Amahoro (peace), to all our friends and family in South Africa, America, India, Norway, UK, Tanzania and other countries not mentioned! God has been so gracious to provide, protect and keep us in Burundi for 6 months now.....thank you Lord! We have realised that God has so much more for His children if we only allow ourselves to trust Him and follow Him, to allow him to be the author of our every day. His agenda His appointments to come to pass.A very good friend of ours also living in Burundi, Timothy van Aarde said “The only worthwhile reason to live is to live for something bigger than yourself.
You can live for people, to please them, you can live for a cause, many people die for noble causes, you can live for your wife, even your family, but the only thing which fills the purpose for which you were created is to live for the glory of God.” Amen and Amen.......
The glory of God, who, but a few, can really testify to seeing God’s glory and allowing Him to be glorified by their own lives....
We have spend the most part of July continuing our studies with SATS. We have both passed our Hermeneutic courses and I also just received my pass mark on the Doctrine of Revelation. We are pushing ahead and have started with the next two subjects, Book of Ephesians and the Historical books of the Bible.
This is the wedding season in Burundi from July to September there is a wedding every Saturday in the church so being the resident missionaries we invited to most of them. So when Natalie visited she bought Diane a traditional Burundi outfit to wear to the next wedding. Diane decided to visit the local salon (hair dresser) to have her hair done for the occasion and it had to be a Burundi hair style. After the wedding Diane struggled for a week to washout the glue that was poured out on her hair to “style” it the Burundi way, curls and all we enjoyed the wedding and the people were so happy with Diane’s effort to fit in with the local look.
Some more visitors from South Africa and other Countries came with Theo, our good friend to visit his ministry here in the Great Lakes. We were blessed with the team of 8 people who came to enjoy a meal and good fellowship in our home. Amazing how God always send the right people at the right time to encourage us.Our Kirundi lessons have continued and being a “numbers guy”, languages were always secondary to me, therefore I have particularly been struggling with getting a handle on the language but all good things take time. For the future of the mission in Burundi it is more key than ever that we learn Kirundi well.
On the ministry side God is starting to use us more and more to encourage the churches with Ps Charles, every Sunday we make a point of visiting a different church which gives me opportunity to build relationships with the pastors. Last week the whole week the Holy Spirit impressed on my heart to go to Bujumbura for the Sunday....why I had no idea, so I did the human thing and just procrastinated on obeying His voice. By Saturday morning the impression became so heavy on me that I immediately contacted Ps Charles who was in Bujumbura making arrangements to visit one of the churches in Bujumbura for the next day. Wow attack galore, Diane wakes me at 3:00 vomiting and not feeling well, while we are travelling to Bujumbura, I get a sharp paint between my eyes, stop and pray. Arrived at the church and I merely just shared on reconciliation and testified how God had to break racism in my heart before he could start using me. How I hated people and how God had to change my heart of stone to a heart of love for people...We have left the results to God.
On Friday the 17th I had an excellent meeting with about 25 pastors and leaders in the area of Gitega. We invited all the leaders to share with them really what God has placed on my heart about how we need to go deeper into His Word and to really equip ourselves so we can correctly handle the Word of God. So I open the topic of Interpretation of Scripture.....Eish JULLE...I was absolutely astonished at some of the questions which revealed the shallow understanding of the Word. Please I am not attempting to undermine anyone or any church, but understand this is the sole reason we are here. Through my veins are pumping blood the source of life but Gods word is the eternal source of life.....this source is our future and the reason of my passion to push ahead with zero compromise to see God’s will revealed and performed in our lives. So we have work to do, much work.In the last news letter I shared on a ministry connection with an organisation called VERITAS.....their vision is to teach pastors and leaders in Burundi how to interpret the word of God. They run a 4 module course at 3 months per module on the basis of the training 12 people who will be qualified to train others who will in turn train, train, train.....You see churches are being planted at such a rapid rate here in Burundi that not even the seminaries can keep up with the demand of training pastors! We are more passionate about the call than ever before. To realise this vision we would need to work very closely with VERITAS and are busy praying for God to give us direction in terms of our relationship towards this organisation.
The road ahead will have to involve a more formalised relationship with VERITAS and if we decide to go ahead we would need to receive training on the ministry material, which can be done here in Burundi. The couple who are heading the mission is also from South Africa and we will make more formal introductions once we have a more concrete answer form the Lord. We do not want to run ahead and then having to comeback and undo agreements if this is not from the Lord. However if we do formalise us joining the VERITAS organisation then Diane and I will have to make sure that we have mastered the Kirundi language by December in order to start the formal VERITAS training in January 2010. The 1st module is already translated into Kirundi, now the printing and shipping must be done and we would need to raise finance for the material etc etc....
But we walk by Faith, a word which has come to life for us in the mission, knowing God works in the miraculous and that by faith we only walk to take a hold of that which are unseen but we have a strange confidence, not in ourselves because God is leading us!!
Some questions: How will a move like this affect our relationship with Ps Charles? Good question....however I foresee almost no change in our involvement with the Full Gospel Church here in Burundi. Ps Charles build a big network of churches here in Burundi, in fact our relationship is going to be key to advance the VERITAS program and our call into the whole country. So we would continue to work together. I would need to indeed place a bigger focus on the training though.
We have entered the dusty season in Burundi where the earth are so dry that the sand have turned into powder. The houses and country side is covered in a blanket of dust, so we are reminded that to have rain is a blessing. July has almost come to an end and we are starting to make preparations to go visit South Africa in September, to catch-up with family, Friends, Supporters and prayer partners. Our time in SA will have to be structured well because we would like to make the most of the time there. So we will be on the plane that comes in for a fast landing,.....Also most of the cold weather would have subsided by then and the folks from Scottburgh would have started to migrate back to Joburg.Prayer Points:
1. Vision – for Gods vision 2 Tim 2:2 – Pray about VERITAS and our formal commitment to this organisation
2. Exit visas – pray for favour and that we will receive these in good time
3. Vehicle – pray for the settlement of the balance of the loan.
4. Bibles – pray for Bible distribution at school.
5. Health – continue to pray for good health.
6. Protection – in our new house and in Burundi
7. Kirundi lessons – pray for a good understanding of the language
8. Studies – pray for perseverance and discipline. Praise God I (Anton) passed The doctrine of revelation.
May you receive from the Lord peace and fulfilment in every sphere of your life, living it in a way which pleases Him and causes others to follow!
Much love
Anton and Diane
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