Hello from Bujumbura

Hello from Africa!!! I'm currently sat in a cafe on the beach in Bujumbura, Burundi. Don't worry, I know that Burundi is landlocked and therefore has no sea, it does however have a beautiful lake which is about 3 minutes walk from the base that we're staying at! So we flew to Rwanda on the 30th, a day late due to technical difficulties with the plane. We spent Easter Sunday in the YWAM base there. Our team went to our first church service. We knew we were in Africa when it lasted 4 hours! It was good fun though & prepared us for the services to come! On the Monday we got a bus from Kigali to Bujumbura, the capital in Burundi. It was a 6 hour trip through beautiful countryside in a pretty crammed bus with some interesting toilet stops. We arrived here in Burundi in the evening and had a little tour of the base. It's much smaller than the base in Rwanda or Burtigny, but it does have the beach just down the road so you can't complain! So for the first week we got stuck in straight away with the ministries that the base are involved with. We went and spoke to fishermen on the lake, gathered children and played games, sung songs & told them about Jesus. We also visited an Orphanage. One of my favorite days was when we brought some street children to the base, we played games with them, sung songs, washed them, ate with them and listened to their stories. It broke my heart to hear that some of them didn't know how old they were and some of them said an age that was obviously a few years out! We prayed with them and had to say goodbye. It's so easy to get overwhelmed by the need here because there is just so much, but we can only do what we can and have to trust that Jesus will do the rest! This weekend we went to a church on the side of the mountain and although the taxi ride was probably one of the most terrifying trips in a car, the view was definitely worth it!! We were given an hour and half to fill up in both services. On Saturday I spoke & one of the team gave a testimony and we did worship. On Sunday another one of the team spoke and we did just over an hour in the service, which, in total was around 4 hours! Monday was our day off and the cafe down the road(the one I'm currently sat in) was closed so we headed down the beach to a hotel which has a pool which we could use for 6000 Burundian francs for the day. Yes I feel like a millionaire right now! 6000 is about £3 or £4 I think, and since we could use the Internet there, we spent a large majority of the day there! This week we organised a Mini DTS for a youth group here and so each of us had the opportunity to speak on topics that we were taught on in our lectures. Sam & I spoke on the Character & Nature of God and the Father heart of God. I actually really enjoyed preparing for it, it meant we went back through our notes and reminded ourselves of the teaching we received a few months ago. The others taught on Hearing the voice of God & Reconciliation and Relationships. On Friday we also spoke on the topic of missions & English speakers spoke on Biblical Worldview & the French speakers spoke on Spiritual Warfare. Health wise, most of us have been pretty good, with the occasional stomach ache etc. On a more personal level, I've loved what we've been doing and am excited for the next few months but, as expected, it's also been challenging! I managed to get a pretty awful burn on my neck within the first few days after just not being careful enough with the sun cream! So I've learnt my lesson and putting on sun cream, as well as mosquito repellent, has just become a normal part of my day! We're here in Burundi until the 30th April and then we're going back to Rwanda for the rest of our time. I hope to write another post before we leave Burundi to update you with news! If you'd like prayer requests, they are: - That team unity would continue to grow and we'd be even closer as a team - That health issues wouldn't prevent us from doing what we've come here to do - Moral would stay high, even in challenging situations - God would continue to amaze us!! So, in summary, I'm loving it here!! Lots of love! Emma xx P.S appologies for the lack of paragraphs & massive chunk of text- I tried to break it up and not sure what went wrong!