A Celebration of Labor and Love from Burundi

DML Board member and volunteer, Lacey Faieta, is in Burundi and shared the following pictures and testimony from her Sunday.  I thought it might be nice for all of us to journey along with her. The DML Burundi team is doing amazing work with four denominations implementing DML and four more waiting to start.  It is a blessing to have a DML board member witness what is going on.  [If you are reading this and have an interest in visiting one of our partners to participate, encourage, and witness what God is doing in the Marketplace, please let me know!]

Lacey writes: 

Thank you for praying for Burundi. 

Today, we drive an hour (on roads that few cars visit!) outside of Ngozi to a village in the middle of the banana fields for a church service and a commissioning service for those who attended a DML business training. 

During the service, the worship was relentless, and the message was powerful. 

It ended with a request for the church members to give to help a homeless man. The pastor even asked how many people knew the man he spoke of. As they raised their hands, he said, "What if it had rained and he had nowhere to go? How would Jesus respond, and how should we?" Then they took an impromptu offering for that man, who wasn’t even a member of their church.

I shared a message about every person being on God’s reconciliation team and in full-time ministry as marketplace ministers. The pastor shared that the message was received with excitement, and it’s a needed message all over Burundi.

The nation of Burundi captures the hearts of most people who visit.  As can be seen in the photo of the bicycle that is stacked high with bananas, the people are incredibly hardworking despite extreme poverty.  There are significant challenges in combating the false teaching of the prosperity gospel and the poverty gospel, but the DML team is changing the narrative of the gospel with a healthy theology of work.

While I was there in June, pastors shared that income is growing among their members, as is their giving, as several pastors have now been able to build church buildings—something they didn't think would be possible.  

However, the most significant change they shared is that members transition from expecting the church to take care of them to being equipped to participate in the church's ministry.  

They realize that when they said "yes" to Jesus, they weren't enlisting HIM to their cause, but He was enlisting them to HIS cause.

And to that we say, "AMEN!"

Here is a short video of the service (or click here to watch it).