Greetings from Burundi, where we are in the middle of our youth entrepreneurship conference. The worship is vibrant (we call it “exercise as worship” as it includes a lot of jumping and running in place!). The testimonies are exciting to hear and the challenges of doing business in a difficult environment are real. The stories are still forthcoming so I will share more next time when I have a chance to process all that I’ve heard!
Sadly, the day that I arrived in Burundi, the market in Ngozi (the city where the DML partner, UCCD, is based) burned down. It was a market with 1,400 vendors, and 80% of the market was lost. Seven of the UCCD staff lost their markets, and even though almost everyone had insurance, there is a zero percent chance of them getting any money from insurance (sadly, an all too frequent problem – easy for insurance companies to take the money, not so easy to pay it out). We grieved with them at the great loss and continue to pray for their restoration. A short video of the market burning is below. If you would like to contribute to the rebuilding of these seven businesses, please give and put “Burundi market” in the comment section.
June 30 marked the end of the second quarter of the year and it is always a wonderful time to see what the Lord is doing in and through His church in so many parts of the world. This has been a busy year for many of our partners!
I received a wonderful Q2 report from our partner in Pakistan on the DML work that is being done there. It’s exciting to see the implementation from our partner, Lord’s Home, in different cities and churches in Pakistan. It’s especially special to me as the DML team has not gone physically to Pakistan. All the training was done virtually. Yet as you can see from the feedback shared below, the message has been received and is being disseminated.
It is a market that is on fire in a very different sense of the word. One fire destroys and the other refines.
We thank God for the Holy Spirit and the word of God, which can move across borders and into hearts!
From Burundi, I will be going to Malawi to visit new partners there. Prayers are appreciated!