Six years ago, there was an empty field. Now there is probably the best campus in the country. The day before we flew out, it was Gitega International Academy’s second graduation. Hot on the heels of gaining ACSI (international) accreditation in record time, it was a fantastic opportunity to showcase the school’s progress and celebrate another year group’s achievements. The national TV cameras were there, and it was a superb event. Below are a few pictures. We’ve managed to raise £13,000 in the last two weeks for urgent (final) building requirements and equipping for the coming year. Once these last […]

PLEASE READ THIS, IT IS VERY SIGNIFICANT NEWS: After just two months shy of twenty years, I’ve stopped living in Burundi, as of last night. My beloved nation has blessed me beyond imagining – and I don’t use that as a cliché. I came as a single young nutter expecting to die before the age of thirty, and I now leave a balding mature-ish husband and father of three children! I came with dreams to see thousands come to Christ, and we were able to raise a movement that saw hundreds of thousands become followers of Jesus. I came to […]

We waited four years and went through umpteen challenges to become totally above-board legitimate owners of this land, and now the work has begun with a vengeance! It’s hard for you to understand the joy in this 30second clip. PTI (Partners Trust International) took the inspired decision not to use big time-efficient diggers to excavate the hillside in a day or two, and instead hire about 250 desperately poor and hungry unemployed folk from the local community to earn just under $2/day to prepare the land for construction in due course. $2/day may seem ridiculously little to a Western mind, […]

This short blog is simply a call to prayer for Burundi as we approach the referendum on the 17th May. The referendum is to amend (or not) the constitution to change presidential terms from 5 to 7 years, renewable once. The clock on terms would be reset, so that potentially the current President could continue in power until 2034. There is little doubt which way the referendum will go. Burundi seems currently stable. We personally don’t feel in any danger at all, and our lives go on as normally as ever – which is the line that the government is […]

“Please, please we need Bibles! And not just any Bible, but a new version. The old one I can hardly understand!” I could have been offended, but I’m not. You see, my great-aunt, Rosemary Guillebaud, was the person who brought God’s Word to Burundians in their own language, after twenty years of hard graft working on it. But that was a long time ago – 1967 to be precise – and language evolves steadily. You’d understand the King James Version in English better than Burundians understand Rosemary’s 1967 Kirundi translation! For example, ‘imbata ya Yesu’ meant ‘slave/servant of Christ’ back […]

There’s no social security out here. When your husband dies, beyond the normal grieving it’s a total and utter disaster for the widow, further compounded if she has children. So here’s a hope-filled story for widowed mother-of-three Virginie, who has just got her house through the ministry of J-Life. Justin, Tanya and my Lizzie helped in the process at the beginning of January, and it is now complete. Total cost: $1,000 (so a little more than I advertised last week, because prices have gone up and the standard of house we are building is also better). Enjoy the pics and […]