It’s nice to hear good news, isn’t it? Well here’s an update on Freddy, about whom I’ve written in the past. It was before this blog existed, so I’ll include his story as written up on 20th February 2011, and then you’ll hear the very encouraging latest. Scroll down if you just want his latest, but the following is definitely worth a read. Here goes: “When Alli first saw him, Freddy didn’t have a face. Ten years ago, Alli would drive through Kayanza market and see a hooded little child beggar, with a clawed stump of a hand, demurely approaching […]

Last weekend I hired out some prostitutes for the first time in my life – two young ladies for the whole night. Because I’m a preacher and didn’t want people to know what I was doing, I asked a trusted friend, Cossette, to hire these women and bring them to a hotel where I would join them. I also didn’t want an absurdly inflated price because of being white, so she could hopefully negotiate ahead of time a more reasonable fare. Neither of us really knew how these things worked, and we were both a little nervous. What on earth […]

Below is Kyle Idleman’s recounting of my favorite Jesus encounter, in Luke chapter 7, from Kyle’s book ‘Not a Fan’. It’s quite long but worth the read, and I include it now because my next post tomorrow will be about what happened when I paid for sex last weekend.  Luke 7: 36 When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37 A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with […]

This is a sermon I preached at Saint Andrew’s, Mount Pleasant, last Sunday. Hopefully it’ll encourage and challenge you. Below are some discussion questions if you wanted them: Abraham Heschel wrote, “He who is satisfied has never truly craved.” I hope you haven’t given up on the potential of a life saturated with God’s presence. The cravings we feel, we were made to feel, and only God can satisfy. John Piper wrote in A Hunger for God, “If you don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and […]

We’re finished! According to Rick’s computer, we/he did 680km in 6 days with 30 hours of saddle time, 30,000ft of climbs, and 23,577 calories burned! Beyond the stats, it was another amazing tour. Plenty can go wrong, and very little did. Mason – the guy looking away below in the team photo at the Livingstone/Stanley memorial – tore his ligaments in a major way playing volleyball the day before we kicked off. That was about the worst thing that happened. His ankle ballooned, medical advice was to get it straight into a cast for 6 weeks, but Mason duly took […]

I recently met with three former Muslims who have all come to Christ and suffered as a result. We are supporting them monthly, otherwise they’d be desolate. I thought I’d introduce them to you. First, Mariam, on the left below: She managed to conceive easily enough, but each conception ended in miscarriage. She was told of a man (a marabout/Muslim witchdoctor-type) who could help her get pregnant, so she went to consult with him. He said it was jinn (evil spirits) who were destroying her pregnancies, so she needed to prepare a sacrifice to appease them. He said he couldn’t […]

I love my Dad. He’s a great Dad. Born in Burundi in 1946, he pursued a successful (almost finished) career as a Management Consultant, and one of our biggest shared joys latterly has been having him integrally involved in the work of GLO as coach to our key partner organisations’ leaders. They love sessions with him twice a year – his wisdom, incisive questioning, low toleration of BS – and those times with him have significantly affected their already mightily impressive performances. Dad has repeatedly come back this week after each session blown away by the quality of the leaders […]

The title’s misleading, so read on.  One pastor serving in an ISIS-controlled territory shared that in the previous week three men in his church were shot and killed for running children’s clubs in their homes. But then he went on to say these striking words: “Whenever we see disaster and tragedy, we run towards it. We see throughout history that it is in these alarming moments that God works. It is in times of war, not peace, that history is changed. Would any of your churches have ever dreamed that one day they would be full of Sunni Muslims?! Our […]

Jean is dead. I’ve just got back from his funeral. What a man! He was Scripture Union Burundi’s first staff worker in 1976, and finished his race back with us after slipping into a coma last week, aged 63. Fabulously, in terms of a sense of God-ordained wholeness or completion, as leader of our Department of Biblical Studies, he had just handed in the whole manuscript for the nation’s Bible-reading notes for the coming year to SU boss Etienne. He gave it to him, with a huge smile, and a sick note, and said: “Boss, I’m so happy. The job’s […]

This week saw us host the National Prayer Breakfast in Bujumbura. It’s the chance to get all the movers and shakers from across the political, military, business and religious divides to come together for a few hours, leaving our divisions at the door, and gathering around the table to eat, talk, pray and listen to a few speeches about Jesus.  (The President giving his speech) A whole lot of planning had gone into the event. And I’m glad to say, it went superbly – by all accounts the best one yet. One of the most senior politicians in the country even wrote […]

Dear GLO Team,  Greetings from Burundi! I hope this finds you well. After last week’s launch in London, my new daily devotional ‘Choose Life’ is now fully live and unleashed officially, and here is the big plug and sell if you haven’t had it already! Thanks to all those who have already bought 100, 30, 20, 10, 5  copies or however many to sell on or give away to friends and family. We’re already on a second print run. It’s packed with juicy quotes, anecdotes, humour, challenge, encouragement – and already emails are coming in of how it’s touched people’s […]

In Blue Like Jazz, a non-Christian talk show host urges Donald Miller to defend Christianity. Miller refused to do so, which made the host curious:   “He asked me if I was a Christian, and I told him yes. “Then why don’t you want to defend Christianity?” he asked, confused. I told him I no longer knew what the term meant. Of the hundreds of thousands of people listening to his show that day, some of them had terrible experiences with Christianity; they may have been yelled at by a teacher in a Christian school, abused by a minister, or […]

I’ve been reading a friend’s (maybe that’s too strong – we’ve met and emailed once or twice, but I LOVE what he does and how he approaches things) book called ‘Speaking of Jesus – the art of not-evangelism’). The guy’s name is Carl Medearis. Definitely worth a read. Check out this beautiful inspired encounter and dialogue: One day I saw my Muslim-Arab friend sweating as he talked with my other friend, a fine, conservative-minded evangelical Christian. It looked like the two had locked horns in a battle to the death. It happened in Colorado this past summer. We were hosting […]

I’ve just returned to Burundi from Kenya where I had the chance to attend a gathering of influential businessmen/politicians/social entrepreneurs to discuss and encourage one another as we seek to be agents of transformation in our respective nations. It was a deeply impacting time. I just want to share some of the mind-blowing story of one man at the gathering, former Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Tamirat Layne: Tamirat was one of five leaders who banded together under Mengistu’s military dictatorship to form a clandestine movement with the aim of regime change. He was a committed communist, and yet now says […]

Dear Team, I’d asked you to pray for our incredible annual summer outreach for the first two weeks of August and the results are in. They’re awesome, as ever! Here goes from Onesphore, the movement leader: We sent out 1010 evangelists in 42 teams around the country (554 from our group, Harvest for Christ, and 456 local church folk who could learn on the job alongside our guys). 11,366 people made professions of faith, including 62 witchdoctors and 55 Muslims. There were119 miraculous signs, including two blind people recovering their sight, two deaf people hearing, 13 paralysed people being healed. […]

Dear Team, It’s the most exciting outreach activity of the year again. Picture it right now, today, as around 800 evangelists travel up into different parts of Burundi to do the Acts of the Apostles. Over the next two weeks, they will cast out demons, heal the sick, preach the gospel, get beaten up, and more. Please pray daily for them: for receptive hearts of the listeners, for anointed words, for lasting fruit, for many miracles, for witchdoctors and Muslims to come to faith, for good health and team unity, etc. Last year when we did this, we saw a […]

Below is a letter that is so heavy and convicting to me – so worth reading, unlike the inane things I sometimes allow myself to get sucked in by. It is written by my dear friend ‘Claude’ in the Central African Republic. I lived with him and his family in 1995. What faith! How humbled I feel as I imagine being in his position. There are some similarities in his situation with what I’ve been confronted with, but I’ve not suffered in the same way, and as I get his weekly updates, once in a while I want to share […]

The day before leaving Burundi for our annual summer preaching around the UK, I met up with 26-year-old ‘Paul’ to hear his story. With his permission, this is what he shared with me: His original name was Hassan, and he was born into a Muslim family. His father died shortly after Hassan’s birth, so Hassan was raised by his uncle. His uncle’s side of the family were rich whilst his Mum’s side were dirt poor. So his uncle, who was also a sheikh, took him to Rwanda and raised him there.  Hassan remembers listening to a teacher telling the class […]