Engage the Nations

Under 100 degree heat, rising dust, and high precipitation from the nearby Lake Tanganyika, 4,500 Burundian believers from all walks of life and all ages crammed into the temporary tin-roofed structure set up in an open field in the city center. They sang, danced, listened to our message of hope through Jesus Christ and prayed fervently for the salvation of their nation. Faith-filled believers and the intense heat combined with the occasional cooling breeze blowing over the crowd reminded me of what the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 must have felt like. The Holy Spirit was unmistakably present among us. The service was meant to be a gathering of believers from Bujumbura churches to pray for the healing and salvation of Burundi during our upcoming Festival of Hope and Leadership and Governance Conference in the capital city. However, when I asked if there was anyone who needed to receive Jesus Christ into their life as Lord and Savior, fifty four people stepped forward. Following this, I

After reading this article by Matthew Paris, I was impressed by his honesty and frank observation of the African transformation. Mr. Paris, an atheist, is impressed by the apparent transformation that the Christian faith makes in the lives of the Africans that he encounters as he travels across the continent. Not only are these believers changed spiritually, they demonstrate a rare competence in their pursuit of societal change that is fueled by a new biblical world-view. He observes: "In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world - a directness in their dealings with others - that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall." To the contrary, their non-Christian comrades luck this unique trait. Bound