed dignitaries lining the sidewalk leading to the lawn. I hopped off the sidewalk and took a short-cut to a table. Dan and the others went right through the receiving line, shaking hands and being greeted cordially by these well-dressed men and women. Evidently, they were there to receive quite a few dignitaries and got some bonus handshakes from a few scruffy missionaries as well! We were told that they were part of a Congolese delegation to Burundi and were there to celebrate the Congolese Independence Day.

While driving back to our hotel, David Mitchell decided to shine his flashlight on the tall grasses along the road, hoping to spot a hippo. He was instantly rewarded with two glowing, yellow, close-set eyes looking up at the sudden light. We could make out the outline of a massive hippo standing there, calmly grazing on a lush feast. We made Manuel turn the van around and go back so we could stare and marvel at this magnificent creature. Herve said it was powerful enough to charge the van and destroy it and us if it wanted to. We tried to capture it on camera but there wasn't enough light from the moon and we didn't dare get any closer to it. Although I'm not an animal lover, I have to admit, it was a pretty amazing sight to see

Bujumbura (Rural)

Our two teenage sons were with us on our recent e3 partners trip to Burundi. They are both such great assets to our team. On this trip Dan and our oldest son, Mike, were on the same team. They encountered a couple of unique obstacles with their church site. The first obstacle was - The Location of their new church. You can see from this photo that they had quite a hike from the bottom of the canyon (where the arrow disappears into the trees) to the place where the church is. This canyon had only a Catholic church on one side of the canyon and a Jehovah Witness church on the other side. Now there is an evangelical Christian church (New Life Church) right in the middle! New Life Church has their main campus in Bujumbura. There are several families, including the new pastor, who live in this canyon. They hike / walk over 2 hours every Sunday to get to church. Sometimes they hitchhike or catch a bus for part of the way. They are overjoyed to have a church planted right in the middle of the canyon!!

The church had a blue tarp roof on Monday, but that was blown off by the wind by Tuesday.

Some new church members gathered at new church building...

The second obstacle was - The River. They had to cross a fast-moving river at the bottom of the canyon in order to evangelize the other side of the canyon. Mike was terrified to cross. He had to be carried across the river by a Burundi national. Poor little guy, look at the size of his legs compared to Michael's legs. I don't know how he made it across! 

On the way back, they found a narrower part of the river to cross. Here's the progression of Mike's second river crossing.

Some of the guys laid big, flat stones down across the shallowest part of the river for Michael to step on.

Mike stepped out in faith...

Mike might be changing his mind about crossing...
His piggyback ride is now his helper...do you blame him?
Sort of reached a plateau...
His team member is cheering him on...
Gathering a little more courage...
A couple more giant steps...
He did it! I'm not sure if he kissed the dry land - I'm afraid to ask him.
I'm proud of him for not giving up and pushing on, keeping his eyes on the prize (the shore) and trusting God (and his team mates) to help him across!

Gatumba - #2

When we go on church-planting trips with e3 partners, each trip is similar yet with unique "could only be God" twists and turns and circumstances and divine appointments. During our 4 days in Gatumba, there was an interesting cast of characters who were transformed by the life-changing message of the Gospel. Each afternoon, we'd return to the church, rest for about 30 minutes then begin a discipleship meeting. We provide printed discipleship materials and Bibles to the church for their use after we're gone. There's usually a few songs, some short teachings from the pastor, teaching from the North Americans, and my favorite part - the testimonies of those who professed faith in Christ that day. On Monday afternoon, I recognized three guys that came in together. I had shared with a large group of mostly young men who were gathered at a bicycle repair shop (bikes/spare parts under a small shade structure). During the testimony time, Pastor Joseph went up to one of the three guys and shook his hand and hugged him and made a huge fuss over him. My translator explained that this young man was known as the local cat burglar. He made a living breaking into homes during the night and stealing / reselling peoples' possessions. He seemed rather sheepish, definitely repentant, and there was no hardness about his demeanor at all. He publicly stated his faith in Christ and his life (and profession) was changed. Very cool. Saw him every day at the meeting. To my surprise, the muslim couple that we shared with on Monday showed up at the discipleship that same afternoon. Their names were Sidfred & Alina. They didn't really participate, but they listened and seemed rather intrigued by it all. They came up to me after the meeting and said they wanted to attend the church and learn more about God. Sidfred said he was a fisherman. That made me extremely happy. I explained to him that when Jesus called his first disciples, he called several fishermen. I told him I'd pray that Jesus would call him out to be His disciple. Tuesday afternoon, Sidfred & Alina were again at the discipleship meeting. They seemed more engaged in the singing and listened pretty intently to the teaching and testimonies. They came up to me after the meeting. They seemed very happy. They said it would be no problem for them to pray to receive Jesus as their Savior! So my translator, Innocent, led them in prayer...love when that happens!

Gatumba - #1

I'm learning the importance of keeping a daily journal on my iPhone notepad while on mission. My last trip was to Burundi, Africa with e3 partners. There are typically so many great encounters, divine appointments, details and feelings that might be forgotten or discounted if I waited 'til returning home to write everything down.

I was assigned to a city called Gatumba. David Mitchell was my team member. This was his 2nd trip to Africa - his 1st to Burundi. It was a privilege to watch God work in and through David. We worked with Pastor Joseph (Mother Church pastor), Pastor Moses (Mission Point Pastor), and Aaron (Associate Mission Point Pastor). From what I could tell, Pastor Moses would preach or talk to the people in Kirundi and Aaron would provide Swahili translation. These guys are so smart! And so passionate about God and the work He's called them to do.

David and I went in separate directions every morning. He headed to the Muslim & witch doctor neighborhoods. I headed downtown and into some highly populated neighborhoods. Gatumba is near Lake Tanganyika but not directly on the water. It's also pretty close to DRC (Congo). I'd describe the area as a tan, sandy prairie. Not so many trees or plants. Just homes made of mud and sand and bamboo sticks. Some really tall, narrow trees that didn't provide much shade. Thankfully, in the afternoons we'd catch a stiff, sandy breeze which would cool us off but at the same time would fill my eyes with grit, sending my hair into frizzy spasms and my skirt swirling and flying. Not the best look for me.

Monday was an interesting first day of ministry. I talked to lots of groups of people. Sometimes 30 people at a time would be gathered, listening to the Gospel via the Evangecube. We went inside a few homes. Sat on straw mats in courtyards. Stopped traffic on the main road. Stopped traffic off the beaten path. There were lots of kids following us everywhere, but they were fairly well-behaved. More than once I found myself holding hands with ten kids at a time practically skipping down the road. Yes, practically.

Pastor Moses stopped to pray for a woman who was ill, sitting outside in the shade outside her home. He asked me to lay hands on her. He placed his hand on her head - I followed suit. He prayed for healing for her. Then he asked me to pray for her too. I asked what her illness was...I freaked out just a little bit on the inside when they said she had tuberculosis. As soon as we left there, I used a hand wipe and a pretty big glob of hand sanitizer. She didn't cough at all so I think I'll be ok.

We stopped outside a house to share the Gospel with a Muslim woman and her friend. Both of them said they wanted to accept Jesus. They both started to pray out loud, but stopped when the Muslim woman's husband showed up. He was not cool at all with us being there and definitely not with his wife becoming a Christian. Pastor Moses made an appointment to return on Friday and answer any questions about Christianity that they might have. Turns out that Pastor Moses was born into and raised in a Muslim home. He said he would use the Bible and the Koran to share truths about Jesus. We invited them to attend our afternoon discipleship meeting at the church. They declined.

One More Step

What an incredible summer of missions! Team Berryman, along with many wonderful team members, just completed a 25 day trip to Burundi and Rwanda with E3 Partners. I'll be summarizing the "numbers" in a later post.

For now, let me start with our first Saturday in Burundi by telling you about my first visit to the main marketplace in Bujumbura in January 2008. I'll never forget walking past cars and buses, dodging motorbikes and bicycle taxis while busy shoppers and hawkers brushed past us. In the short distance from the parking lot to the shops, I felt assaulted by a hundred different impressions in as many steps. At the main entrance we came upon a large, white, buggy-like contraption. I looked inside the buggy and, quite honestly, was horrified and frightened at the sight of a child with a grotesquely large, misshapen head lying there covered in a blanket. There was a sign describing the child's condition - hydro-encephalitis - and asking for money. I noticed a small basket with a few coins and bills in it before my eyes filled with tears and I had to look away. I nearly knocked people over in my haste to hurry away from that gut-wrenching sight.

Fast forward 18 months...Today we were asked to pray for a woman's healing from hydro-encephalitis. I instantly felt pangs of guilt and thought of that poor child I had seen before. When we entered the small bedroom, I realized that this was the very same child I had seen in the marketplace. Except she wasn't a child. She was actually a 20-yr old young woman named Adele. Her body size and shape were child-like and out of proportion due to hydro-encephalitis she had contracted at 9 months old.

Surprisingly, I wasn't terrified at seeing her. Instead, I was really glad God allowed me to see her again, this time through His eyes of compassion. We found out that Adele knows and loves Jesus. She sang her favorite songs to us, including "How Great Thou Art." Adele has an incredibly joyful smile and great faith that she will be healed someday. Several of us prayed for her complete healing. While we were inside praying, a crowd of people gathered outside. Steven, Michael and Randy went outside to share the Evangecube with them. Several people prayed to receive Christ. We are very thankful that God was glorified both in Adele's strong faith and in the gift of salvation received by many. Jeremiah 29:11 states that God knows the plans He has for us. Plans to prosper us and not to harm us. Plans to give us hope and a future. He clearly has a plan for Adele's life. It's not my job to figure out that plan. But today God showed me a glimpse of that plan by replacing my horror with grace and my fear with love as He used Adele to move me one more step toward becoming like Him. Isn't that just the way it should be?

Burundi in 140 Characters or Less

This is my husband, aka, @daninreallife. Through an unfortunate positioning of the picture frame, you can't see his other 2 fingers - this is his "gang" signal - it's supposed to be E3. Can you picture it? He has been twittering daily on his epic 25 day trip to Africa. Our sons and I were with the team for the first 1/3 of the trip. Now we're home, relying on his cryptic msgs for progress updates. I decided to compile all 76 tweets here. I recommend you start at Update #76 and work your way up to #1. Will make most sense that way. Go ahead...scroll on down to the bottom of the page now!

1. Almost morning in Burundi, waiting for "drip drip drip" sound & water. Cannot wait for my cold shower!
2. Going to bed tired, filthy & sweating in Burundi. Good day 5-Americans, 11-Burundi & 2-Tanzanians shared Jesus w/ 1201-people, 472 prayed
3. Almost out of "hand wipes" they go fast when water is out at hotel. 12-days to go in Africa. :-)
4. Prosper is my translator this week. Philemon is here too. They both love Mike. Yves is in Rwanda. Who should I give pod to?
5. In Cibitoke hotel lobby watching Michael Jackson Memorial. Did I enter alternate universe? Team torn between donating to starving kids or MJ
6. In Burundi, met old woman on street, she looked & sounded like Yoda. She tapped my bag w/ her cane. She wanted food... she got it.
7. In Burundi, 15-yr old boy (half the size of Steve) accepts Jesus.
8. Shared Jesus w/ woman. She quoted scriptures w/ translator. She was pentacostal. She already shares Jesus w/ others. We gave her e-cube.
9. In Burundi, on hill surrounded by cows & people. 3-gospel presentations going @ same time. Cool!
10. In Burundi, missionaries & hotel workers came to breakfast singing. God is good.
11. In Cibitoke, encountered large, fast spider while walking to bathroom down the hall. Come to Jesus moment w/ me, spider & a can of Raid.
12. In Burundi, our bus driver, who became a Christian last week, went w/ e-cube & led 6-people to Jesus!
13. Finished our day in Cibitoke. 30- Burundi listened to Mark 1-7 on "Proclaimer". They loved the stories of Jesus & the beheading of John.
14. In Burundi, shared Jesus w/ a Christian family. Children sang songs for us (new for me). We prayed together. We left the kids our lunch.
15. Sharing Jesus w/ many Muslims. 1-prayed for Jesus. We prayed that the others would have dreams of Jesus.
16. In Burundi, just shared gospel w/ soldier. Trained him on e-cube & gave him one. He promised to share w/ other soldiers.
17. Sunday, Day 1, 2nd campaign, 5-americans, 2-tanzanians, 17-burundi shared the gospel w/ 510-people & 304 prayed for Jesus.
18. I love Africa. I can pick my nose in public and it is socially okay
19. Sun has set over the Congo, cool breeze blowing, God is good.
20. Eating at pastor's house in Cibotoke. Please pray Luke 10:17-20 over the team.
21. Love my translator. Choir dancing (not singing) in front of me, translator leans in & says, "They dance". Uhh, thanks, I'm not blind.
22. In church in Burundi watching offering collection, mostly cash and 1-chicken.
23. July 5 in Burundi, we are eating water melon for breakfast to celibrate American Independence. Yea, a day late in Burundi is on time.
24. This time in Burundi we remembered our drivers: inviting them to diner, giving them gifts like the gifts for translators. 1-driver prayed.
25. Sunday in Cibotoke: we are beyond internet connection, I can only transmit via phone. We also learned water is not on 24-hrs but whenever.
26. Hotel room in Cibitoke has no bathroom or internet, but it does have bugs & mosquitos...and power... Haven't had power in a while.
27. Comfortable mission trip just got harder. Cibotoke is a little less modern than Bujumbura.
28. In Burundi at the pastor's conference, Tricia spoke about the godly qualities a woman looks for in a man. All prayed she would be married.
29. We have just arrived at Cibitoke. Waiting to check into hotel.
30. Today Burundi pastors got good lessons on how to value spouses & to use ministry to glorify God & not the pastor.
31. African women told David, "now try cooking like this everyday & in the rain..."
32. In Burundi: just finished pastor's conference. David cooked African style - outside, over fire, limited water... He loved it.
33. In Burundi at 1-day pastor & wife's conference. Swahili, English & Kirundi.
34. Hotel in Bujumbura is nice. It has hot & cold water. In our room, hot water in the shower (only) & cold water in the sink (only).
35. Early morning in Burundi. Marina left & ~ got new roommate. Hotel has 1-bed per room. Being the leader, I got the floor. Floor was firm.
36. Mike & I worked in the hills outside Bujumbura. Catholic & JW churches @ each end of river valley. Now a new Bible church in the middle.
37. ... It was hard to drop off 15-yr old son & single 20's woman at old camp, but hundreds prayed to Jesus & new church was started in Burundi.
38. In Burundi, Steve & Tricia worked at the site of the rebal camp that battled government for 12-yrs...
39. In Gatumba, Burundi, Marina & David worked amomg Muslims & witch doctors. Churches were strengthened, hundreds prayed for Jesus.
40. Sun has set over Congo, sky darkening. Sipping tea in thick humid air, reflecting on Burundi church planting campaign.
41. Eating meat sandwiches, buying oranges & peanuts, dodging traffic on the dusty streets of Bujumbura. Join us next time for the adventure.
42. In Bujumbura cental market buying vegtables for pastor's conference tomorrow. Crazy!
43. In Burundi, at pastor's house, watching Christian TV in French about Armagedon. Weird
44. Greater Bujumbura evangelism results: 3014-gospel presentations, 1499-prayed for Jesus, 5-new churches, 1-church stregthened.
45. Long day in field just got longer. Burundi cell service broadcasting wrong time.
46. Mission team ate pizza at lake. As we were leaving, David shines flashlight along the shore to find a hippo. Auto sized hippo 20ft from road
47. Last night, in Burundi, our stick & tarp church fell apart in the wind. Tonight the church is made of sticks & palm leaves.
48. Sharing Jesus w/ Burundi, almost done when interrupted by the cheif. Everyone, even pastor was afraid of him. He listened, argued & prayed.
49. "...from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows..." this describes our walk today.
50. Evangelism continues, Mike & I had to cross the river. I jumped across rocks. Big Mike was carried across by a 110-lb Burundi. Photo soon.
51. people in USA, thank God for your brews. village brew is nasty. Toddlers, men, nursing mothers...all had drinks while we were sharing Jesus
52. ... The brewmaker's name is Desire, he prayed to receive Jesus. He wants us to pray for strength to quit his lively hood...
53. ...we shared Jesus w/ a drunk brewmaker. He did not want to hear, but we asked how to make the "beer" and told him what we were sharing...
54. Our new church is on top of hill. Today we desended down a deep rocky, rutted path that is lined w/ banana trees into the depths...
55. woman w/ baby on her back, load on her head for market just prayed to receive Jesus. load was so heavy that she could not lift it herself.
56. 2nd day wirthout internet in Burundi. Hope phone is posting.
57. Favorite song today in English was Burundi children's choir, "weeee luj Judas" (we love Jesus)
58. What God did in Burundi today w/ 6-Americans: 572 gospel presentations, 114 prayed for Jesus (including 1-Muslim & 1-town thief).
59. Burundi pastor summed our day best: "We did it African style, without a plan & ovecame every obsticle. God worked perfect". Me: "????"
60. I love my church plant children. They thought that my 19-year old son was my dad!
61. Finally beginning to feel human again after slight airsick attack. Bring on the paper work. Day 3 in Burundi over.
62. All those walks up Piestua Peak have paid up. Our new church site is on top a steep hill east of Bujumbura center.
63. Went to "mother" church in Bujumbura this morning. Worship louder than a rock concert. Think I'm deaf.
64. No internet today.
65. Sunday morning in Bujumbura. Sipping coffee over looking lake. A break from the heat. Hope it rains hard & purges smoke out of the air.
66. Restful day in Burundi? Prayed for 20-year old encephalitis victim & visited orphanage in hills (short drive but hrs away). Team exhausted.
67. Mike converted culturally to African. He ordered coffee then filled cup wirth creamer & sugar. Best coffee he ever had.
68. Breakfast on veranda overlooking lake: coffee, tea, croque madame & fruit salad. Life is good. Thank you, Jesus.
69. Spent Thursday night in Addis Ababa. Hotel Rivera had bigger, better bathroom than we do at home. Bummer. Africa 1 - Team Berryman 0.
70. Starting 2nd day in Burundi. Got air sick last 30-minute flight. Still dizzy, but looking forward to dominating the day.
71. 1st for me: 6-team members loaded into small hotel elevator, bells rang, lift was overloaded (Riviera Hotel, Addis Ababa)
72. Arrived at the top of the world in Ethiopia. We will spend the night and continue our journey to Burundi tomorrow.
73. Last news story before leaving USA: Iran & twitter
74. Oops... Forgot vitamins... Need prayer to skip sinus infections this trip. Vitamin B helps me a lot. I think God can beat B.
75. Waiting to board Ethiopian flight to Africa. We leave at 8:30pm & arrive at 8:30pm... Bummer...
76. On mission to Africa. As I was leaving house married daughter & son-in-law moved in for unlimited xbox.

Rwanda - Land of the Lost - Outro

Before you read any further, please click HERE to view a great video by Rob, one of our team members from this Rwanda trip!

My journey to the "Land of the Lost" had some amazing statistics which don't even begin to tell the true story of redemption for every fact and figure listed. Our team of 31 North Americans, 31 Rwandan Ministry Partners, and 400+ Rwandan Nationals shared the Gospel with nearly 6,000 Rwandans. Sometimes we shared one-on-one. Sometimes in large group settings. Sometimes in homes. Sometimes on the side of the road. Sometimes in the marketplace. Sometimes with the hotel staff. Sometimes in businesses. Sometimes on the hillsides. Sharing the Gospel never gets old. It is a joy and privilege to experience the joy of salvation with people who choose to put their faith in Jesus Christ. And when the "numbers" add up to 3,800+ first-time professions of faith in Christ, it's impossible to take any credit. Just deep satisfaction that we answered the call. We moved forward. We did hard things. We sent out letters and made phone calls to raise support. We packed and re-packed. We were immunized against diseases we thought were extinct. We swallowed malaria medicine faithfully. We traveled in cramped mini-vans over bumpy, rutted, sometimes impossibly muddy roads. We got stuck in the mud. We sang and praised and worshipped the One True Living God. We prayed our guts out. We surrendered our wills and lives daily and served God gratefully. In return, He gave us joy and that joy was our strength.

Our prayer (Team Berryman) is that many more people would join us in this life-impacting adventure. The harvest is plentiful. The laborers are few. The cost is high, both financially and personally. But it's a price well-invested in the Kingdom of God, serving the King of Kings, worshipping Him not just with our voices but with 100% of our lives - fully, totally, completely all-in!!

And so the question is: when will you join us on a short-term mission trip with e3 partners?

Rwanda - Land of the Lost - #4

This trip to Rwanda was an e3 Partners training trip for me. I wasn’t assigned to a team. I went to a different Mission point ever day. I had to discern where and how God could use me most effectively on each team. On our travel days, I was a shepherd and a mom. On the first day I was a coach and encourager to a first-timer. On the second day, I preached about the armor of God and I was a prayer warrior for a woman in need of deliverance from a drug addiction. By the way, I was told that on Friday this same woman came to the final discipleship meeting and said her dependence on the drug was completely gone and she’d been set free from it! On the third day I was an evangelist, sharing the Gospel with each person I met. I met a woman, my exact same age, who had survived the Genocide 15 yrs ago. I asked her if she knew God and she said she knew God because He spared her life during the Genocide. She told me her story of absolute terror. It’s too long to go in to right now. But she ended by saying that she knew God existed because there’s no other reason that she should have survived that time except for God’s divine protection. I told her that I was certain He had allowed her to live so that one day (Tuesday, June 2, 2009) I would arrive at her home and share the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ with her. She listened to my testimony and while I shared the Gospel using the evangecube. Both she and her husband and their neighbor prayed to receive Christ and were so grateful that we came to their home.  On the fourth day, I met a girl who became blind 2 years ago and told us not to feel sorry for her because the joy of the Lord was her strength and He was her protector and her provider. She was the encourager that day!  On the fifth day, we made bricks!  On the sixth day I worked with kids and empowered them to do big things for God. Every day was different. Every day God gave me different opportunities to use my gifts and life experiences to minister to people and make a hopefully make a difference in their lives. God won’t always use us to share the Gospel with words, but our lives should continually share the Gospel without words. Some days I was so tired, I didn’t want to interact with people, I just wanted to go after the tasks and get them done and checked off the list. But God always gave me an extra measure of love and compassion and purpose for every single day so that I could truly walk humbly with Him and pour out my life for others as He would continually refill me.

Rwanda - Land of the Lost #3

If you just arrived at this blog, please scroll back and read "Land of the Lost" intro, #1 & #2 then continue with today's post. I recently returned from a 10 day trip to Rwanda with e3 Partners Ministry - lots of adventure and unexpected blessings and challenges!

One of our team members was named Jonathan Hughes. He’s 21 years and an on-fire preacher and evangelist from South Carolina. He loves God with all his heart. When he prays, it’s like heaven comes down and fills the room with God’s presence. Jonathan’s grandmother spoke a word over him before she died and said that God told her Jonathan would one day preach the Gospel in Africa. Since that day, it’s been his dream to fulfill that calling. You probably should know that Jonathan has cerebral palsy. He’s in a wheelchair.

He was zero use of his legs, limited use of one hand and 75% use of his other hand. He has scoliosis and arthritis in his back. He recently had 2 grand mal seizures. But he felt that God was calling him to preach in Africa and that this trip with e3 Partners was the right opportunity to go. So by faith he raised the funds to go on the trip. He had a few people cautiously cheering him on, but he had even more people calling and telling him he was crazy and that he shouldn’t go. While we were in the airport, he even had a pastor call and offer to fly him home right then. But Jonathan knows that God placed him on this earth for a purpose and that purpose includes sharing the Gospel regardless of comfort zone, health, courage, disability or fear. Jonathan’s faith made a difference in my life. His preaching of the Gospel in Africa made a difference in 100’s of lives for eternity. He made a difference in the life of his ministry partner/translator, Victor, who is also in a wheelchair.

Victor is passionate about sharing the Gospel in Rwanda and just recently joined the Ministry Partner team. This was his first church-planting campaign with e3 and he was overjoyed that God sent Jonathan in his wheelchair to Rwanda to be on his ministry team. Victor was born with polio and as a result his legs are completely withered and useless. He is mostly confined to a wheelchair, although when necessary, he “walks” with flip flops placed on his hands. An amazing and humbling sight to see. These guys haven’t sidelined themselves from ministry because of their physical limitations. Instead, they’ve thrown themselves fully into ministry, knowing that God has allowed them and called them out to be difference-makers in the world. 

Rwanda - Land of the Lost #2

Continuing today with part #2 of my recent e3 Partners Ministry trip to Rwanda!

In Africa, you walk a lot. I mean really a lot. Uphill both ways sometimes. Everyone walks everywhere. On Thursday, our team had a character-building day. I think it was my favorite day of the trip. When we arrived at our Mission Point, no one was there to greet us. Finally someone walked up and told us that it was community work day. Every person in the village was required to spend the morning helping to clear land and build bricks in order to build houses for widows and the very poor. We had a choice to sit and wait for 4 hours or join in the work. We chose to join the work. We found ourselves walking downhill towards a river. Every step we took down that hill made me dread every step we’d have to take to go back up that hill. We walked among banana trees, coffee trees, sunflower fields, corn fields, so much lush greenery. At the work site, there were men and women digging and hoeing the rich red dirt, clearing and smoothing out a plot of land and putting the dirt in a large pile. Our job was to fill 5 gallon jugs of water down at the river and bring them back up. We poured the water in the dirt, then added in armfuls of straw and grass and then that was mixed together with hoes to just the right consistency for brick-making. The women would then gather up just the right amount of mud, stuff it into the brick mold then repeat over and over again until the mud was all used up. We spoke to the foreman of the project about sharing the Gospel with the crowd. She said she’d give us a chance to speak to them after they were done working for the morning. So we pitched in and worked alongside them. Two hours later, the work was done and all the people gathered on a small hillside. The foreman and a local government leader held a progress meeting with them. But then, just as promised, they turned the program over to us. I was asked to share a short message with them. I shared a verse with them out of 2 Corinthians 4:5-6. It says “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said,"Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” And so I thanked them for the privilege of serving alongside them for Jesus’ sake. And I explained that since God shines in our hearts, we wanted to represent Him well by not being served or exalted above them, but by serving them and the community. Another team member shared the Gospel using the Evangecube with them. Out of the 140 or so gathered, 101 made first time professions of faith in Jesus. It was an amazing experience. And humbling to realize that becoming like Christ we really must be willing to get our hands dirty. And sweat a little. Or a lot. And serve people. And climb down steep hills. Then climb back up steeper hills. Jesus never sat on a velvet throne while on this earth. Most likely He lived and worked in a village very similar to the ones we visited in Africa. You sit on hard wooden benches or on woven straw mats placed on the rocky, dirt floor. You hug perfect strangers. You extend God’s love to unlovely people. All because we have been called to focus our lives on what matters most to us. Hopefully, what matters most to us is following Christ. Period. Because in choosing to follow Christ, we are choosing to become like Him.

Rwanda - Land of the Lost - #1

This is part #1 of my presentation at church on June 14

I’m always blown away by the child-like abandon with which the Africans enter into worship. I mean, they go after it with every last ounce of strength they have. They wouldn’t dream of just sitting and singing a song while checking email on their phone and shuffling through their purse looking for a stick of gum. It just doesn’t happen. I captured a little 3 yr old girl on video joining in the worship time with the adults. To her it’s just as natural as breathing in and out. It’s something that’s been modeled to her from before birth and then while she was an infant and strapped to her mother’s back and now that she’s walking and talking it’s just part of the rhythm of her life.

I wonder if sometimes the child-like wonder we once had is replaced with a good feeling about God then even that sort of mellows into a “I’ll be a good person and I’ll do good things” sort of life without ever making a personal decision to follow Christ.

We met a gentleman on Tuesday who invited us into his tailor shop. At first I didn’t notice that he was handicapped. His iron crutches were laying on the floor. But then I realized that his legs were sort of withered and useless. I don’t remember his name, but I remember his face.

Such a kind man. He was a devout Catholic. Nothing wrong with that. However, we weren’t interested in his religion but his relationship with Christ. I kept asking him questions about his faith. I wanted to know if he just knew a lot about God or if he knew him personally as his Savior. He kept answering my question with a list of good works. He helps orphans by patching their clothes for free or even giving them clothes if they need them. He has an extra sewing machine next to him so that he can teach orphans the sewing trade who otherwise wouldn’t have a way to make a living. He attends church faithfully. He prays all the time. He is especially grateful that God has blessed him with a business to support himself and to help others with. He constantly prays and thanks God for his blessed life. My ministry partner, Antoinette, cracked the code when she told him “those are prayers of thanksgiving but have you ever prayed and asked Jesus to become your Lord and Savior, forgiving your sins and cleansing you from all unrighteousness?” He paused and then the light bulb went on. It was like we hit him with a ton of bricks. He asked us to please teach him that prayer. So we did and he prayed and now he’s a brand-new follower of Christ, saved by faith not by works. Randy says something to each person that is baptized Fellowship North Church “buried in the likeness of His death, raised to walk in a new kind of life.” And so this new kind of life is a life of love, full devotion and worship from which good works can’t help but flow freely and generously.

 

Rwanda - Land of the Lost - Intro

I returned from Rwanda on June 7. Randy asked me to help him illustrate his message called "Land of the Lost" (inspired by the cartoon series & current summer movie) on June 14. I came up with an intro and 4 stories with pics/videos that Randy wove into his message. I sat and wrote the whole thing (manifesto) out in about 2 hours then I emailed it to Randy. I gave him full editorial license, however, he just inserted every word into his message (could be because he was on vacation in Mexico with his family). On Sunday, we were both on the platform, taking turns with message & stories. According to Randy, I was extremely wordy - 2500 written words plus once I got comfortable, a few extra words & thoughts! Here's my intro -  [note to self - alliteration in writing = good / alliteration in speaking = tongue-twisters!]

INTRO: From the moment we walk up to the Ethiopian Airlines gate at Dulles International Airport, it’s like we’ve entered a foreign, unknown land. When we finally board the plane, strange music plays over the intercom system. Some of the flight attendants are wearing traditional Ethiopian dress. PSA’s are made first in Amharic then in broken English. So interesting and opposite feeling. And so the journey to the land of the lost begins. Once we arrive at our destination, it’s like all the distractions that plague us and keep us from truly experiencing intimacy with God sort of are stripped away. No TV. No internet. No jobs. No school. It is suddenly us and God and the mission He’s called us to. Life fades from brilliant Technicolor fast-paced madness to sudden and utter simplicity. Faith seems the natural byproduct of this lack of clutter and clamor. And prayer flows naturally and fervently in unity with the entire team. We cry out passionately to God together in multi-language unison. Then there’s the songs. The singing and the dancing are surprisingly raw and real. There's joy. There's fellowship. The ebb and the flow of relationship with God and each other spills over into praise, petition, freedom and joy. This is surely a taste of another world far from the one we now call home.

Pray

I've just added our Team Berryman June/July '09 Prayer Calendar to the Team Berryman page - check it out - or you can click HERE to view/print!

Next week we depart the USA for our incredible summer adventure in Africa. I just returned from Rwanda last weekend - it was an amazing trip!! We are looking forward to a wonderful, fruitful time of ministry this summer.

Steven has his first job this summer - camp counselor at a Day Camp - he's in charge of leading a group of 30-40 5th grade boys. He's having a great time.

Michael is done with High School, working at Chick-fil-a, trying to figure out what his life will look like at the end of the summer.

I just finished my final training trip with e3 partners ministry - I'm 1 step closer to being a full-time Church Planting Coordinator with e3. Hopefully get my uniform, name badge and secret handshake pretty soon!

Here's one of my favorite worship times from my last trip to Rwanda - love the dancing, love the passion and energy and great abandon!

Burundi - by Mike - Part 7

This is the 7th and final post in the Burundi - by Mike series. I'm proud of Mike for putting together this report for school. I'm hoping that it will inspire someone to consider going to Africa with us on an e3 church-planting trip sometime soon!

Our last day in Burundi was in the capital city, Bujumbura. My brother and I got to sleep in that day. When we got up, most of the rest of the team had gone to church. We got to eat breakfast in the hotel dining room. We had omelets and toast, a huge bowl of chopped up tropical fruit and an ice-cold Coca Cola. It was a really good meal. Especially the cold Coca Cola. After breakfast, we packed and got ready to leave for home. Then we just hung out at the hotel, checking out the fantastic view of Lake Tanganyika and the city of Bujumbura.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip. I’d like to return to Burundi again, now that I've been there. It is a beautiful place with a lot of people who need to hear the Gospel. Some people we met had not even heard about America. My parents say when you arrive in Burundi, you've arrived at the end of the earth. Now I know what they are talking about!

Burundi - by Mike - Part 6

Today is Part 6 of 7 in the "Burundi - by Mike" series of posts. Michael is my oldest son. He's a senior at Phoenix Christian High School. Our recent trip to Burundi took place during his interim spring term at school. They agreed to give him elective credit for this trip. He agreed to keep a journal and turn in a report with pictures at the end of the trip.

One day Philemon and I had to climb to the top of the opposite mountain from where my church was located. The mission point pastor was with us. We had to walk down to the valley and we shared the Gospel with every person we met and at every house we could find. When we got to the bottom of the mountain we crossed over a stream on a “bridge” which was just a long piece of rotting wood. I was really scared because there was nothing holding the wood down and it was constantly moving. I really didn’t want to fall in the water. I was afraid it would get in my mouth if I did fall and we’re not supposed to get any water in our mouth while we’re in Africa except bottled water. Philemon helped me make it across.

The places where I walked were really beautiful. It was very green. There were lots of trees. There was a waterfall in the distance. There was a lot of farming going on all around. I believe they were growing corn and Irish potatoes among other things. There were quite a few flowers when we went higher up on the mountain. The view from the top was incredibly beautiful. We could see the waterfall. We could see the whole valley. We could see tiny houses in the distance. We couldn’t see any roads. We couldn’t see the trails we had walked on. I couldn’t believe we had made it to the top of the mountain.

The church I helped to start already had started to build a structure. There was no roof. The walls were halfway up the sides and made of hand-formed mud bricks. There was no back door. It was just all open. They had a couple of wood benches and three chairs. It was a very small building. They had one drum and a talented drummer. They sang a lot of songs always accompanied by the drum. The people seemed to have a lot of joy in spite of their poor living circumstances.

Burundi - by Mike - Part 5

This is Part 5 of Mike's report on our recent trip to Burundi. He's a senior at Phoenix Christian High School, pushing uphill for the next three weeks of school!!

Every morning we had a team meeting during breakfast. My dad led devotions and we spent time praying for our day. Then we were ready for evangelism. E3 partners ministry developed the Evangecube as a tool to help people share the Gospel in any language. Since it’s all pictures, each person can share the Gospel in their own words using the pictures as a guide to the salvation message. Since it’s so colorful, it catches people’s attention and keeps them interested in what we are saying because they want to see the next picture. My mom had some people accuse her of doing magic with the cube because the picture kept changing on them. These people had never seen anything like it before. We used the Evangecube every single day to share the message of salvation through Jesus Christ.

We also had Gospel tracts that we could hand out to people that wanted to know more about how to be saved but weren’t ready to make a commitment to Christ yet. We always use the Bible to show people verses that can help them understand how to be saved. This time I had a paperback Bible with me developed by e3 partners ministry. It had pictures from all sides of the cube in it and all the verses you could use to share the Gospel were highlighted. Philemon really liked it because of the pictures and because it was in English. I gave it to him as a gift at the end of the week.

 

My dad always budgets enough money to be able to leave some discipleship tools with each brand new church. This time we gave each church a Proclaimer. This is like a giant radio/mp3 player which plays the entire New Testament in Kirundi. It is solar-powered and even has a hand-crank to power it up on rainy days. We had a difficult time purchasing Bibles in Kirundi to leave behind. We had enough funds to purchase 400 Bibles to divide among the churches. The Bible Society would only sell us 48 copies. My dad said the shelves were lined with Bibles. It is always difficult to get them to sell the Bibles. It’s like they hoard them for some reason. On our next trip we are going to try some different ways to get Bibles into Burundi. We also gave each church a Mega-Voice which is a smaller version of the Proclaimer. It’s about the size of an iPod with an external speaker. We always leave behind a lot of Evangecubes so that the new church can train people to share the Gospel with others so that the church can grow. We leave behind a complete printed Discipleship series called First Steps which is helpful in discipling new Christians. We use First Steps at our afternoon church meetings at the new churches so that people can understand what it means to be a Christian. It covers all the basics of salvation and assurance of salvation.

 

Every day we had unavoidable delays before we finally were able to start sharing the Gospel. It’s like satan didn’t want us to leave the hotel and do the job we had come to do. One morning, we had to stop at the gas station on the way to our church sites. This was an interesting experience. The gas pumps were hand-cranked pumps. It took quite a while to put fuel in each van. I felt like it was super-hazardous. Each pump had about 4 attendants milling around with nothing to do. The fuel was diesel. There was a lesser grade called gas-oil. My dad said it probably would ruin most cars in a very short time.

Burundi - by Mike Part 4

Still featuring a few more posts from Mike's school report on our recent trip to Burundi...

That first night we met our translators who we’d be working with all week. My translator was Philemon. He was 17 yrs old and spoke fairly good English. He wore funky sunglasses and a gold, velour long coat every day. We got along very well. He just completed secondary school which is high school. He really wanted to learn English fluently so he could eventually get a better job when he finished college. His older brother was also one of the translators but not on my team.

On the first day we went to our village, myself and my ministry partner, Philemon, along with the pastor from the new church, ran into a lady and asked her if we could share the Gospel with her. She was interested, but very busy plowing her crops. She told us to come again another day. The next afternoon we came back. At that time her whole family was there and we shared the gospel with all of them. She had a lot of kids, maybe six. Several of her kids were old enough to understand us. They were probably at least 9 years old. Approximately 4 other toddlers listened in too. The lady and her husband and the two oldest kids prayed to accept Christ after we shared the Gospel using the Evangecube.  Later on that same day, this whole family came to our church service for worship and discipleship. Our new church was so small that many people had to stand outside the building because the inside was very crowded with people.

Burundi - by Mike - Part 3

This is Part 3 of Mike's recent e3 partners church planting trip to Rutana, Burundi. Be sure to watch the 21-second YouTube video at the end of the post for an inside (actually outside) look at our hotel's kitchen.

When we arrived in Rutana we were escorted to our rooms. My brother and I had our own rooms. I slept under a mosquito net and constantly patrolled my room for bugs, mosquito’s, and spiders. Rutana is a very small town. We were split up in 7 different locations. Although my dad said we were staying in the nicest guest house in Rutana, my mom described the accommodations as indoor camping.  We had cold showers. Some days no water at all. The toilets had no toilet seats. Not surprisingly, the rooms were only $5 per night! One guest house had a big enough dining room for our team so that’s where we had all our meals. No indoor kitchens so meals were prepared outside over open fires. The menu for dinner was the same every night and was what we have come to know as usual in this part of Africa: Rice. French Fries (Chips). Green peas. Baked Bananas (starchy, not sweet). Boiled Spaghetti. Mysterious Red sauce. Small chunks of “Meat”. Boiled greens. Sometimes pineapple for dessert. Our daily breakfast was egg omelets and French rolls shaped like airplanes. They also served coffee and tea with milk and sugar.

The hotel manager was very nice. He worked so hard all week to try to get our meals out on time. One morning I shot a quick video of the kitchen and took a picture. My mom said it was a miracle they were able to cook anything at all out there. We’re not quite sure where they washed the dishes. Our first night at dinner, the power went out just as we sat down. We ate by candlelight. I remembered to bring a flashlight with me so we could kind of see where we were going when we walked back to our hotel to go to bed. 

Burundi - by Mike - Part 2

Today I'm featuring Part 2 of my son Michael's report for school on our recent trip to Rutana, Burundi. Be sure to stay tuned the rest of this week for the rest of the story!

When we arrived at the airport we were escorted to the V.I.P lounge by a member of the Presidential leadership team. My grandparents have become friends with this man. His name is Gabriel Mpogazara. The V.I.P lounge was nice because it was air conditioned. We waited here while our visas were processed then we went to collect our luggage. As we walked out into the parking lot we were surrounded by pastors and translators that would be part of our team during the week. All together there were 14 North Americans 16 translators 2 Tanzanians and 5 e3 committee members. We piled our luggage into one Toyota van then we crammed ourselves in the remaining 3 vans and began a 3 and a half hour journey to Rutana which is southeast of the capital city of Bujumbura, Burundi . I fell asleep halfway there. When I woke up, I noticed that Rutana was very green and rural. Lots of beautiful trees and cooler weather.

Burundi - by Mike - Part 1

We recently were in Rutana, Burundi on an e3 church planting trip. We took our sons Michael & Steven with us. We love being able to share these short-term mission trips with our kids! They are quickly becoming seasoned world travelers. It's funny/almost ludicrous to have random conversations around the dinner table about Addis Ababa, Bujumbura, Musanze, Nairobi and other exotic-sounding destinations that have become familiar to us.

Michael is a senior at Phoenix Christian High School. He was required to keep a daily journal and write a 7 page report about the trip as part of his spring term elective class. I helped him edit the report just a little bit. I thought it was post-worthy so I've included the whole thing, including pictures. Make sure to click on the "continue reading" link at the bottom of the page!

On March 9^th 2009, my family and I embarked on a mission trip to Burundi Africa with e3 partners ministry. We flew from Phoenix to Los Angeles to Washington D.C. to Rome to Ethiopia to Rwanda then to Burundi. My dad said we got a great price on the airfare. We changed planes every time except in Rome.  We landed in Rome in the middle of the night both coming and going. Actually, it’s not really in Rome. It’s way out on the outskirts of town and we had to stay in our seats with our seatbelts on while the ground crew took out the trash, vacuumed the aisles, re-stocked the kitchen and the bathrooms and the plane got re-fueled. We also had a new pilot and flight attendant crew join us in Rome. I was very tired after two and a half days of travel yet I was very excited to be in Burundi, Africa for the first time.

Is God Asking You To GO?

When I think of our E3 ministry partners and friends in Africa, specifically Rwanda & Burundi, I have to smile. We have had some pretty incredible, intense moments of worship with them. The reason I love this picture of the drum kit is because it unapologetically reminds me of their dignity and determination to worship God in spite of debilitating poverty, unspeakable circumstances of civil war, and lack of resources that we would consider essential - like proper stage lighting, musical instruments that are in tune, music charts, etc. I'm telling you, you've never worshipped until you've been travelling down the road at 120 kilometers per hour in a toyota van packed with 16 people, singing at the top of your lungs, using every part of the van as a percussion instrument, all the while watching the veins start to pop out of the neck of the hired muslim van driver...

It's like this time of raw, passionate worship paves the way, lights our path, allowing us a glimpse of heaven even before we get to the town/village where we'll be sharing the Gospel, seeing literally 1000s of people turn to God for the first time, watching the Light intersect the darkness and the moment of illumination that means eternal lifechange for these individuals - when we proclaim God's name to the ends of the earth, we get the privilege of watching His creative hand at work. We've seen God do incredible things in those countries, drawing people to Himself in a magnificent, overflowing, can't-believe-this-is-happening sort of way!

Short-term missions, long-term missions, whatever it is that you are divinely appointed to be a part of - just do it, ok? If you're waffling, right on the edge of going or not going, worried about how to pay for it, wondering if you'll still have a job when you get back, or even caught up in how this will impact you once you return (oh, and believe me you'll be changed forever), let me just help you find the answer you're looking for - it's Yes. Go. Don't hesitate. God is in control. God's mercy will be over you. God's path will be under you. God's Spirit is in you. God's will is in front of you. God will never leave you or forsake you. God's ultimate love has already been expressed for you and I and every person on the planet. Let's not wallow in a self-focused gluttonous intake of that love with no outlet for expression of it - let's see the world through His eyes, offering His love through our open hands to a world in desperate need of His love, His redemption, His gift of salvation.

Is God asking you to GO?

My First Video Creation Using Pinnacle

This video is best viewed in AVI format - really beautiful, clear pictures, no skips or jumps, timing is right on. When I uploaded it to YouTube via Pinnacle (just click on one easy button), the pictures got a little bent out of shape/distorted and blurry(er). I've compiled pictures from our own cameras as well as our team members so some are better than others. Overall I'm relatively happy that I've finally got it posted on YouTube for the world to view!!

Wordless Wednesday - Tanzania

My son, Michael went to Tanzania on a short-term mission with e3 partners. This baby lives in a leper colony in Tanzania. Michael held her all day long. I'm participating in Wordless Wednesday today!

 

Positive Post Tuesday - Michael

This post is part of Positive Post Tuesday, an every-Tuesday blog carnival at Brody Harper's excellent "...in case you were wondering" blog!

So, the theme of PPT is to write something nice about someone or something. Today, I thought I'd give a PPT shout-out to my son, Michael. Last year, while completing his junior year at Phoenix Christian High School, he also worked at least 20 hours per week at Chick-fil-a, saving every penny so that he'd have enough money saved to be able to go on back-to-back mission trips to Tanzania and Rwanda with e3 partners. Michael is a man of God. He's loving and kind. He has a great sense of humor and loves to laugh at everyone's silly stories and jokes. Michael is a really hard worker. He has a learning disability so he has to work twice as hard as the rest of us to get through his school work. Michael started working out with the football team about two years ago, arriving at school for zero hour at 7am daily. He made me laugh when he'd bring home pithy comments and quotes from the weights coach, Coach K. Example: when talking about eating healthy foods, Coach K said, "if you eat crap, you're gonna look like crap!" Michael ended up being the equipment manager for the team instead of a player (he got tackled twice and that effectively ended his football career) and even earned a PC letter for his efforts! I'm really proud of Michael. He is on the tech team at church - pretty much the best visual presenter we've ever had. He's got a great instinct for running our Easy Worship slides. Michael also has a blog where he posts artwork and "reviews" of his favorite albums, songs and movies. He is the reason that I listen to  Relient K, Alkaline Trio, and other cool bands. I wish everyone could meet Michael. He is truly a gift from God!!

Michael and the Tanzania team visited a leper colony one day. Michael carried this baby around with him all day. When you have leprosy, no one touches you. That's probably the worst part of the disease, not being touched, hugged, loved on. This baby doesn't have leprosy yet, but leprosy typically takes up to 15 years to manifest itself. There is a cure for leprosy and the WHO is working to eradicate it worldwide.

Here's Michael all dressed up as the Chick-fil-a cow. He loved it!

Being equipment manager is a huge job, especially in the summer. He had to run water bottles out to the team constantly. By the way, #90 really is that big and tall!!

So Tired...

Must get some sleep. Romania trip was wonderful. The people. The food. The Hotel Magnus. E3 Partners.

Our team of 32 North Americans along with our talented translators, shared 1200+ Gospel presentations. 330+ first time professions of faith in Christ. I was really happy to be able to do follow up visits with brand new believers, encouraging them, praying for them. I sampled rose petal jelly, sweet-boiled walnuts, fresh fruit off of trees in courtyards we passed through.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I visited with a woman named Neculina. Well, I did a follow-up visit on Thursday. She said she had prayed and asked Jesus to be her Savior after we left on Wednesday. Then she read the Bible - Gospel of John - like I had asked her to. She now wanted me to talk to her husband. She woke him up from his afternoon nap and brought him outside. I talked to him for quite a while. He had a lot of questions and pushed back a lot on the whole salvation by faith alone (no works required for salvation). I gave him a Bible and a pair of reading glasses. Then I used those free gifts to explain to him the free gift of salvation. He finally got it. Prayed to receive Christ. We showed him how to read and study the Bible. He was extremely grateful. His name is Marin - 78 years old!

More later - I'm so tired...

WCW - Snapshots of Romania

Today is Watercooler Wednesday at Randy Elrod's Ethos blog. Join me and other imaginative bloggers around the watercooler for fun, enlightenment, and entertainment. Click HERE for Randy's post called "When Nature Screams."

My life is all about Missions right now. I'm in the CPC training process with e3 partners ministry. That means that I get to experience on-the-job-training on two separate mission trips. That, in addition to boot camp, will conclude my training process. So, if my blogging is infrequent in the next few months, it's because I'm struggling to find a decent internet connection somewhere in the world.

**Before you continue reading or move on to another blog, please leave a comment and answer these 2 simple questions: have you ever been on a mission trip? if you could go on a mission trip anywhere in the world, where would that be?**

OH YEAH, one more thing, I'd appreciate it a lot if you'd pray for our team from July 11-19. Click HERE for a printable prayer calendar. Thank you!!

I just finished packing for my first training trip. I leave Friday morning at 8am, heading to Romania. I will join the rest of our team at Dulles airport in Washington D.C. We should be in Bucharest at 1:40pm on Saturday. Then we'll board a bus and head north & east to Galati (pronounced Galatz). Alyssa and I went to Galati on our first e3 mission trip 3 years ago. I'm excited to be working with the same church, Emmanuel Christian Church. Check out their website. It's written in Romanian, however, there's a button to click that translates it to English! Pretty high-tech!!

I'm not so excited about the bus ride from Bucharest to Galati. The bus is comfortable enough, but we'll have to stop for dinner about half-way there. Last time, we stopped at "McDonalds." Everything was kinda similar and kinda not. More toward the "not" side.

Galati is located pretty much on the banks of the Danube River. Industrial shipping is a main economy for the area.

Here's a view of the Danube at night - I found this pic using Google - we were nowhere near the Danube after dark - e3 policy!!

An interesting component to our trip in 2005 and to my upcoming trip will be the mobile art team. Ted VanNatta is an artist who sets up his easel in various locations in the villages - near the town square, along a busy road, near a popular market, etc. He draws beautiful depictions of Bible stories while his other team members engage groups of bystanders in spiritual conversations.

Here's a typical afternoon discipleship meeting.
In 2007, the new church was able to build a brand new building and it was immediately filled to over-flow capacity!

Rwanda Stories - It All Adds Up

Dan (being a true engineer at heart) decided to work up some interesting numbers for me to post.

First and foremost:

• 1 true, living God drawing people unto Himself through the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ being proclaimed boldly in love...

In no particular order:

• 27 North American "missionaries"
• 5 states represented
• 28 Rwandan Ministry Partners
• 850 lbs of ministry materials crammed into:
• 16 additional suitcases (Evangecubes, tracts, clothes, crayons, bubbles, proclaimers)
• 3 lbs pancake mix, 144 slices pre-cooked bacon (breakfast food for two days in Kigali )
• 56 feet of laminated Creation posters
• 10,309 air miles each way
• 51-1/2 hours travel to get to Rwanda
• 35 hours travel to get home
• 288 Kinyarwanda Bibles
• 1800 beaded Gospel bracelets
• 1200 liters of drinking water
• 8 Mother Church Pastors
• 8 Mission Point Leaders
• 1 day ministering to 300 orphans in Celphar Orphanage
• 4 days in Ruhengeri at EER Guest House
• 344 Rwandan villagers whom we trained in evangelism and discipleship for the new churches
• 8 brand new churches planted
• 95 yr old man - oldest person to receive Christ
• 8960 Gospel presentations
• 3872 1st time professions of faith in Jesus
• 872 Follow-up discipleship visits
• 4 youth group/weekly Bible studies strengthened in 4 secondary schools (high school)
• 2000 secondary school students attended discipleship at schools daily with our youth teams teaching, preaching, encouraging, sharing life, discipling fellow students
• 600 dollars given to each mission point for roofs

It all adds up to 1 incredible, life-changing, e3 mission trip...the details are incredulous to look at - the numbers seem almost exaggerated and certainly out-of-proportion - that's because God's numbers are His work, His miracle, for His glory. We would love to have you join us on an upcoming trip!   We're heading to Burundi in August, Rwanda in January, and Burundi in March.Think about it. Pray about it. Then just do it!!

Rwanda Stories - In The Red

It seems that from every e3 mission trip I go on, a memorable theme emerges. This time, for me, it was all about God's provision. He is, after all, Jehovah-Jireh, God our Provider. He definitely intended for us to really know that about Him by the end of the week.

Before we left for Rwanda, we knew that our trip was over-budget by over $4000. This was mostly due to out-of-control airline costs which seemed to go up every day before we finally had funds from everyone to purchase them. Also, a few months after setting the final price for the trip, we found out that part of our budget needed to include leaving behind $600 per church site to assist with the cost of putting a roof on a new building. Great. Another $4800 in the red. Dan and I decided that we'd pull that amount out of his support account when we returned home. We were prepared for the trip to be even more in the red due to fluctuating prices and a lot of unknown expenses that we might incur. We knew that God would provide for our needs. He had already provided an incredible team of North Americans and Rwandan ministry partners. We'd had safe travel. All of our luggage arrived with us. These were all small miracles. Then God started to get really creative. He made Toyota Land Cruiser available for Dan to drive which meant that we could cram 6 team members in that vehicle with him and save over $2000 by not having to rent another van. He ended up spending $110 on fuel. That's quite a savings! Somehow, with God's provision, the budget ended up in the black AND we left that additional $4800 for roofs. That was a huge miracle!!  When God provides, He provides generously, abundantly, without holding back, and all for His glory!!

  More on God's provision in my next post...

Philippians 4:19 "You can be sure that God will take care of everything you need, his generosity exceeding even yours in the glory that pours from Jesus. Our God and Father abounds in glory that just pours out into eternity. Yes." THE MESSAGE BIBLE

Rwanda Stories - Sunday

Our E3 trip to Rwanda is an epic tale of God's faithfulness. God's plans were carried out according to His will and purposes. We were the message-bearers, the servants, the foot-washers, the encouragers, the hill-climbers, the disciple-makers, an eclectic team called together for 10 days of travel, ministry, partnership, and celebration! Each team member was a blessing to the team in various ways throughout the week. From words of encouragement to chocolate and popcorn, to cold medicine, to smiles, to hands clasped in unity, to utter silliness, to despair and fear, everything we brought to the table was ultimately for God's glory and to make His Name known to the Rwandans we encountered.

I was the leader of Team #1. This is a picture of Team #1's Mission Point church site. Our task for the week was relatively simple: share the Gospel with everyone we met while walking throughout the village, invite new Christians to a discipleship meeting in the afternoon, equip the new church with materials and resources to continue the ministry after our team is gone, and help to establish a brand new, baby church by the end of the week!!

The church plans to rent this site until God provides a way for them to buy the land and building...asking price is 1,000,000 rwandan francs - about $2000 US dollars. On Sunday morning, we worshipped at the Mother Church which was several miles away from here. On Sunday afternoon, our team met with the Mother Church Pastor (Charles) and the Missions Point Pastor-in-training (Jean Claude), along with a group of about 50 church members (from the Mother Church) at the Mission Point for a time of prayer walking. We walked over the entire site, praying that God would do a mighty work in this village during our four short days of sharing the Gospel and building His church. By the end of the first day, we were humbled and amazed to see how abundantly God began to answer our prayers!
My two team members, Rachel and Sara, along with their ministry partners Jane & Maureen, are telling the story of Creation and using a 7 ft wide laminated poster to share beautiful, bright pictures which show what God created each day!

More from Dan

24 March 2008

Monday, we did another Leadership Development Course (LDC) for a May campaign in Eastern Rwanda. Eastern Rwanda is called the New Homeland. It is cattle county and the national park. Most of its people were killed in the 1994 genocide. The national park was reduced to allow returning refuges a place to live when peace was established after the genocide.

The LDC is a course where church leaders and pastors gather for e3 Partners campaign training. The are trained in the use of the evangecube and the discipleship of the new believers. The churches that are the most ready for a campaign are those which train their new church leaders in the use of the evangelism - discipleship material, have denominational support, and have a plan for a church location (someone's home, land, building, etc. that will comply with local laws). After the evangecube training the leaders go out and practice for 45-minutes. At this LDC there were 80 church leaders and 145 people accepted Jesus during the 45-minute hands-on training. The church were the LDC is held is responsible for the follow up and discipleship of the new believers. The testimonies follow:

When one group of pastors entered a compound the family ran away. They thought the pastors were health inspectors. When the family heard that the pastors were there to share the story of Jesus they returned and invited their neighbors to hear about Jesus. Eleven people accepted Jesus at that home.

Another pastor went to the local, neighborhood which doctor and lead him to Jesus.

God has an on-going revival in Rwanda. Thank you for coming and joining it.

Attached are pictures of the food preparation for 200-people.

Letter from Dan

22 March 2008

Muraho (hello), Team Rwanda, just finished Leadership Development Course (LDC) with pastors in Nyabihu, Gisenyi, Rwanda. Ildephonse is the coordinating pastor (oh yeah try to say all these names). He is a voluntary e3 rwanda staff member and very well organized. Over 150 pastors and church leaders attended the conference.

During the evangelism workshop the pastors and church leaders went out into the streets to practice the evangecube. In 45-minutes 232 people accepted Jesus. One man experienced immediate life change. After he prayed to accept Jesus, he handed the pastor his pipe and "weed" saying, "I don't want to this anymore. This is sin."

The people are physically and spiritual hungry. The average person gets 1-meal every 3-days. We feed the pastors and church leaders lunch. Meal time was culturally shocking. The pastors went first and piled shredded chicken, rice, greens (?), sauce, and cows hoof (?) in their bowls like they hadn't eaten in, well, 3-days. When they were done the church leader men were invited to eat. They quickly grabbed the cleanest dirty dishes and attacked the food line. Then after all the men were full the women got their shot, mostly rice (None of the North Americans ate. We wanted the nationals to have all the food).

Heavy Suitcases

Dan left on Wednesday for Rwanda and Burundi. He's joining several other  e3 partners staff in conducting LDCs - Leadership Development Conferences - for upcoming church-planting trips this summer. Click HERE for prayer calendar for this trip. Click HERE for latest Team Berryman update!

This pic is of the stuff that didn't fit in his alloted 2 suitcases. He had to add a third bag in order to haul all the extra materials with him for the LDCs. 20 e-cubes, 400 laminated bookmarks, 100's of pens, nearly 7,000 pages of printed materials, proclaimers, mega-voices...he called me from Atlanta - his luggage weighed so much that they charged him an extra $150 - at least he'll be leaving most of that stuff in Africa!!

On a more frugal note, text messages are only .35 cents. Here's some of the cryptic text messages I've received so far.

• I have arrived in rwanda. I was met by mike & sidney. Brussels air is the best. Bags were wet from heavy rains in atlanta.
• Happy anniversary! 21.75 years, can you believe it?
• We are in ruhengeri at the guest house. LDC tomorrow. Then back to Kigali. I'm leaning how to make campaign successful.
• Halfway done with 1st ldc. Over 211 professions of faith with pastors practicing with ecube. Pastor Japhet is here.
• In Africa, the LORD is risen

Story behind photo #9

Friday was our last full day in Burundi. We finished all our evangelism and church planting activities late Thursday night with a celebration service and dinner at one of the mother churches. Friday, we met at the shores of Lake Tanganyika for a baptism service. It was planned by Bishop Independance and his team. I've got really great video footage and no way to upload it. Someday it will be posted here - as soon as I figure out how to change it from .mov to .mpeg4. Uh, yeah.

Anyway, there was a huge worship celebration going on when we arrived at the lake. There were rhythm instruments - big metal shakers and a big drum. And lots of voices singing praises to God. It was really glorious. Then a short message by Independance. Then the baptizing began. The singing never stopped, it only got louder and included lots of cheering as the newly baptized Christians came up out of the water then returned to the shore. Bouquets of flowers were handed out and those robes came right off and were handed to the next person waiting to be baptized. It was so great to join this celebration because it really brought home the fact that lifechange did happen in a big way during our time of ministry. Each person wearing a robe was witness to the fact that our God is Big. He's Huge. And He showed up and poured out His power and love and grace and blessing over Bujumbura, Burundi in a spectacular way. I look forward to how God will use this movement of spiritual awakening and revival to impact this city and the other cities and villages in Burundi. I've been invited to do a women's conference in Burundi. Not once, but twice by two totally different, unrelated people. I'm praying about that opportunity. That would really be a branching out experience for me.

After 4 trips to Africa in 10 months (Dan's been on 6 trips), I've got a lot to think about and pray about. My world has changed a lot. My life has been marked with permanent marker - I'm not the same person I used to be. And that's a good thing. The words of Romans 8:28 are not so vague and out of reach anymore. The tapestry that can be is starting to come into focus. Could it really be that personal and true - that God works ALL things together for good for those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose... 

Story behind picture #8

This is one of my favorite stories. Simon, my translator, is on the left. Odette is on the right. On Thursday, our last day of ministry, we set out to make every minute count because we had to be back at the church site by noon for our final discipleship meeting before the end of the campaign. We shared with many groups of people. Lots of people prayed to receive Christ. Time flew by. By the time we checked on the time, it was already noon. We started walking back to the church. Along the way we were stopped by a young man sitting in the shade on a street corner. He wanted to know what we were sharing with people. We shared the Gospel using the Evangecube. A crowd immediately gathered. Probably 30 people. When it came time to pray, the man who initiated the presentation walked away, not interested in praying to receive Christ. But a lot of other people did pray. By the end of the prayer another crowd had gathered so we shared again. More people prayed to receive Christ. Another crowd gathered. Still more prayed to receive Christ. I noticed a teenage girl in the crowd who was white. Then I realized she was albino. No pigment in her skin. Her face was sunburned bright red. She had yellow-white hair. She had a few brown freckles on her face. Her eyes were watery blue - very pale. I didn't take her picture because I thought she might feel uncomfortable and singled out. At the end of the third group presentation, a young woman, Odette, came up to Simon and asked for prayer for a difficult situation in her family. I couldn't hear her talking because there were a lot of people all around me. Simon and I prayed over her. He prayed in Kirundi, I prayed in English. We prayed out loud, fervently, for healing and restoration in her family situation. I prayed that God would use the situation in her life to bring glory to Himself, whether by healing or by giving her grace to endure the trial. We probably prayed for 5 minutes. At the end of the prayer, we again headed back to the church. Odette came with us. She wanted to see where the church was. We stopped one more time along the main road. A shopkeeper called us over and asked us to share with him. Another crowd gathered then a bus dropped off a large group of high school students - they all stayed to listen. I'm telling you, God takes care of providing the people to listen - they show up from out of seemingly nowhere! Anyways, we finally made it back to the church. We worshipped and prayed and encouraged the new church members. Then Pastor Hurbert asked for testimonies. Odette stepped forward to share her testimony. She explained her family situation. Evidently, her husband had attempted to strangle her. She survived but was unable to speak. She had permanent damage to her vocal chords. She went to several doctors. None of them could help her. She was told she would never be able to speak above a whisper. She reported that while we were praying for her, God healed her throat. That's why she was able to share her testimony with the church with her full voice. That's why she wanted to follow us to the church - she couldn't wait to be a part of this new church! It was an amazing miracle of God!! I pray that God will use her testimony of healing to bring glory to Himself and that He will make Himself known to many others because of this miracle!

Story behind picture #7

These kids made me smile. I spent at least 30 minutes sharing the Gospel with a man and his family and a friend inside their courtyard (see pictures below). They had a surprisingly nice home. They had water from a pump in their courtyard. They had a concrete floor in the house. I saw a cushioned chair inside and a nice wood cabinet against one wall with dishes stacked in it. There was a big iron gate to give us a little bit of privacy. The kids all knew not to come in until they were invited. And they weren't invited in until I was done sharing. Then they came streaming in excitedly.
They saw my camera and started pointing and smiling and pushing their way to the front. I managed to snap some pretty big smiles I think. I never ran into a shortage of smiles in Burundi. And each time I showed the picture screen to the kids (and the adults too for that matter), they just went wild with joy! It's like our kids who find great joy in playing with the box the toy came in at Christmas time - these kids never got tired of me taking their picture and showing it to them!

The house with the courtyard belonged to this man. His name was interesting but I forgot to write it down. He prayed to receive Christ. So did his wife and his friend. He asked a lot of great questions. When we were done sharing with him, I gave him an Evangecube. I really felt like he was someone who would use his influence to share his faith with others.

Here's his wife and their youngest child. I saw a few more kids in the courtyard and house that I'm pretty sure belonged to him, but they sort of got mixed into the crowd.  One more picture...

I had to include this picture. This man also prayed to receive Christ in the courtyard that day. I tried to discreetly take a picture of his t-shirt. If you look closely it says Black Mt. Brewery Beer Drinking Team. At the bottom of the shirt it says Cave Creek, Arizona. The middle of the shirt shows a picture of a beer mug, full of frosty beer with lots of foam on top. In the middle of the mug it says "The Satisfied Frog." By now, those of you familiar with Cave Creek might be mildly amused that this t-shirt somehow made its way to Africa. The school that I taught at last year was located in Cave Creek, practically inches away from The Satisfied Frog! This man didn't speak one word of English. It is so random that someone would donate this shirt and that it would end up in a small neighborhood near Bujumbura, Burundi, Africa! Small world, don't you think???

Story behind picture #6

I love this little girl. I'll tell you why in just a minute. Part of the cost of our trips is in-town transportation. We usually assign 2 teams per van. Let me just say for the record: "Toyota makes an incredibly tough van!" We've rented these same vans in Rwanda and Kenya. They appear to be indestructible - they're not much too look at, though! The seats in our van were all rotted away - most of them were down to just the bare foam cushion which looked all chewed up. The van creaked and groaned and shuddered. But I'm telling you - these vans go right through deep mud like it's nothing. They also manage to maintain speeds of 80 mph while dodging traffic, passing slower cars on 2 lane roads, swerving around pedestrians, bicycle taxis, motorbikes, and goats! Every day our team got dropped off first. Then at the end of the day we waited for the other team to come back and pick us up in the afternoon. On Wednesday, the van came to pick us up without the other team. We got to go on a road trip to the other team's church site. We careened through the city streets then turned right on a 1 lane road with 2 way traffic along with all the usual street traffic. Oh, it was market day so there were tons of little mom & pop shops lining the road as well. I think we hit every pothole with all 4 wheels. The seats in the van are high off the ground so you can fit your luggage under the seat - that means tall people like Dan get their head bumped repeatedly. When we finally stopped in front of the other church site, we were pretty rattled. We settled in to wait for the other team. Dan looked a little bit green. He closed his eyes and was kind of dozing off. I was sitting in the very back seat. At least 50 kids swarmed around the van. They all were waving and smiling and trying to talk to us in broken English. They are taught some English in school. They all can say, "what is your name," "what is your country," "how are you," "my name is..." It was pretty fun to talk to them and see their response. Dan, meanwhile managed to fall asleep. The kids kept trying to get his attention, but he was out. A few kids started laughing and singing a song that included umuzungu (white person) in the lyrics. The girl in this picture was very inquisitive and friendly. She seemed very intelligent. I think her name was Alene. After she exhausted her English phrases, she started talking to me in Kirundi. Simon translated for me. Alene told me I was beautiful. Those simple words made me feel not so tired. And made me realize, again, the power of words of affirmation! She made my day.   

Story behind picture #5

Our church plant was part of The Church of God denomination. We called our church "Avocado Church" because it meets under this avocado tree. They leased this little piece of land for 1 week while we were in town. When the owners of the land saw that North Americans were helping with the church, they upped the price to $35 per month which is beyond the reach of the brand new little church. Before we left town, they had secured a school to rent instead which we felt was a wise decision. The school is only $25 to rent and it includes chairs and with all the rain they have it will be nice to have a roof over their heads. Simon was my translator all week. He's on the far left. He's married and has two adorable kids. Pastor Nathaniel has the wild print shirt on. He's the mother church Pastor. Pastor Hurbert is kneeling down in front. He's the new church Pastor. To Dan's left is Pierre. He was Dan's translator. He's a Nazarene pastor. He loved the work we did all week, so much so, that he's praying about leaving the Nazarene church so that he can start planting churches! The other two guys are Burundi nationals. They knew the neighborhoods and were able to introduce us to people. They also were well trained on the using the Evangecube and when the crowd around us would grow too large for everyone to hear and see, they would pull a group of people around themselves and start a separate presentation. Together we were a great team!

Story behind picture #4

I don't know this little girl's name. I saw her every day at our new church site. You start to recognize people not so much by what they look like, but by what they're wearing, since they tend to wear the same thing many days in a row. She's wearing two of my favorite colors and I couldn't resist capturing her beautiful smile. There are lots of kids in Burundi. Many are able to go to school. Many others can't afford to go to school. So they stay home and help their mom take care of the other children and work in the fields. It wouldn't be uncommon for a young girl, just like this one, to have an infant strapped to her back all day long and be the primary caregiver while her mom is busy working in the fields or running a business. In spite of the challenges, every child whose picture I took had a brilliant smile and child-like joy when I showed them their picture on the screen. They giggled and laughed and pointed and touched the picture on the screen. Taking pictures is something that I've never been great at. I'm usually digging in my purse for my Kodak while the perfect picture moment whizzes by. This time, since I knew I'd be blogging about the photos, I took pictures with great purpose and surprise, surprise, most of the pics came out pretty good!

Story behind picture #3

Our church site was located right off the main road through town - lots of mom and pop shops lined the same street. We saw welding businesses, little stands where women were roasting fresh corn on the cob, bike repair shops, bike washes, barbers, tailors, etc. We saw a couple of different places where there were piles of white, vegetable-looking objects being peeled and then dried on big blankets. The next step in processing these "vegetables" is to grind them up into flour. Then the flour is weighed and measured carefully into plastic bags which are then sold. The people make bread out of this flour. I found out the name of the "vegetable" is "cassava." We actually saw this same flour in Rwanda. Anyway, the young man in the middle with the white vest on - he prayed to receive Christ on Tuesday. I believe his name is Pierre. I kept running into Pierre each day - sometimes he was covered in white flour from head to toe! This isn't the greatest picture, but you can see a little bit of white dust on his cheeks and arms. Here's the dictionary definition of cas·sa·va (kə-sä'və)

n.  In both senses also called manioc, yuca.

1. A shrubby tropical American plant (Manihot esculenta) widely grown for its large, tuberous, starchy roots.
2. The root of this plant, eaten as a staple food in the tropics only after leaching and drying to remove cyanide. Cassava starch is also the source of tapioca.

Story behind picture #2

This is Gertrude. She operates a small fruit & vegetable stand right along the main paved road. We met her first thing on Wednesday morning. I should explain about our method of evangelizing the area. Each day, our team (Dan, Marina, 2 translators, 2 pastors, numerous local Christians) would meet at the proposed church site (under an avocado tree, facing the main road). We would split up into teams of three. My team always included Simon, my translator, and 1 other national. We'd then choose an area to totally saturate with the Gospel presentation. On this particular day, we headed to the lake side of the road. Our turn-off was at a dirt road in between some fruit stands and a bicycle washing station. We decided to stop at the fruit stands. One was manned by an older woman - probably in her late 60's, early 70's. The young woman at the stand next to her was named Gertrude. They both shook our hands and allowed us to share with them. As usual, a crowd quickly gathered around us to see what was going on. I introduced myself and started sharing about the love of God, using my Evangecube. The older woman listened for about 2 minutes then got up and left. Not at all interested. Gertrude, however, listened intently. The crowd kept growing larger - probably 50-75 people kept pressing in and listening. When I asked people to pray for salvation, many people in the crowd prayed out loud, including Gertrude. She had tears in her eyes and seemed to genuinely grasp the free gift of salvation through Christ. The guys on our team started writing down names of people who had prayed with us. Simon shared a discipleship lesson then prayed a prayer of blessing on everyone. I felt compelled to talk individually to Gertrude. She agreed to walk a little way away from her fruit stand. I encouraged her to grow strong in her faith. I gave her some little tracts to read. I urged her to share them with the older woman next to her and with anyone who would listen. I told her that she was an influencer and could make a difference in people's lives by sharing her faith. We then went on with the rest of our day. We had many people pray to receive Christ and shared with over 150 people. At the end of the day, we passed by Gertrude's fruit stand again. I asked her if I could take her picture. She agreed. I showed her the picture on the camera screen. She was surprised, I think, by her image. Most of the Africans I've met in Burundi and Rwanda don't own mirrors and really have no idea what they look like. I think she is beautiful and I pray that God would use her to impact His kingdom. Pray for Gertrude, that her faith would grow strong and that her business would be blessed and that she would have many opportunities to share her faith with others.

Story behind picture #1

This was my fourth trip to Africa. Each time, I am amazed and grateful for the kids that follow us around and listen over and over again to the Gospel presentation. A lot of times they pray out loud with us. And then they pray out loud again at the next presentation. And the next one and the one after that. I hope that they are sincere in praying to receive Christ. The kids in this picture live in a more upscale neighborhood. Some of the houses actually had a concrete floor. Others had a water pump in their courtyard. I was trying to discreetly take a picture of the boy in the center with the red shirt on. He was rolling his homemade toy along the ground as he walked. I looked closely at the toy. The long handle is a skinny tree branch that's relatively straight. A large, round, plastic lid, maybe from a large paint can or bucket is the wheel. It is attached to the branch with an extremely long nail. You can sort of see the nail sticking out on the left side. Kids in all countries have a way of taking ordinary objects and creating ingenious playthings. As I was trying to show the boy how to stand so that I could get a good picture of his toy, all these other kids came running over and wanted to be in the picture. So, instead of zooming in on the toy, I captured the enthusiasm of the moment! Pray for the kids in Burundi. They are hungry both physically and spiritually. We saw a lot of UN vehicles in and around the city. Saw a huge warehouse that said "World Food Programme" on it, yet we encountered numerous people who told us they were very hungry. It was very sobering.

Baptism in the Lake

Today is Friday. We were all invited to attend a baptism service for those who prayed to receive Christ this week who are a part of Bishop Independance's new church plant. It was an amazing, unforgettable experience. It is difficult to describe the sights and sounds and smells. Having baptism at the lake is definitely multi-sensory, let alone multi-cultural! We all lined up at the water's edge. Those being baptized put on white robes. There were several from our team who were assisting Independance with the baptizing - Auzelio, Jim, Troy, Mike. After a time of worship, a short message by Independance, and prayer, the baptizers waded out about 50 yds from shore. Then those being baptized joined them in groups of five. As each one was dunked then brought up out of the water, there was a lot of cheering and celebration from the crowd. The baptizees (?) would be greeted with hugs and cheering and big bouquets of wild flowers. All during the baptism time, the crowd was singing songs over and over again, accompanied only by a non-stop drum beat. These Burundi drummers are tireless! When the last Burundi had been baptized, much to our surprise, Joan, one of our team members from Orlando, waded out into the water and asked Auzelio to baptize her. Evidently, she was baptized as a child and had never been re-baptized to symbolize her own personal faith in Christ. And as it turns out, after sharing the Gospel daily, multiple times, she realized that she had never personally prayed to receive Christ as her Savior. So Auzelio prayed with her to receive Christ, then he baptized her - talk about a powerful moment! It was definitely an over-the-top experience. I promise I'll have video uploaded as soon as I get back to the U.S. - you'll want to see the celebration!

Sunday worship services

Today each team met for worship at the Mother churches - the churches that will be planting or "birthing" a new church this week. We went with Bishop Bosco to a Church of God. The service lasted nearly 3 hours. It was amazing. We sang songs with the worship team. We DANCED our way through a 10 minute song - definitely an aerobic workout. The choir led worship on several songs. People were called forward if they wanted prayer for salvation. People were called forward if they needed prayer for healing. They took up two offerings - one for tithes, one for the brand new church being planted. Bosco preached his heart out - since he's a Bishop, he's more of an overseer of many churches so to have him preach there today was a treat for the congregation and for us!!

We are still waiting for some luggage to arrive. Dan's missing his clothes and all our food for lunches. Ray & Mary were missing all their luggage but two of their bags arrived this morning on the 1 daily flight from Nairobi - (Bujumbura isn't a hot destination yet) - a guy named Dee is missing all his luggage. He's surviving on borrowed clothes and snacks. I don't even want to speculate about socks and underwear...

Tonight, Dan and I and Ray and Mary and Mike Talley will attend the Presidential prayer and worship service at the President's home. I'm really looking forward to it. The last time Dan was in Burundi, he attended the service and said it was really great. Later this week, Herve's parents have invited us to dinner at their home. And possibly Tuesday evening Dan and I will visit Independence's church. He still wants me to come speak at a women's conference at his church. We'll see about that!

Testing, Testing, 123

Blogging live from London's Heathrow Airport. Testing out our technology capabilities. Cell phone is working. Camera is working. Internet is working. I do believe I'll be able to blog regularly while in Burundi. My goal is daily. I'll really try!

Sitting here chatting with Mike Talley, Steve, Liz, and Carol, just part of our North American team going to Burundi. We had a lot of delays getting here. We were supposed to leave Phx at 3pm. We left after 4. Landed in Chicago. Rushed over to our London flight. It was pushed back 2 hours. Our plane would have been 1/2 full, however, 2 other London flights were cancelled earlier in the day so we ended up taking on all those passengers and we had to wait for the catering company to stock the plane with more food. We then sat on the runway waiting to leave along with all the other delayed planes (due to weather). Then there was a medical emergency and EMT's were called in to assist a passenger. We left after 2 hours on the runway. So, now we're in London, waiting to board Kenya Airways, heading to Nairobi. We'll then transfer to one final plane to fly into Bujumbura. We are all very excited about what God will do this week in Burundi. We can't wait to work together, worship together, share stories together, laugh together, and celebrate God's incredible outpouring of grace together!!

BTW, Starbucks in London doesn't have Iced Tea Lemonade. They don't even have any fruit flavored syrups. In fact, I don't even think they have iced tea. Only hot tea. And hot chocolate. I went with the latter. Made me thirstier. Oh well. I'll go buy an $8 bottle of water now!

Packing for Burundi

We put the tree away last week. In its place, we've put 4 large suitcases. It's time to start packing for Burundi! Dan and I leave on January 17. My clothes are already packed. I've got a comprehensive packing list sent to me by a seasoned E3 campaigner named Ky whom I met on our last Rwanda campaign. Ky is my hero. If he went on Survivor, he would win.

You can see that Dan has already been working hard on packing the essentials for his trip. M & M's. Tins of butter cookies. Spare pair of underwear.

Click HERE for our Prayer Calendar for this trip. The trip leader is Mike Talley. This trip is Dan's final training trip with E3. After this, assuming he is able to complete the tasks competently, he will be an official full-time E3 Church Planter! No word yet on when my E3 training trips will begin. I anticipate an extremely busy year of music ministry at FNC, combined with at least 2 trips to Africa along with 2 training trips!

Featured Video - Kenya/Rwanda - June '07

Enjoy this video which includes mostly our Kenya trip with a couple of clips of Rwanda mixed in!

The Africans dressed in mostly red are part of the Maasai tribe. They are the cattle owners/herders in Kenya. They are nomadic and still follow ancient tribal customs such as drinking cow's blood. Yuck. They also live in extremely short huts made from dried mud and manure. The Maasai women traditionally build the homes. They are not very tall so they only build the houses as tall as they can reach. Ironically, Maasai men are extremely tall, so they have to hunch way over in in order to move about in their homes. We were blessed to be able to meet with a group of Christian Maasai. We worshiped with them and they let us look inside their homes and allowed us to take pictures of them.

From 53 seconds to 57 seconds, you'll see the green hills of Rwanda. Then from 1:03 to 1:08 you'll catch just a 5 second glimpse of some children in Rwanda.