Category: General

Today was a great day. I got up at 5am and jogged to the pool up the hill, expecting to do a swim and then get to the office, but somewhere towards the end of it, I must have taken a wrong turn, because eight hours later, I finished a half-ironman (of sorts). I realized that I didn’t have any meetings, that the weather was perfect in its cloudiness, and so I could defer all emails and other work until later in the day. So I did an hour in the pool, slowly, as I’m recovering from a shoulder injury, […]

I had a very fruitful but frustrating meeting yesterday. It was fruitful because I secured a great house for two new team-members who are arriving in a couple of weeks, but it was frustrating because of part of my conversation with the delightful landlady. As we signed contracts, I said: “I think you can be confident with the ladies taking on your house. They’re both solid believers.” (In Burundi, probably 85% of the population would say they were Christians at a cultural level, but if you’re a real believer – born again, if you like – then you’d use the […]

Zeal – The Thoughts of J.C. Ryle The following are excellent excerpts from “Zeal” by J.C. Ryle [1816-1900] from his book Practical Religion: Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing Christians. (London: William Hunt and Company, 1883) “It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing.” — Galatians 4:18 …. (p. 184) Zeal in religion is a burning desire to please God, to do His will, and to advance His glory in the world in every possible way.  It is a desire which is not natural to man.  It is a […]

“Utabesha ntasumira umwana.” This Kirundi proverb – and as you know, proverbs shape and reflect a given culture – could be translated as: “If you don’t lie, you won’t feed your kids.” (literally ‘He who doesn’t lie won’t take his child to market.’) There are some beautiful aspects and some darker aspects of any and every culture. In Burundi, this is one of the darker ones. Lying, deception, and stealing are all very normal, accepted as a given, and sometimes even respected attributes. Today I bumped into our conference centre’s ex head-chef. We’d sent him to South Africa for 5-star […]

I wish you could have been there. I’ve just returned from a great trip upcountry with the Scripture Union team, where we met with the leadership of twenty schools, showed two films, did an open-air campaign, and then on Sunday went to another school. There’s loads I could share. We ministered to about 5,000 people in total, with amazing results. My stomach isn’t quite right as we stayed in a nasty ‘hotel’ eating nasty food – it’s all part of the deal! Anyways, here’s sharing just a few minutes of the trip with you. Picture it: forks of lightning blazing […]

  Annick needed surgery urgently. Her serious heart condition meant she’d been given one year to live, had had two mini-strokes, and had been rushed to hospital temporarily paralysed. There was no way to be treated in Burundi. Her husband Cyrille’s salary couldn’t possibly pay for the recommended treatment in India, which was about ($12,000). It didn’t look good for her, and Cyrille faced the prospect of being a young widower. But amongst a significant number of wonderful people and remarkable provision, two ladies have literally been life-savers. Cheryl Law, our GLO Administrator, had the brainwave to read the National […]

This last weekend, the SU team went up into the bush on outreach. We trained a whole bunch of young leaders and had a large inter-school meeting as well, showing a few films both nights. And then Sunday morning we drove further towards the Tanzanian border to my old friend Pastor Juvenal’s church. I was last there six years ago, and in place of the mud-brick structure from back then, there was now an almost completed strongly-built church that could fit 1,500 people. Not that I get overly excited by buildings, but it did represent the fact that Juvenal is […]

Here’s how the first two hours of each day go for me: I’m a terrible sleeper, so invariably I’m awake by 4am. I get up at 5am, read the Bible until 530am, and then wake up Lizzie before leaving the house to go for a jog and a swim. I creep out, trying not to wake up the kids. It’s still pitch black, so I vary my routes up the hill through our neighborhood’s various side streets, in case someone unpleasant might plan one time to mug me, thinking I might provide some easy pickings – but what could they […]

Psalm 105:44 – “He gave them the lands of the nations, and they fell heir to what others had toiled for.” The immediate context of this verse was the exodus, but it’s made me reflect on how we’re reaping much today from our forebears’ dedicated and dogged labours of yesteryear. Our work is stunningly beautiful and fruitful, but only because other previous generation ploughed some rough terrain. I think of the early Anglican pioneers, who included my great-grandparents, who came out at huge personal sacrifice, to offer up their lives in laying the foundation for the Church in Burundi. Many […]

Do you want the good news first, or the great news? I’ll start with the good news: in response to last week’s story of amazing forgiveness, many of you donated and John has received enough money to build the house he and his wife and five little kids were about to be evicted from. He wrote to me in floods of tears of gratitude, totally overwhelmed by God’s faithfulness. That’s good news! And now the great news: I said I’d feedback on the summer campaign outreach. You’ve already heard some of the miracles. Here are the stats: 506 evangelists split […]

Lots of people ask me what a typical day is like in Burundi. People find it hard to imagine what I really do! Well, the answer is that there is no typical day. Every day is beautifully varied because life is so unpredictable out here. But below is how today went, which gives a flavour of what life looks like for that strange specimen called Simon Guillebaud! Here goes: Grace called out in the early hours, so I scurried to take her to the loo before the others were stirred from their slumber. I seem to wake up by 4am […]

Our summer in England almost didn’t happen because of the rain. The sun only just came out in time for the Olympics, which was certainly a blessing, but how we cursed that rain…! Not so now. Thank God for the rain! As we come to the end of the dry season, I’m so very grateful for the rains that are beginning to fall. They are badly needed for crops, and they improve everyone’s quality of life. You see, after months of dryness, the earth turns to dust, the dust gets into everything, you get a sore throat, eye problems, a […]

Please do just take 30secs to put your email in on the right hand side under ‘Follow by email’ to subscribe to these blogs so they will come to you directly each time. Thanks.   Meet John (name changed), who works for us. As I wrote of him in my book ‘Dangerously Alive’, he was returning by foot to Burundi in 1996 after a year as a refugee in the Congo. He felt he simply had to get back to his homeland, but soldiers from the other tribe took him and tortured him. He told them that God was calling […]

At the beginning of September 1979, aged 6, we moved as a family to Paris and I was dropped off at my new school, clueless as to what was about to hit me. I didn’t speak a word of French and was stunned into cowered silence for probably two months… Well, we’ve just done the same to our three little kids about an hour ago. There were lots of apprehensive children, as well as parents, as we arrived at the Belgian School. We’d joined hands and prayed together in the car on the way. We’ve memorized Psalm 118:6: “The Lord […]

What I love so much about Burundi life is that I get to meet and potentially work with superb people of faith and vision to positively impact this nation, both for this life and into eternity. Yesterday I sat and listened to my friend John tell me how he’d started importing Friesian crossbred cows from Tanzania which produce 10-15 litres of milk per day. Burundian cows are useless! They require constant supervision, eat whole fields, are skinny as can be, and produce 1-2 litres for all that effort. So John brings in dozens of cows, keep them together so they […]

We arrived last week with 16 suitcases of stuff to begin the next chapter of our lives in Burundi. That’s not too bad compared to the new US family up the road who have brought 24 suitcases (but they’re starting from scratch), or some others who ship stuff in crates or eve whole containers – but can you see that I’m trying to justify myself?! So as we slowly unpacked and took several days to get things in order – Lizzie being the ‘we’ mainly, doing a superb job, whilst I took care of the kids – I actually felt […]

So this Wednesday at 4am we’ll head off from Southampton to Heathrow to fly back to Burundi via Belgium. A whole new chapter is about to begin. I’m blown away by how many people pray for us and support us, so I wanted to fill you in on a very personal level, particularly as a number of you have written asking for more information on the family as opposed to purely ministry-level. We are so grateful for you. So, how do we feel about returning to Burundi after three years away? I have mixed feelings. I’ll be glad to get […]

Please read, this is hot off the press!!! These are stories from the last few weeks:   Remember I asked you to pray for our 615 evangelists sent out at the beginning of the month? Yesterday I emailed Onesphore, the leader of Harvest for Christ, for some stories from all that went all. There’ll be more to follow, but here’s a few for your encouragement. I’m translating his message, get a load of this! Thanks so much for praying, God is amazing!   One of our teams went to hospital to pray for the sick, but unfortunately started with a […]

I’m writing this shortly before the end of our fabulous family holiday at my folks’ pad in France. It feels a little bit like the calm before the storm, and I wanted to share a little with you where we are at. Over the last few years I have written relatively few ‘Warriors’ emails as we have been out of Burundi, and our lives have been less eventful. We head back en famille to Burundi on the 22nd August, so it really is very soon. We leave France this Friday, I then fly to Northern Ireland to give 8 talks […]

Reports are trickling in from our 615 evangelists upcountry in Burundi as they spend two weeks doing outreach in markets, fields, homes etc. I’m just sending this as a reminder to ask for your prayers for them. As ever there is some opposition, and a few of our guys have been arrested. Onesphore (the movement leader) wrote to me, saying that the fact they were released so quickly by the overruling of the regional Governor shows that there must be a lot of prayer back up, as that speedy result seemed very unlikely. He thanks you all for the intercession […]