Simon Guillebaud

Hi gang! Below are my/our summer plans, just keeping you in the loop in case you want to come along: 21st June – arrive back from Burundi 22nd June – Rosemary’s 80th birthday 25th June – Men’s breakfast at St Luke’s, Wimbledon Park 26th June – 1030am St Paul’s Catholic College, Burgess Hill, then 3 Counties Church Haslemere at 7pm 27th June – ANCC, Kick Off 28th June – KCC youth, Hedge End 30th June – Isle of Wight, 730pm in Newport 1st – Sunday 3rd July – annual mates’ weekend 3rd July – 2 morning services at Sunnyside Berkamstead, […]

Hi folks! I’m not sure what’s going on with the blog, but you were sent one from last February yesterday, and the previous one came through twice. Sorry about that. Trying to work out the glitches. Have a great day! Simon 

10 riders, 3 support crew, 800km, 48,000 feet of climbs in 7 days. Those stats don’t do justice to what was simply an incredible week on what was the fourth annual GLO cycling tour. Due to the insecurity in Burundi, we had to do it in Rwanda instead. I was sad about that, because I wanted to expose the lads to Burundi and her amazing people, but Rwanda’s hills and our chosen route proved a significant step up in challenge. In fact, Geoff, who’s now done the tour in both countries, said this week was twice as hard as back […]

The longer I am involved in work in Burundi, the more strategic I see the role of education is. Education is crucial to seeing Burundi transformed, and sadly the old style of learning by rote as taught in the vast majority of schools (with class sizes sometimes over a hundred) simply cannot produce critical thinkers who can creatively contribute to the economy and society as a whole. In 2008, a kindergarten started across town from us with an intake of 80 little children. It was of such high quality that the parents begged my friends Jesse and Joy Johnson to […]

If you follow our movements closely, you’ll know that we’ve been through some pretty challenging times recently, and sometimes there is more bad than good news. So I wanted to write a little about a friend of mine called Francois, who is as inspiring as it gets. Here are a few stories from his life: He became a follower of Jesus in his teens and he just wouldn’t shut up at school about his newfound faith. He preached all the time – in lunch breaks in the open-air – and lots of staff and students came to listen to him. […]

It was what was written on Francine’s T-shirt that grabbed my attention. It simply couldn’t be more inappropriate, of course, because here she was, languishing with about eight hundred other impoverished displaced people in the most miserable of conditions. Lots of worry, little happiness.  Just over two years ago there was terrible flooding on the outskirts of Bujumbura, during which more than 130 people died. Over four thousand houses disappeared in a few hours, some of them literally without any remaining trace. Francine was one of those caught up in that time, after which she and these other precious folk […]

I’ve asked one of my Burundian soul-mates who is having an amazing impact in the nation to share with you from his perspective some of what we are up to these days. Over to him: “Since the current crisis began in Burundi about a year ago, Simon asked me to head up and coordinate what we decided to call ‘Christian Initiatives for Peace.’ As GLO partners over the last number of years, we have met monthly to encourage and sharpen each other. Simon’s vision for GLO was to create a tight informal relational network of passionate local leaders, all of […]

Below is a fantastic story of perseverance under relentless trial. I’ve lived it alongside Jeremy, with whom I meet weekly for breakfast to talk and encourage each other. I love what he has done, is doing, and will do, alongside his precious family and devoted team at The King’s School. My favorite image of this challenging time was when oral exams were taking place to the sounds of gunfire up the street – at all costs the show must go on! Be stirred and inspired. Jeremy writes:   Why  Bother? Burundi’s now, apparently, the poorest, hungriest and most unhappy country […]

I turned 43-years-old today, which provides a natural chance to look backwards as well as forwards. Birthday lunch en famille at Cafe GourmandAs I review this last year, it feels somewhat schizophrenic.I have a wonderful life in Burundi. It is incredibly challenging, exciting, and fulfilling. Our marriage is strong, the children are thriving, we are all healthy.  Amidst great upheaval, we experienced God’s stunning intervention and faithfulness. As the crisis loomed last April, Josiah’s accidental inhaling of a kernel of popcorn into his lung meant the family left the country because he needed an operation that couldn’t be carried out […]

Burundi has nearly doubled in size since I arrived here in 1999. Clearly, that’s incorrect, but I make that absurd statement to highlight the horrific implications of the undeniable fact that whilst Burundi’s landmass has not changed in the last 17 years, it’s population has indeed nearly doubled. It was 6 million back then, and now it is approximately 10.5 million. That, in a nutshell, is Burundi’s elephant in the room. That has a lot to do with why we are the hungriest country in the world. That is a major reason we are experiencing instability. The average fertility rate […]

Some images don’t require a thousand words. Burundi has the highest malnutrition rate in the world. We were officially the hungriest country even before this crisis kicked in. I was at a bush hospital two weeks ago and heard from the doctor there that the already atrocious situation had spiked even more in recent months. Below, with permission, is a picture that rocks my world – all the more so as a father imagining my children not being able to eat. Taken at the hospital by my friend, this is her well-fed daughter, Alma. She is 4-years-old. Guess how old is […]

Maybe you’ll think less of me by the end of this stream of consciousness, but I wanted to get down on paper how I feel right now, not when I have calmed down. I love Burundi. In the past I thought I’d die here, taking crazy risks in the last war as a single man. I still think I’m willing to die for Burundi, although it’s a bit more complicated with a wife and three precious little children. Hmm… I’m all about Burundi, I love Burundi… but I hate Burundi too.  I hate what happened literally a minute before starting […]

Genesis 4:10  And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.” Yesterday saw five grenades go off in town. Lizzie and a friend were due to buy fabric at the market where a child was blown up. I gave a talk a few hundred yards away shortly after the explosions, and things were back to normal by the time I arrived, but of course the new normal is an absurdity.   Why oh why all this senseless killing…? It’s hard to know what to write. It is simply soul-destroying to watch […]

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!  I have been deluged, accosted, and inundated with folks in the last few weeks expressing gratitude for giving them a Christmas gift so that they could have a fun day of celebration in the midst of what is a very dark time in Burundi.  I hope you can catch some of the joy in this brief video of Ephraim and his family, including little 3-year-old Milcah who has been traumatised by the regular shooting such that she wets herself at each round of gunfire. The family’s hanging in there in a tough neighbourhood and they […]

That’s a cryptic title! What do I mean? I’ve just had an inspiring ‘Christian Initiatives for Peace’ meeting where we’ve analysed the impact of our media campaign over the last seven months. We can see that it has made a huge – but hard to quantify – impact on many people’s lives. Some people are definitely still alive today who without seeing or listening to our TV or radio programs would have made destructive choices and ended up dead. One simple example straight off: Charles had decided to kill his family members. Before doing it, he listened to the radio, […]

On Monday, we fly back to Burundi. All of us. Simon, Lizzie, Zac (10), Grace (8) and Josiah (6). Burundi is in a terrible state. It’s hard to see, humanly-speaking, how things are going to improve. But we believe in the God of the impossible, and Burundi is our home. We want to be with our friends and colleagues and go through these dark times together. Some, maybe many, think we’re irresponsible and foolish, however this comes on the back of a lot of heart-wrenching prayer and seeking God for His guidance, and both Lizzie and the kids also want […]

Our traumatised children don’t understand what is going on. The shootings continue. Christmas has always been the one time of year they hope for a piece of chocolate and some meat, maybe even a new pair of shoes. Times are harder than ever right now. As a father, I long to give them some joy, but we simply can’t afford to even eat enough each day. As you’ve helped in the past, could you help us again? We’re so grateful to you and GLO for being such a blessing. Can we hope for the same this year as in previous […]

  We’ve started packing today, as we prepare to head back to Burundi. We took our decision last Friday, having set aside the previous week to pray and seek guidance. I asked for a sign that last day, and had an amazing random (coincidence/God-incidence) meeting on Southampton common as I walked, which provided the confirmation I’d asked for. Yet little did we know that at that very moment at least 87 people (other sources claim into the hundreds) were being killed in what was Burundi’s darkest day for a long time. News trickled in slowly. Three separate attacks had been […]

A few weeks ago I came across this great quote by C.S.Lewis: “For the Christian there are strictly speaking no chances. A secret master-of-ceremonies has always already been at work. The same Lord who said to the disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” – that same Lord says to every group of Christian friends: ‘You did not choose each other, but I have chosen you for each other.’ And the friendship is not a reward for our taste and discrimination in seeking each other out. The friendship is the instrument by which God reveals to each […]

I address this as a naturalized Burundian (ego, nararonse karangamuntu na passeport haheze imyaka ibiri ndabifise) to my fellow Burundians. The situation in Burundi is alarming. There’s no doubt about that. When the President of the Senate made his infamous pronouncement a few weeks ago, alarm bells began ringing at fever pitch, and social media exploded with suggestions that genocide was imminent. You remember he said: “On this issue, you have to pulverize, you have to exterminate – these people are only good for dying. I give you this order, go!” He used the word ‘gukora’, ‘to work’, which was […]