Source: Simon Guillebaud, September 3, 2013
Editor’s note: We have reported several times on the ministry of Great Lakes Outreach in Burundi. August 3-17, they were part of an effort that sent out 761 evangelists in 42 teams around the country. The summary below is from their partner Onesphore, founder of Harvest for Christ.
- 39,753 people were reached with the gospel, of whom 18,218 gave their lives to Christ. Numbers are down (!) a little on previous years because we didn’t preach exclusively but also did service projects
- 60 Muslims and 28 witchdoctors were among the converts
- 171 people were healed from regular sicknesses
- 15 paralytics walked
- 15 blind people recovered their sight
- 8 deaf/mute people heard/spoke again
- 20 demon-possessed people were delivered
- 55 separated couples were reconciled and brought together
- 8 divided families were reunited
“Zacharie is a young man whom witchdoctors said had been poisoned by his dad. So for the last twenty years, the two had been enemies, and Zacharie had tried many times to kill his father. By May 2013, Zacharie had become mad, and was living in caves. When our evangelists arrived, he tried to beat them, but they refused to be cowed, instead praying for him. After an hour of such prayers, he was miraculously healed. Immediately he was filled with love for his father and went off to find him. The village heard about it, came to see what had happened, and fifty of them gave their lives to Christ. His mum, who had divorced his dad, came and was reconciled with her ex-husband.
“In an area steeped in witchcraft, the team felt it best not to preach for the first week but to simply to serve the community in any way possible. They came to a big witchdoctor and offered to work in his field and cultivate for him. He was blown away after a few hours and allowed them to share why they were doing it. On the spot he and his family repented. He publicly burnt all his charms, whereupon 30 other people gave their lives to Christ too. When our team left, many came to see them off in tears.”
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