Dear Friends,

Because we’ve got so much ministry going on in Myanmar (Burma), I’ve spent 31 of my last 46 days on two trips there. I’m now on my way home from the second trip, during which my youngest daughter, Elisabeth, and I served members of our spiritual family who are refugees, orphans, widows and among the world’s poorest. We kept very busy, and among other things, visited 38 of the orphanages that are regularly assisted through our Orphan’s Tear division.

I wish I could show you the hundreds of photos that we took of saints whom we are helping because of your compassion, but below are just a few. Thanks so much!

Every blessing,

David

When we visit the orphanages, the children always sing for us. Here are two worshippers at New Heritage Children’s Home in Yangon.

Bawi Tha Hnem of New Eden Orphanage.

The happy folks at Life Orphanage in Kalaymyo. They are standing in front of their new dorm, similar to what Heaven’s Family has built for 27 other orphanages in Myanmar over the past 7 years.

Two cuties who live at New Heritage Orphanage in Kalaymyo. The little girl on the right, Sarah, wants to become a teacher when she is older.

Our dear friends at the Handicapped Care Center in Kalaymyo. Most of the children are crippled from polio, but they are absolutely full of joy and thriving under the loving care of a very special Christian family. Their property and building were funded by Heaven’s Family.

Because we’ve funded some water projects in remote villages in Myanmar’s poorest state, we now have a growing list of villages that are asking for our help. For poor villagers, running water can be the first step out of extreme poverty, because once water is more accessible, larger gardens can be grown. The house in this photo is a typical one-room family home in Maul Nuam Village which we visited.

One of the beautiful people of Maul Nuam Village

Two of the precious children of Maul Nuam

A small chicken egg farm, funded by Heaven’s Family, that helps Living Hope Orphanage in Hbawbi generate income every day.

A new electric rice cooker at Life Concern Children’s Home, with the director, Joney Thang Hup. This cooker can cook rice for all 16 of Life Concern’s children. Now that electricity is becoming more reliable in Yangon, a number of the orphanages that we assist there no longer have to cook their meals over wood fires, and all of our Yangon orphanages are requesting such a cooker.

A happy goat keeper, Maung Nge, one of the children at Bethesda Orphanage, in Yangon.

We spent one day visiting Cang Ai village on the edge of Chin State. Since we began serving Cang Ai in 2006 with water, irrigation, and other projects, the village has grown from 7 to 26 families, 80% of which are believers. This year they enjoyed their first-ever harvest of rice, which they now grow on 25 irrigated acres. This photo is of one of Cang Ai’s young mothers and her baby.

A tiny Cang Ai citizen

Before inspecting our irrigation and pharmacy projects at Cang Ai, we passed out donated candy and little stuffed animals to Cang Ai’s children, who excitedly lined up to wait for their turn. Toys and candy are very rare to them.

This little guy received a stuffed dolphin…

Sitting with Cang Ai’s headman and an indigenous partner on the concrete water reservoir that we funded. It is difficult to see in this photo, but water is pouring from the 6-inch blue pipe on the far side of the reservoir. That pipe brings water about two miles from its source, a stream in the mountains.

We spent three days in the city of Myitkyina in Shan State, where 40,000 people have recently been displaced because of fresh outbreaks of fighting between the Burmese army and the Kachin Independence Army. We visited Jan Mai Refugee Camp, operated by Baptist believers, where about 400 women and children are living. This is a photo of Htulum Sumlut and her daughter, Jazin, residents of Jan Mai. Htulum is seizing the opportunity to reach out to the her fellow refugees with the gospel. We’ll have an article with more details in next month’s magazine.

A mother and daughter who are both residents of Jan Mai Refugee Camp. Behind them is the common living/sleeping area that they share with about 200 other women and children. Most husbands have bravely remained in their villages to work their fields.

Lagyawm Pawm Mwaw is also a resident of Jan Mai. She told us how she was conscripted by Burmese soldiers to carry their gear, and how she has learned about God’s love since fleeing to the refugee camp.

Some of the kids at Jan Mai Camp reacting to my trick of “taking off my thumb.”

Standing with the good children and directors of Goshen Orphanage in Kalaymyo. (Their new building behind them, funded by Heaven’s Family, has not been painted yet.)

Ngun Ngen Tial and Bawi Tha Par of El Shaddai Children’s Home

Dear Friends,

After my last blog post from Myanmar, we found it very difficult to send photos via the internet. Thus the reason for this belated blog (I’m now home).

Our final nine days in Myanmar were split between two cities where Heaven’s Family supports 40 orphanages by means of child sponsorships through our Orphan’s Tear division. While several of our team members hosted two-day conferences on foster care and micro-banking for all our orphanage directors in both cities, the rest of the team spent their days visiting their orphanages and interacting with the children. Those children never tired of playing Hot Potato and Duck, Duck, Goose.

On one special day, we journeyed by jeep and motor scooters to two remote and primitive mountain villages—consisting mostly of believers—where Heaven’s Family has been working. In both villages, the people used to hike for miles to fetch their drinking water. Now they enjoy multiple public water faucets made possible by a lot of hard work by the villagers, plus PVC pipe and concrete provided through our Village Development Fund. During our visit at one of those villages, I had a lot of fun introducing something the villagers had never seen—a frisbee.

Thanks for your prayers while we were away. Below are some photos I thought you’d enjoy. I’m returning to Myanmar for two weeks in December to bring relief to Kachin refugees who have had to flee from fighting in their region, as well as to spend one-on-one time with all our orphanage directors. I’ll appreciate your prayers from December 5-19.

In Christ,

David

One of the sincere worshippers at Hallelujah Children’s Home

Duck, Duck, Goose at Grace Orphanage in Kalaymyo

Team member Sittinan Liankatawa being crushed in an arm wrestling contest at the Handicapped Care Center. Heaven’s Family U.K. director, Philip Barker, in the background, capturing the defeat digitally.

On the way to the villages: A large ditch in the road required a makeshift bridge for our jeep to pass

Asking this couple for a mild public display of affection for their portrait caused quite a stir in Mawl Zaul village

HF Staff Member David Warnock showing some of the Zautal villagers photos of Pennsylvania snow on his laptop

At one of the ten new public water faucets in their village

Sampling a tiny red chile that was being dried in the sun at Zatual village

The children and director of Love Children’s Home inside their bamboo house. The water of Inle Lake is presently just inches below the floor upon which the children are sitting.

Greetings from Myanmar, where Heaven’s Family has been working for nine years. Today our team visited Love Children’s Home, directed by a missionary from India, and supported by Heaven’s Family U.K. The orphanage director originally relocated to Myanmar’s most unreached region to spread the gospel among tribal people, but he found himself also taking care of orphans and unwanted children from the remote villages where he preached.

Their home is built on stilts, and much of the year it sits above eight feet of water on Inle Lake, as do thousands of other homes in the surrounding villages. The children are all good swimmers, and it is a good thing. They must take a boat if they want to go anywhere. Today I saw, for the first time, the sturdy boat that we funded for them last year, and it can fit all the children.

We also visited their one-acre fish pond, dug deep in the lake shallows, that holds 20,000 growing fingerlings. The idea is for Love Children’s Home to become more self-sufficient through fish sales, and we are thankful for our friends at Alpha Relief in Denver who have funded that project.

The children are all doing well, and they enthusiastically sang some beautiful songs for us in English. Our team played games with them before they gave us a rousing send-off with many of the boys jumping into the water near our departing boats.

Below are a few photos from the day. Thanks for your prayers.

David

Many of Inle Lake’s people make a living through small-scale fishing, which requires a good sense of balance, as demonstrated by the man in this photo. Like all the other of Inle’s fishermen, he can also stand at the same spot on his boat, row with an oar held by one leg, and work his net with his two free hands.

One of Inle Lake’s children “girding up his loins”

This is how clothes are washed by everyone who lives on Inle Lake

Christopher Biak Lang, Love Children’s Home’s director, standing in front of the orphanage fish pond

A typical house on stilts on Inle Lake

Philip Barker, director of Heaven’s Family U.K., playing a game with one of the children

A contemplative boy. Please pray for the people who live around Inle Lake, as only a tiny fraction of them know Jesus. But that minority is reaching out, even though they face persecution.

Dear Friends,

About two years ago, Andrew Mason, a 30-year-old native of my hometown of Pittsburgh, had an idea. He asked the owner of a local pizza shop a simple question: “If I guaranteed you twenty customers, would you sell them two pizzas for the price of one, and then give me part of your profits from those sales? The pizza shop owner did the math. His profit margin on each pizza would decrease significantly, but because his total sales would increase, his overall profits would also increase. Plus he would receive free advertising and a chance to build his customer base. So he agreed to the deal.

Andrew then found twenty people who agreed to be one of those twenty 2-for-1 pizza buyers—but the deal was promised to them only if he could find at least twenty. Once he found twenty, the deal was “tipped.”

That simple idea became a company known today by millions of people as “Groupon.” Every day, forty-four million subscribers receive a daily discount coupon offer in their inbox, and once enough subscribers agree to buy into it, the deal “tips” and it becomes available to all of them. Groupon earned over $500 million in 2010, and it now promotes some 650 regional or nation-wide deals each day, and more than 95% of them tip. Upwards of 26 million Groupon offers have been purchased world-wide, saving customers in the U.S. $850 million. In November, Groupon rejected a 5.3 billion buy-out offer from Google. According to Forbes, it is probably the fastest-growing company in history.

Groupon works because both buyers and sellers win. Buyers save money while sellers make money, an idea that has propelled Wal-Mart to where it is today.

Personally, I’ve never bought anything via Groupon because I’m not interested in most of what they sell, even if their discounts are huge. My wife, however, has bought into one Groupon deal on some organic food, and our daughter also bought into a Groupon deal for a major discount at GAP clothing stores that offered $50 worth of clothing for $25. She shopped at the mark-down rack and walked out of GAP with $180 worth of clothing for $25. Lots of other people took advantage of that same deal—445,000 in all.

I wish I had thought of Groupon before Andrew Mason, and if I had, I wish I would have had the time to develop his idea as he has! Or, I wish I owned just a small stake of Groupon. If I did, I could have become Heaven’s Family’s major donor. And I would have been perfectly happy to live on my 2010 salary of $32,000 for the rest of my life, because I don’t need more than that.

Why am I telling you this? Because I received an email a few days ago from my friend, Tony Dale, founder and director of House2House Ministries. Tony and his wife, Felicity, are both medical doctors who gave up their medical professions to build God’s kingdom all over the world through the multiplication of house churches. They’ve influenced a lot of people for good, including me.

I learned in Tony’s email that two of his sons have launched a Groupon-like business named Moolala that has attracted venture capital and some very talented people to run the business. But instead of following Groupon’s win-win business model, Moolala has a win-win-win business model—a model that makes it possible for Heaven’s Family to be one of the three winners in that equation. In fact, their business model can also make you one of the three winners.

How is that? It’s very simple. You sign up to receive Moolala’s email discount-coupon offers using Heaven’s Family’s referral code. Then you recommend others to sign up. Those people recommend others, who recommend others who recommend others. If any of the people in the first four tiers ever purchase any of Moolala’s discount deals, Heaven’s Family receives 2% of their purchase price. If any of the people in the four tiers below you ever purchase any of Moolala’s discount deals, you receive 2% of their purchase price. It is what is called “affiliate marketing” in the internet world, with the added benefit of commissions going to multiple generations.

In Groupon’s business model, only Groupon and the businesses they partner with make profits on their discounted coupon sales, even though lots of people have helped them make their money by spreading the word about their deals to their friends. Moolala’s business model, however, is much better, because it incorporates the concept of profit sharing (a godly idea). Simply put, if you help me make money, I should share some of my profits with you, otherwise I have not loved you as I love myself. In contrast to Groupon and its many smaller imitations, Moolala will share profits with those who help spread the word about their discount deals. When Moolala makes money, those who helped them make money will also make money. So everyone benefits: the buyers save money, the sellers make money, and Moolala and its “sales force” make money.

Obviously, Moolala has the potential to succeed in a big way. And if Moolala succeeds, then everyone who helps them will benefit. And that is why I’m telling all of you, my friends, about Moolala. You are the kind of people who are kingdom-minded and who love to show your love for Jesus by meeting the pressing needs of “the least of these” among His world-wide family. By signing up to receive Moolala’s discount offers and by asking your friends to sign up, you can help Heaven’s Family meet more pressing needs around the world, as well as receive some more blessing yourself.

But wait! When you do sign up, make sure that you use this link: www.moolala.com/r/14CTT1M, or use this referral code in the appropriate box at Moolala’s website: 14CTT1M. Doing either of those things tells Moolala that Heaven’s Family referred you.

After you have signed up, then please ask others to sign up as well. Moolala makes that very easy to do with simple tools at their website, so you can send a message to your email list, post a message on your Facebook page or Twitter, and so on.

Moolala is just getting off the ground, and it is those who get involved in the early stages who stand to benefit the most. So please don’t delay signing up and telling your friends to sign up. Moolala will soon have a huge email list of subscribers, a list that will give them lots of leverage to approach national retailers who want to increase their profits through discount offers. It would be lovely if that email list was built from a foundation of people like us, who realize that we are not owners of anything, but only stewards of what belongs to God, people who love to lay up treasure in heaven.

Finally, please remember that there is nothing wrong about making money, as long as it is made ethically, and as long as stewarded according to God’s commandments. I’ve noticed that the people who give to Heaven’s Family are people who have money to give! And most of those people work hard to earn what they give. For that reason, I naturally want all of the friends of Heaven’s Family to prosper—as long as their wealth doesn’t become their god. I’m very happy that, by telling you about Moolala, I can hopefully be a blessing to you, because you have been a blessing to Heaven’s Family.

Sincerely in Christ,

David

The home and children of Love Children’s Home

Dear Friends,

For the past few days we’ve been away from Myanmar’s primary city, Yangon, and in the city of Taunggyi, in Shan State, which borders China’s Yunnan Province. I’m writing this blog entry from there in anticipation of once again being able to connect to the internet when we’re back in Yangon tomorrow.

Yesterday we visited Love Children’s Home, a Christian orphanage that was “adopted” by Heaven’s Family U.K. earlier this year. It was started by a missionary from India who came to this unreached region to spread the gospel among those who had never heard of Jesus. Inadvertently, however, he found himself taking care of a growing number of parentless children. Most of the 20 orphans who now live with him and his family lost their birth parents to AIDS, cholera, or because of the on-going conflict between Myanmar’s army and Shan nationalists.

For about eight months of the year, Love Children Home’s buildings are located in shallow waters near the edge of Inle Lake, and are thus built on stilts, as are all the houses of Inle Lake’s numerous villages. The other four months of the year, during the dry season, those same buildings are on dry land. Inle Lake is more like a gigantic marsh with very undefined shores than it is a lake. Most of the villages that are found around its “edges” can only be reached by narrow water passages through the brush. We had to rent long, narrow boats to reach the orphanage.

Our team with the children inside the main room. The floor is made of thin bamboo slats.

The children were absolutely delightful, and we enjoyed several hours interacting with them. I asked them if they preferred the wet or the dry season, and their consensus was the former because they liked to swim. They also told me that they are not afraid of Burmese pythons, and they showed me the 12-foot skin of one that they had eaten for dinner not too long ago!

Today we spent time with one of our beloved Heaven’s Family-sponsored national missionaries and his family. We started our day visiting the students of their missionary training school and rejoiced with them as they showed us their brand new Heaven’s Family-funded girls’ dorm. Currently, 32 students are enrolled who represent 10 different ethnic groups. Most intend to spread the gospel in unreached villages when they’ve graduated, something they are already doing during periodic outreaches.

HF-sponsored national missionaries, Khamh and Nini

We also met one of the Christian widows in this area who has benefitted from a Heaven’s Family small-business start-up grant by which she has been raising and selling pigs. We were so inspired to hear how her life has changed for the better, and to learn that her children, who previously turned away from God when they lost their father, have had their faith renewed by seeing their mother so blessed. It was the perfect ending to a great day. I’ve included some additional photos below. We have much to rejoice about. — David

One of the waterways we had to travel to reach the orphanage

Orphan Win Win Pyeh, who lost both her parents to cholera, and who is recovering from hepatitis A

Enjoying a moment with a woman from the Padaung tribe

One of the beautiful beneficiaries of a Heaven’s Family village water project

Dear Friends,

We arrived in Myanmar on November 7—the day of the first free election held here in two decades. No foreign journalists or observers were permitted in the country by the military rulers, and the elections were widely considered a sham. Prior to and after the elections, the government has done all it can to keep information from flowing out of the country, including via the internet. So we have found it impossible to send emails. However, after Saturday’s release of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who had been held under house arrest since her landslide victory in Myanmar’s last election 20 years ago, it seems that internet access has also been freed somewhat. So I am finally able to send a blog update.

We’ve focused our first week on hosting two 2-day conferences for all the orphanage directors whom we’ve been helping over the past 8 years—38 directors in all in 2 primary cities. In those conferences, we’ve been introducing the concept of Christian foster care as a better alternative for children than institutional orphanage care. We’ve brought with us an expert from the U.K. to speak on that subject—who has years of experience establishing foster care in nations where it has been heretofore foreign. I’ve been blessed by our orphanage directors’ receptivity to the teaching, and our hope in the years ahead is to slowly facilitate foster and kinship care in this nation.

We’ve also been meeting with many people who have been helped through Heaven’s Family’s various restricted funds. Many critical medical needs have been met here, and it has been a joy to meet, for example, little children who once suffered with tuberculosis who are now completely healthy.

The highlight of the trip so far for me was a trip to the most remote village I’ve ever visited in my life. Heaven’s Family has funded a water project there in the past year, and now the 150 very poor villagers—many of whom are Christians—don’t have to walk 2 miles for their drinking water. They now have 7 public faucets right inside their village. The entire population turned out to meet our team when we arrived, and the first thing they did was pray for us.

Speaking of prayers, thanks for your prayers for our team. We’ve still got a week of ministry remaining here in Myanmar. — David

Standing at one of the seven public faucets in the village

Indigenous church planting is just as much a way of life for these believers as is agriculture

I’ve spent my last two days in Burundi personally visiting Heaven’s Family beneficiaries, which include widows, former drug addicts, handicapped Christians and Christian leaders. It has been two days of joy for me. I’ve traveled to two fairly-far away provinces, Rugumbo and Kayanza. The former is generally flat and the latter is mountainous. In both places I visited agricultural projects where some very effective evangelists and indigenous church-planting servants have rented or purchased land via group loans from our Micro-Loan Fund. They are profiting with every harvest of potatoes, tomatoes and corn, enabling them to not only repay their loans, but meet their daily needs and support their ministries. Still, they are very poor. They live in mud-brick houses with dirt floors and without electricity or running water. Many walk miles every day or so to get drinkable water. They live in what is by some measurements, one of the world’s poorest countries.

To reach the folks in the photo above, we journeyed deep into Kayanza Province and parked alongside the road. Then I had to hike straight down (perhaps a slight exaggeration) on a slippery path for about a mile, giving me just a slight glimpse of what life is like for our indigenous church-planting missionaries.

You would never know it by looking at them, but all those in the photo not only lead a house church which they personally started, but each also is responsible for at least 10 other house church leaders—leaders whom they have won to the Lord and are still discipling. They are preaching the gospel in remote villages where no one has ever preached the gospel. Their steadfast, indigenous church-planting efforts are yielding an abundance of fruit. The older lady on the left for example, Monique Cishahayo, is a widow who often gets up before dawn to walk for miles to preach all day in far away villages that are only reachable by footpath.

Monique and a few others accompanied me as I hiked out of their valley, and I had to stop at least 4 times to catch my breath and let my heart stop racing. She and the others, not even sweating, politely waited for me to recover before continuing our upward trek to where we parked our vehicle (I was carrying about 20 pounds of camera gear, by the way).

Indigenous Church Planting Brings in Bountiful Harvest

The harvest is great in Kayanza Province. There are 30 other “district leaders” there besides the 5 in the photo. Each one has planted at least 10 house churches in the past 2 years. That is at least 350 churches. Our primary contact in Burundi, Bienvenu Bizimana, estimates that since he was given The Disiciple-Making Minister by an American missionary and mutual friend named Greg a little over 2 years ago, 3,000 house churches have been planted in 5 provinces in Burundi through the network he leads. They are now on their ninth generation of disciples. Just about all 3,000 of the leaders of those churches have a copy of the Kirundi translation of The Disciple-Making Minister, although many are illiterate and need someone to read it to them. Even if Bienvenu has miscalculated by 50%, that would still be 1,500 house churches planted in 2 years.

I stayed healthy during my entire time in Burundi, even eating some salads on several evenings (a no-no for missionaries). But Brussels Airlines apparently poisoned me on my flight from Burundi to Belgium. I’m almost home in Pittsburgh as I write, having had no desire for any food since Belgium, and just sipping on ginger ale and hot tea. It will be good to get home. Thanks for joining me on this journey. — David

Naitonal Missionary Sylvestre Nsengiyumva

I asked Sylvestre Nsengiyumva how many people he had killed when he was a rebel soldier. He hung his head and told me, “I don’t want to say or guess. Too many.” Sylvestre had been telling me his life story. He was one of the leaders at our Burundi pastors’ conference last weekend. Listening to his story reminded me that God’s grace through Jesus Christ is enough to redeem any sinner. Sylvestre is one of millions in East Africa who have spent practically their entire lives caught in ethnic strife. Below is his story.

Although Sylvestre’s parents were both Burundians, he was born in Rwanda where they were living as refugees at the time. When Sylvestre was 3 years old, his father was murdered and his mother consequently hung herself. A local family had pity on him, took him in, and raised him in the Roman Catholic church. But when he dutifully lined up to be baptized at age 13, he discovered that the officiating priest was requiring a fee for performance of the rite. Repulsed that he had to pay a priest for a ticket to heaven, Sylvestre returned home without being baptized. His host family reacted angrily and beat him. He ran away from home, an orphan again.

Sylvestre was eventually taken in by another Burundian refugee family, headed by a Seventh Day Adventist pastor. Together, when they felt it was safe, they returned to Burundi. But when civll war errupted three years later, Sylvestre’s host family was killed while he was at school. He saw their dead bodies as he fled for his life again across the border into Rwanda, an orphan for the third time.

In 1994, war broke out in Rwanda. Once again, Sylvestre found himself in the middle of the conflict. Falsely accused of aiding the enemy, Sylvestre was captured by a small group of Rwandan rebels. They took him into the bush in order to execute him, but they were ambushed by enemy soldiers and Sylvestre escaped. He fled back to Burundi.

The same ethnic tension that fueled the holocaust in Rwanda between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis erupted again in Burundi. In 1996, Hutu and Tutsi school students were killing each other. Sylvestre was wounded by a gunshot and fled to Tanzania, and then Kenya, where he spent two years as a refugee. Seething with hatred, Sylvestre decided to join the rebel army in Burundi. He connected with such a group in Tanzania and journeyed with them into to the D.R. Congo, where he and others were trained to be soldiers by rebel Congolese. They all made a deal to help each other fight in their home countries, and Sylvestre spent six years of his life surviving by plundering villages to finance his killing-mission. His conscience was screaming at him, but was locked into a lifestyle that was fueled by bitterness.

When a peace agreement was reached in 2005, Sylvestre was given an opportunity to join the Burundi military. His experience as a soldier propelled him through the ranks, but he was often given assignments that bothered his conscience.

Finally, in early 2008, he found himself contemplating suicide. Remembering some of what he learned as a child in the Roman Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist churches, Sylvestre decided to surrender to God and ask for mercy. He experienced amazing grace and was genuinely born again. He quickly joined a Seventh Day Adventist church and started taking a year-long course to prepare him to become a pastor. A natural leader, Sylvestre was assigned a pastorate in early 2009.

It was not much later that he attended a Heaven’s Family-sponsored pastors’ conference where he heard biblical concepts contrasted to traditions. He was challenged to make disciples instead of just build Sunday morning attendance. At the end of the conference, he stood before all the pastors and declared his intention to follow the Bible. He stood alone.

To make a long story short, Sylvestre had to resign his pastorate, but he started with 20 genuine sheep who wanted to obey Christ’s commandments. He began to disciple them, and before long his house church had to split into 4 house churches. Sylvestre and some of his sheep began walking to nearby villages preaching the gospel where it had never been heard before. Now, just 16 months later, Sylvestre and his disciples have planted 63 churches in Kirundo Province, mostly filled with new converts.

Sylvestre told me, “I passed through many provinces in these countries robbing and killing people. Now I want to go through those same provinces healing and saving people from their sins.” He is an evangelist at heart.

Heaven’s Family is going to provide him a bicycle and small-business loan so his dream can begin to be fulfilled. Plus, I hope we can raise about $100 per month in national missionary support that will help meet some of his travel expenses as he goes. If you are interested, please send an email to David Growden at DavidG [at] HeavensFamily.org. We will do our best to see that you receive monthly email reports from Sylvestre, translated into English in case you can’t read Kirundi! — David

Sylvestre Nsengiyumva with his wife of twelve years and their youngest child. They have four children and also take care of three war orphans.

Nzohabonimana Eudia

Nzohabonimana Eudia (pronounced Zo-ha-bo-nee-ma-na Ay-yu-dee-ah) was one of the women who attended our leaders’ conference over the weekend in Bujumbura. Everyone calls her “Mama Deo,” and I’m thankful for that, as that is much easier than calling her Nzohabonimana Eudia. She’s 40 years old, but doesn’t know her birthdate. Her parents, being illiterate, only told her the year of her birth. Like 75% of the other women in Burundi, she can’t read. By looking at her, you would never suspect that she’s a powerhouse for God.

Mama Deo’s husband died 12 years ago from a heart attack, leaving her with 4 children to care for. She lives in a village of about 5,000 people in Rugombo Province. Only a few people there own cars, and only one person owns cows. Everyone grows their own food.

When believers first shared the gospel with Mama Deo, she was resistant. Her husband had just died. Where was God? It was not long after that, however, when an inoperable tumor was discovered in her womb. She allowed local Christians to pray for her healing. Each day after that she felt the tumor shrinking, until after 7 days it was gone. She gave her life to Jesus.

That was about 11 years ago. Mama Deo began attending a Protestant church in her village, but didn’t find true spiritual life there. After attending for 5 years, she felt that God gave her a prophecy for the pastors that they should repent and be born again. They responded by excommunicating her.

Wounded, she never attended another church and just stayed home and prayed with her 4 children. Prayer became a central part of her life.

Fast forward to 2 years ago when Mama Deo met an on-fire pastor named Pascal Niyigaba (who was also at our conference this weekend) from her same province. Pascal had been a former influential lay leader in the Roman Catholic church, but was excommunicated when he began questioning certain unbiblical practices. Since his excommunication, he has planted 4 churches in homes. Mama Deo was thrilled to find a like-minded saint who could teach her, and Pascal began to disciple her with the help of a book titled, The Disciple-Making Minister. (Mama Deo eventually obtained her own copy, which one of her children reads to her.)

Mama Deo never learned that God doesn’t use women to build His Kingdom, and the Lord began to use her in a healing ministry. Sick people started coming to her for prayer, and they often left her little house healed, or were healed within days. Her reputation grew, and in the past 2 years hundreds of people have streamed to her little house for healing prayer. These days, she told me she prays for at least 20 people every day. She never accepts money from them, lest people think that healing can be purchased from God. She tells every sick person about Jesus and calls them to repent of their sins. If they are healed, she instructs them to go home and tell everyone their testimony as well as the gospel.

Hundreds have been saved. Scores of churches have been planted. Mama Deo told me that those churches have no one to lead them, and she has no way to get to them. So she prays for them.

I asked her to tell me about some of the most amazing healings she has seen. She told me about a “crazy man” named Daniel who was delivered, restored, saved, and who has since planted 6 churches in his region.

Then she told me about the time some people brought a dead body to her house.

In a village about an hour from her, a man fell over as he was walking along, saying something had bitten him. He started losing consciousness, and 2 hours later, around 6 PM, he wasn’t breathing. It was concluded that he was dead, and his family members tearfully began preparing for his burial, deciding to bury him around 11 AM the following morning. That next morning, however, the dead man’s daughter, who was a believer, and who had been healed of barrenness due to Mama Deo’s prayers, walked an hour to Mama Deo’s to ask if she would pray over her father’s dead body. Mama Deo agreed because the day before during a prayer meeting she had heard a voice tell her, “I have a special prayer meeting for you tomorrow.”

So the dead man’s daughter walked back to her village and told her story to her family. Very reluctantly, and just to satisfy her, they agreed to carry her father’s body to Mama Deo’s house. They arrived there around 3 PM.

Mama Deo and her group of prayer warriors prayed over the body for 2 hours. Finally, Mama Deo lifted the body up, stood it on its feet, and commanded it to walk in Jesus’ name. The body coughed! Then the dead man opened his eyes and said, “I was dead! I was on a long, dreadful journey!” Mama Deo led him to Christ. He later moved to another province to preach the gospel there.

Even if the man wasn’t actually dead, it was still a pretty good story I thought! Mama Deo told me 2 other stories of people who were resurrected that were almost as amazing as the first one.

Because she’s so popular, Mama Deo has been persecuted by church leaders, who accuse her of splitting their churches. They’ve reported her to local authorities for having unauthorized church meetings in her house, and she has even been accused of practicing witchcraft and human sacrifice. Consequently, she’s twice been put in jail for a few days, and the authorities have locked up her house until she can obtain legal permission to continue her ministry.

Now she, her children (ages 22, 20, and 17—one is deceased), as well as 4 orphans whom she’s been caring for (ages 20, 17, 15, 11) have been forced to live with other believers who open up their homes. Mama Deo continues to pray for the sick in various locations, working undercover. I was so happy to be able to promise her $400 from Heaven’s Family’s Widows Fund to help her rent her own house, plus some additional money via our Widows Micro-Bank to help her and her children start a business that can sustain them. It’s not every day that you meet someone like Mama Deo.

From witchcraft to Christ, Procaire Bucumi is enjoying true life in Christ. Pictured here with her sixth child, Dusenge Pacifique

Procaire Bucumi lives in Kayanza Province of Burundi in the agricultural village of Musave. She was married to a witchcraft doctor, and legally, she still is, although they are now separated. Procaire converted from witchcraft to Christ a little over a year ago through a woman of God who continues to disciple her. I spent time with her today to listen to her story.

Procaire’s husband was not pleased with her new life—a total turnaround from witchcraft to Christ—especially when she told him that God does not want him to make his living practicing witchcraft. He argued that if he stopped his profession of his witchcraft, they would all starve for lack of an income. She countered that if he repented, God would bless them and take care of their needs somehow. He ultimately accused her of driving his customers away, and he angrily drove her and their six children, ages 1 to 14, out of their home, taunting her by saying, “Let’s see if your God will take care of you now!” Her husband has since provided her and their children with no support and has a woman living with him. He still practices witchcraft.

A neighbor, a single mother with three children, was the only one who would open her home to shelter Procaire and her children. But there were two problems. That neighbor’s house consists of only two small rooms, so it is a tight fit for two adults and nine children. Moreover, the woman who opened up her home makes her living as a prostitute, which often reduces the living quarters to just one room for ten people. Worse, Procaire has found herself being accosted by drunken men who frequent the house. The woman with whom she lives has tried to pressure her to earn some much-needed money by also selling her body. However, coming from withchcraft to Christ, Procaire knows that she is a new creation in Christ and that her body is His temple.

Procaire is also a disciple of Jesus Christ (as are all true believers). In the last year, she has led six others to Christ, and together, they are going door-to-door spreading the gospel in their village of 3,000 people. Each of Procaire’s disciples have led three to five others to the Lord, and they all regularly meet to pray, admonish and encourage one another.

Procaire told me that one reason that people have rejected her and her message is because they think she is a prostitute, as she lives in a prostitute’s house. She also told me that her three oldest children, all of school age, have had to drop out of school for lack of school fees. And they simply don’t have enough food to eat.

I had the feeling that Procaire was one of the reasons I’m here in Burundi, and since her husband taunted her by saying, “Let’s see if your God will take care of you now!” I thought we ought to help him see what Procaire’s God would do. So I gave her some HF funds to meet her immediate food needs and get her three children back in school. I also decided that I would yield to the long-standing request of the director of Heaven’s Family’s Widows Fund (my wife, Becky), and change the name of that fund to the Widows and Abandoned Mothers Fund. With that, I was able to promise Procaire $400 so she can pay six month’s rent on a house of her own and purchase some domestic necessities. On top of that, through our just-established Burundi Widows Micro-Bank, I was also able to offer her a $400 loan to start a small shop in order to support herself and her children.

Procaire told me that she knows that as she seeks first God’s kingdom, He will supply all that she needs. Amen.

The Lord protects the strangers; He supports the fatherless and the widow; but He thwarts the way of the wicked (Psa. 146:9).