When I first arrived here in Burundi I wrote that the roads were good, and even though some of the side roads had potholes, they were not like the goat tracks in Uganda.
Well, on Saturday I found the goat tracks! There is a young man whose family has just moved into a new house, and he wanted us to come and bless it. It is not far out of the city, but the roads in this “suburban” area are every bit as bad as those in Uganda, or even worse. It really needs a 4WD to negotiate them, but Domitien has only a small normal car. At one point there was a huge ditch, at least two metres deep and three or four metres across. I didn’t think we were going to be able to make it across it, but with great care and caution, and going VERY slowly, we reached the other side. On the return journey Domitien chose a different route.
The house itself was beautiful – not yet complete, but looking every bit up to western standards. As well as his immediate family, a whole bunch of extended family and friends were here for this “house warming.”
The young man is a doctor, currently doing specialist training in France. He is at home for two weeks holiday before he goes back to France and his studies, which will be completed at the end of this year. I imagine it will be difficult for him, having grown up in African culture, then had several years in western culture, to then return to live and work in African culture. I suspect that, at least for some time, he will feel that he is not fully part of either culture.
It was interesting talking to him, in spite of the language barrier, as he was saying that France has all the same problems as we have in Australia with the homosexual/ gender-bender agenda, and laws taking away parents’ right to direct their children.
Ministry wise, things here are very quiet. Yesterday I preached for only the second time in the week that I have been here, and it is likely that I will have only three meetings in the coming week. Whereas in all the other countries where I have been, I have been coming up against a strong spirit of witchcraft, here I am hitting up against a strong spirit of religion.
The church where I ministered yesterday is reasonably large – I would guess around 100, maybe 150 people. I had told them I normally preach for an hour, given that with the interpretation taken out I only actually get about half of that time. Domitien had told me that they are very strict on time, but that they would allow for this. The service was to run from 9am till 12. During the first part several different choirs led worship, and a number of people were invited up to introduce themselves, several of whom took it as an opportunity to preach.
When they invited me up, I thought this was my preaching time, and began my usual introduction. Domitien whispered to me that this was not to preach, just to introduce myself, and that threw me off so I didn’t even finish the introduction properly. He whispered that I would be on at 11.
Well, someone had obviously not told the young worship leader. He kept going till 11.15. I was tempted to extend my time till 12.15, but I teach that no matter how much apostolic authority you have, in the local house you should submit to the local leadership, and they had said finish at 12. Fortunately the way I preach is very flexible, and I can trust the Holy Spirit to bring out what He wants to say.
I had a prophetic word for somebody (the Lord did not show me who it was for) and then quoted the Scripture from Isaiah 6, taking a verse at a time and waiting for the interpretation, as I usually do. I got to the last verse of the passage, and my interpreter decided that it wasn’t enough to quote the Word exactly as it is written, he had to read it from a physical Bible. I thought he just wanted to see the interpretation of that particular verse, but no, he had to read the whole passage that I had just quoted (and that he had interpreted) – another five minutes out of my time. I swallowed my annoyance and went on with the message.
As far as I could tell there was no response. Most faces were blank. Afterwards, unlike in other countries where many people have come up to me after the service to greet me and thank me for the ministry, only a very few greeted me, and only one, the pastor’s wife, actually indicated that she had appreciated the word.
It will be interesting to see if this religious spirit is predominant in all the French-speaking countries.