Category: General
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Martha’s Imminent Death in Burundi…
She’s been used to see thousands come to Christ, but she’s dying… Most weekends, you’ll find us (Scripture Union) with teams around the country, going into schools, getting churches together, and showing the Jesus film to thousands. I love it that in any one weekend we can share the gospel with up to 5,000 people,…
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Choose Life!
“I loved it so much, I got it for all my grandchildren!” “I’ve given it away to fifty people so far!” “I conduct an orchestra and have given one to every member!” This is just a quick plug for Christmas gifts for loved-ones. I love hearing how people have been impacted by the daily devotional-of-the-year…
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The Burundi Adventure Coming to an End…
All good things come to an end. It’s been an emotional few weeks as we’ve dealt with a child who is deeply unhappy at school, and realizing that our time as a family needs to come to a close in Burundi for educational reasons. We’d planned to leave in 2019, twenty years after I initially…
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Being a Duck for Christ to the Nations…
The Dead Sea is dead because water runs into it, but doesn’t run out of it. That’s not to say, in any way, that the Burundian Church is dead – far far from it – but in terms of cross-cultural mission to the nations, it has received for a long time within Burundi without taking…
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A Day in the Life… Being a Disciplined Discipling Disciple
I often get asked: “What does a day in Burundi look like for you?” And it’s difficult to answer because my days include a huge range of activities; but at this stage of life, this is the framework I’m trying to implement. What my work actually entails is beyond the scope of this blog. I’m…
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Action Stations Please!
5mins of your time could help this take-off and be a HUGE blessing to Burundi. Most of you know about our amazing cow project with BBAC (Burundi Bio-Agricultural Communities), lifting c400 families out of poverty with lots of other benefits in the mix. Well, it could be about to go up a gear or two……
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A New Hospital, an MBE, Leadership Handover, and More…!
The last three days have been truly memorable: on Friday we had the official ceremony for the launching of the building of a hospital. On Saturday it was a huge televised first graduation of GIA students, and Lizzie and I were awarded MBEs. On Sunday, we celebrated the extraordinary 17 years of YFC’s growth, a…
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Identity and Immediacy
This blog is by a mate of mine, Samuel Johns. On our tough cycle ride recently around Rwanda, we talked about the effect of Facebook and such like, and I asked him to share some thoughts, which I found challenging/disturbing/fascinating and more. I’m interested in what you make of them too. Over to Sam: A…
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Reversing the Death Sentence in Burundi…
If you get cancer in Burundi, you die (unless you can find and and then pay for one of the few surgeons in the country to surgically remove it in its entirety before it spreads). There is no other treatment. There has never been any other treatment. Chemotherapy and radiation are alien concepts, unless you are rich…
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Connecting Wins…
I love a win/win. I’m always on the lookout for them. This week a young man came to me. He’s obviously a leader because he’s stumbled into heading up this movement of artists intent on using their creativity to reach the unchurched. He doesn’t want to start an organization, seeing it more as a…
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Get Ready, Live Ready!
This article recently appeared here for the Evangelical Alliance. Once I was preaching near the Congolese border. My sermon text was Matthew 25 – the parable of the ten maidservants. Those ten all had a role to play at the wedding, but five of them didn’t have enough oil in their lamps. It’s a…
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Burundi-Rwanda-Uganda Return…
Excuse the radio silence on this blog. We’ve had to transfer it across to WordPress and iron out a few glitches, which took a couple of months. A number of you have asked for some news, so I’ll do a ‘different’ kind of blog and just share with you a little summary of our family…
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Bonding with my Ancestors…
Sometimes I amaze myself even at my own idiocy. Over the years, I’ve taken literally hundreds of visitors to Musée Vivant, Bujumbura’s interactive zoo – so often that I’m an honorary member of staff, and never have to pay. Most visitors love it, others hate it. We get to hold pythons that slowly start constricting…
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The Pain of Desire…
Below are some mind-blowing notes including a couple of edited entries from my Choose Life devotional. If you read them slowly and chew the cud, rehashing and mulling over the contents, maybe it’ll be literally life-transforming. If you simply flit through and then go back to Facebook or answering emails, you’ll have stumbled over and…
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Lessons on De-Christianising Jesus…
I’ve just read a fascinating article from Christianity Today. It’s hugely encouraging to hear what is taking place in India. I love having my preconceptions and orthodoxies challenged too. The article’s long, so I’ll just include two sections below. One because it’s such an intriguing contextualizing of the gospel, the other because it’s simply so…