This is Ben
Johnson writing on Breana’s blog. This is a small excerpt of what I did in
Burundi. My older brother Danny and I went up to two little villages in the
country of Burundi. During this time, Breana was staying in the capitol city of
Bujumbura with my brother’s wife, Annie. Danny and I left for the villages on
Friday morning, and spent the night there Friday and Saturday night and drove
back Sunday. The purpose of the trip was to take some of Danny’s goats, ducks
and rabbits to give to the churches so that they could raise the animals as a
church project. (A project that my brother runs called "Living Gifts." Here is a link to his facebook page.)
The first village
we stopped at was called Munyinya (pronounced “Mu-nyi-nya”). It is a tiny little village without electricity or
running water located up in the hills of Burundi near the Tanzanian border. The
people there were very hospitable to us. They took care of us, gave us a place
to stay, and fed us. We arrived Friday afternoon, about four hours after we had
left the capital of Bujumbura. As soon as we arrived at Munyinya, we started
building the duck pen and the rabbit cages. It took several hours to complete,
and after that, we ate supper and went to bed.
The next morning
we ate breakfast, and my brother Danny, Pasi and Raphael (two Burundians who
had come along to help) finished making the rabbit cages while I finished
preparing for the message I was to give that afternoon at another village
called Cankuzo (pronounced “Chan-ku-dzo”).
They finished the constructing the rabbit cages at about 10:00 am, and then we
packed up some of the ducks and a goat to take drive over to Cankuzo. The drive
took about an hour to get there. We drove on an old dirt road with lots of
potholes. We arrived safe and sound, and a crowd of people was there to greet
us.
They showed us
around the church property. Then Danny, Pasi and Raphael started making the
duck pen, and I continued with my sermon preparations. Once they had finished
their work, they invited us to have a brunch with the elders. Once we had eaten
the brunch, we went into the church for the service. After the worship, I stood
up to speak. I spoke in Swahili and Raphael translated it into Kirundi (the
language of Burundi). I spoke on Daniel 4 where Nebuchadnezzar became prideful
about his great kingdom. I told of how the Lord proceeded to take everything
away from him. My main point was that God opposes the proud but gives grace to
the humble. I also told about how everything that we have is a gift from the
Lord. We have no reason to be proud because everything that we have is a gift
from His hand. Instead of being proud we should be people of thanksgiving.
After I finished, another man stood up and called people forward to repent.
About 15-20 people came forward to repent! Praise God!
After the
service we went back to Munyinya and relaxed some more. Then we went to bed.
The next day we had the Sunday service and Danny spoke about David and Goliath.
It wasn’t your typical message about how we have different giants in our lives
and how we conquer them. Instead, it was how Christ is our David who sets us
(the cowering Israelites) free from the giants of sin, death, and hell. It was
a really good message. After that we ate lunch and headed home.
On the way back,
a motorcycle pulled out into the road in front of Danny and Danny hit him. We
praise God that everyone was O.K. The motorcyclist was injured but not too
badly. They took him off to the hospital. The whole thing was not Danny’s
fault. It was the motorcyclist’s. He was an inexperienced driver, who didn’t
even have a license, and he pulled out in front of Danny at the last minute. Danny
braked as hard as he could and beeped and swerved, but there was nothing more
to be done. The police came and wrote a report. After we finished with the
police, it was about 7:30pm.
We were about to
continue on our journey when we discovered that the radiator was leaking. We
bought a bar of soap and patched the radiator with it. With this method, we
were able to make it home by stopping every once and a while to refill the
radiator and re-apply soap. We finally arrived back home at about 11:00 pm. We were
so grateful to the Lord for protecting us and for the work that was done.
