And you thought you had problems!

Burundi faces some big adversities, but its Christian leaders smile and push forward

A local historical interpreter (center) explaining the story of the meeting between David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley at Bujumbura, Burundi.

One of the phrases Edmund Gakiza, general secretary of the Association of Evangelicals in Burundi (AEB), has learned from me this week is “puny problem.”

Nancy and I often use a slightly different term, “puny adversity,” when something goes wrong, to remind us that when we encounter problems, we should trust God and not worry or become upset. Although Edmund’s English is excellent, he has chosen to simplify our phrase for people who would not recognize the word “adversity.” (English is now Burundi’s third official language, but Kirundi and French remain in broader use.)

I find it ironic that Edmund should want to adopt that phrase from me, because he and his fellow Burundians know a lot more about adversity than I do. Last night I visited his home, nine kilometers from the downtown center of Bujumbura (Burundi’s main city with 1.1 million people in the urban area). Getting to Edmund’s home was quite an adventure. Once one leaves the main roads, travel here is rocky and bumpy, seldom at more than 15 kilometers per hour.

Moreover, in the city, every main intersection is an adventure, because there are no functioning traffic lights. Drivers just take their turns poking their way across.

Keeping one’s car operating is a challenge too. One of my hosts said the roads keep car mechanics quite busy here. But even if you drive safely and slowly, you still need gas. And every gas station in Bujumbura is closed due to lack of supply. Two people have told me they find gas on the black market; one drives about 30 kilometers to the Congolese border. My Burundian friends graciously accept this as part of life.

Some of them also endure significant economic adversity. One of the young AEB volunteers shared a dilemma with me: he would like to get married, but he can barely cover his own expenses, so how could he support a wife? I’m hoping to mentor him in communication skills, as he is already an excellent writer, so that he can qualify for a good job.

Bujumbura treasures a historical monument that commemorates overcoming adversity at a whole different level. Two days ago, AEB president Audace Barahudama took me 12 kilometers south of downtown, through several villages with densely packed storefronts, to a small plot of land surrounded by an iron fence. At that hilltop location, overlooking where a modest river flows into Lake Tanganyika, British missionary David Livingstone and journalist Henry Morton Stanley arrived on November 25, 1871. That was two weeks after Stanley, on assignment to locate Livingstone dead or alive, had found him in what is now Tanzania

According to the historical interpreter who welcomed us at the location, in 1956 the Belgian colonial authorities required local residents to spend three months pushing a big stone down from the nearby hills to provide a monument, which is carved with Livingstone and Stanley’s names and their date of arrival. In 2021, the Burundi government added an impressive pair of statues, showing a larger-than-life Livingstone and Stanley greeting each other.

Transportation in Bujumbura may seem deficient by most of the contemporary world’s standards, but it has improved considerably since Livingstone and Stanley’s time!

Despite its resource limitations, the AEB leaders are as gifted as any you’ll find. They recently held an evangelistic event that about 10,000 people attended, with 700 expressing commitments to Christ. After they explained to me how they had managed the event—including announcements on state-run media, recruiting two popular singers as an attraction, bus transportation for people without a vehicle, and follow-up methods—I said Billy Graham could not have done it any better.

I’m appreciating this first opportunity to experience the inspiration of Majority World Christians on their own territory. It does remind us to quit complaining so much about puny problems.