So we Guillebauds are back in the UK for the summer, and I’d love to connect with any of you. As you’ll see from the speaking schedule below, it’s pretty flat out, but if you can make it along at all, it’d be great to see you. Contact me for any further details. Have a great summer!  Here goes: Sunday June 29th – 9.15am and 11.15am services at Holy Trinity Cheltenham Evening preach at Woodlands Church, Bristol Monday 30th June – GLO gala dinner at Latimer Park (contact me if you want to come, all invited!)Tuesday 1st July – Wonnersh […]

What an incredibly memorable ten days we’ve just had! 20 folks from the USA, Greece, Sweden, Rwanda, Brazil and Kenya flew in to form the Surge team for a superb and sometimes surreal outreach in Burundi. The idea was to use football as the World Cup kicked off as a tool for reconciliation, and as a platform for sharing hope in Christ. There were pastor seminars, football coaches training sessions, and inner healing mini-retreats, and it was a hugely challenging thing to organise. It went about as smoothly as I could have hoped, and the team consisted of a wonderful […]

Christ for all Nations were in town last week doing a massive outreach. There were some enormous crowds, bigger than any I’ve seen here in my 15 years here (their website says 150,000 and even if that’s a little evangelAstic (!), I’d say maybe 100,000). The speaker, Daniel Kolenda, did a great job. I’m not a huge fan of these campaigns, mainly because there are so many showmen ‘on the circuit’ with questionable practices, and often it’s a big bang of an event with no lasting impact – well, let’s hope this week does indeed leave a lasting impact across […]

(Tour du Burundi 2014, outside King’s Conference Centre, about to kick off) I’ve entitled this post ‘Gloriously Alive’ for two reasons:  Firstly, because that’s how we all felt as cyclists last week as we sweated our guts out up brutal hills, and then sped down steep inclines with the ubiquitous stunning views. The feelings of exhaustion and elation, of camaraderie, of digging deep, of encouraging each other through the tougher times – they all made for an incredibly bonding experience that will stay with each one of us for the rest of our lives. That might sound overstated, but I […]

What a day! I wasn’t going to blog on this Tour du Burundi, just wanting to enjoy a week of fun away from technology with a bunch of great guys – but below you’ll see why I’ve chosen to after all. It started off at a beautiful lakeside hotel after a reasonable night’s sleep post Day 1’s 122km from Bujumbura to Nyanza Lac. We ate a hearty breakfast and were on our way by 830am, knowing that a brutal ascent awaited us almost immediately. The sun was fierce, the scenery was literally awe-inspiring, and we all huffed and puffed up […]

Last week saw Bill and Susalee Sasser and Nigel Mallon bring out another superb dental team to work with our rockstar Harvest-for-Christ-ers up in Muyinga in the far North. They plundered people’s mouths, yanking teeth by the dozen, and pausing occasionally to take photos of some of the more unusual orifices, as seen below with Exhibit A: Lizzie got the chance to be a part of it for four days, which she loved, not that she looks very impressed or engaged in the photo below – but none of the others do either! It’s always beautiful seeing real partnerships between […]

Below is one entry from my upcoming devotional book ‘Choose Life!’, which will be available this coming June: Romans 9:17 “I raised you up for this purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Evariste Galois might have been as well-known as Albert Einstein, so why is it that this is probably the first time you’ve ever heard of him? On May 29th, 1832, Galois sat down and wrote a sixty-page mathematical masterpiece from start to finish without taking a single break. That one night’s work contributed more […]

These totally incomplete notes below are forming into a sermon entitled ‘JOURNEYING WITH GOD – CERTAINLY UNCERTAIN AND CAREFULLY CARELESS’ out of Hebrews 11 – famous named heroes of the faith and then the anonymous ones who were sawed in two, stoned, afflicted, etc. Anyways, as ever there are some juicy quotes, and as I refine and tweak the message, I’d be interested in any feedback, please do comment/challenge/question: Choosing to see life as a journey reminds us to stop trying to set up camp and call it home. It allows us to see life as a process, with completion […]

Meet this precious little boy called Sylvestre: About 1 year ago, he fell face first into a fire and became stuck for several minutes. As you can imagine, he was tragically and critically burned. He has had to travel to Uganda for a few surgeries, and is currently stable.  Last week a friend in the USA of my buddy Ladd spoke with the Doctor at Shriner’s (famous medical place there), and they have agreed to take on his case. They are very excited to get him there as soon as possible to re-build his face and give him the best […]

‘SHAMMAH’ means ‘The Lord is there’. And so after several years, at last on Saturday Shammah Health Center was formally opened. YFC’s Future Hope orphanage and school now also boasts a high quality clinic. The Governor of Gitega came to open it, and several hundred of us also were there to enjoy a special day.  It wouldn’t have happened without dear friends Josh and Nadine Guenther from Canada, who have been working towards this big day for 18 months. Well done you beauties! And here is the rest of the dream team: Here below we are being shown around. It […]

Dear fantastic GLO supporter, I just want to say a HUGE THANK YOU for all your support to us out here in Burundi over the years – for your prayers, your encouragements, and your financial backing. As a sign of my gratitude, I’d love to send you a FREE COPY of my latest book, ‘Sacrifice’.  It’s short and sweet (written for people who don’t like long books!) and packs a punch, and has had some embarrassingly good reviews (see below). If you get to the end of the pages and are more fired up to aim higher, go deeper and […]

This is a powerful entry from my new devotional ‘Choose Life’, on daily choices, which will be out in a few months: Mercy or Sacrifice? Hosea 6:6 “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”After the end of apartheid in South Africa, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up. During one hearing, in the presence of the victim’s mother, a policeman named van de Broek recounted how he had shot an eighteen-year-old boy and burned the body on a fire to destroy all evidence. Eight years later he returned to the same house and seized the boy’s father. The wife watched […]

Jacques is a friend of mine. He’s a gifted young Burundian leader with big dreams and huge potential. His smile is genuine and his manner relaxed, but they bely what has happened to him in his life…It was 29th October 1993, a week after the President of Burundi had been assassinated. The whole country was experiencing bloodshed, and Jacques’ area was no exception. He was a timid 7-year-old, sheltering in a house with a number of his extended family. His father and elder sister fled into the swamp at 4am, having heard that the killers would shortly arrive. His Mother […]

It’s been a crazy week, full of highs and lows, of laughter and of tears. Palmetto Medical Initiative (PMI) is a superb charity working out of South Carolina that I hooked up with a few years ago. They’ve now teamed up with our local partner, Partners Trust International (PTI), to build a hospital in the coming year to service a desperately poor community an hour outside the capital. Below is a picture that doesn’t quite do it justice the beautiful 4-hectare land in the hills that we’ve been given by the Government. I love the fact that within 18 months […]

“Hutus to the right, Tutsis to the left, NOW!” It was 30th April 1997. The rebels, about two thousand of them, had streamed into Buta’s Catholic seminary and school. They were shooting at anyone and everyone, drunk and high on drugs, intent on decimating the place. Why? We were with Father Zacharie, a brother who exudes the presence of God, and he was telling us the story: For years he felt the Lord was preparing him for this day. He had preached unity between tribes and modelled what a loving community could look like. This was attractive to some, but […]

Many of you have written, asking for latest news on the floods that struck a few nights ago. I was in the USA at the time and have just returned to Burundi. With permission, I’m sharing some dear friend’s prayer email and pictures. Latest casualties range from 77 to 120 dead. Do pray. A number of us are trying to respond to the crisis – any financial contributions to us on this will be directed to Jesse and his gang (www.greatlakesoutreach.org/donate and mark ‘flood’): Dear praying friends, When I visited the disaster area yesterday, the devastation was on a much […]

The below is from ‘Pierre’, who has asked me to ask you to get involved. It’s incredibly humbling to read – what he and his family have gone through, the love and commitment he has for his nation and for Muslims, his unshakeable trust in the Lord – all are profoundly challenging. Day after day he sends me updates of arbitrary lynchings, rapes, and wanton destruction. The scale of this crisis is horrific. Please don’t delete or skim read – these are our brothers and sisters going through one hell of a time. If you want to respond and help […]

The other day, my friend Jules brought me a couple of young people that we supoprt to share their stories over a fanta. Choosing to follow Jesus comes at little cost to many of us, but for these two their decision has involved a fair amount of suffering. Actually, for almost anyone coming out of Islam, it comes at similar cost to them. So here are some of their stories: Omar is an imam’s son, who regularly shouted through microphones to call Muslims to prayer. However, he was a wayward son, and ended up voluntarily joining the rebellion, with false […]

“Christian militias? Is anybody out there listening? HELLO?” That is how true Christians feel in the Central African Republic right now. I’m writing this, because I know many key influencers are getting these updates, and I’m asking all those of you with any clout who are following the crisis and probably hearing a twisted narrative, to help get the truth out. You will see that the international press are completely misrepresenting the crisis, as I take you back to earlier posts from many months ago. The popular narrative that has evolved is that the CAR conflict is between Christian anti-Balaka […]