Saturday, June 30, 2007

Coffee, tea, and pineapples

Burundi exports tea and coffee, I think they must eat all of their pineapples. We ate as many as we could while we were there! The first picture is a hillside of tea bushes; then a close up of a coffee plant (the red berries have a coffee bean inside), and finally some small pineapples growing on the grounds of the seminary where we had the conference.






Beautiful Burundi

Burundi stands out in our experiences of going to Africa... the size of Maryland with 7-8 million people, hills/mountains rising from Lake Tanganyika, mountainous but a tropical climate, bananas growing everywhere, people walking and working everywhere, tea and coffee bushes, beautiful skies.



The clothes are incredibly colorful; their faces are incredibly sad.





Bananas are growing on every hillside, every plot of land. We ate several different kinds, small and sweet, large and grilled, large and really exceptionally sweet and flavorful. They even make beer from the bananas - only in Burundi!

Burundi Worship

Worship in Africa is like no where else in the world. They will be our worship leaders in heaven. It's amazing that we could go to a 3 hour service and not understand a word of the sermon or the songs, but still we wished it could last longer. They worship with their whole body, soul, and spirit.







A little girl was fascinated with the white visitors in the service, but, most of all, with my camera.




Deo preached at the Free Methodist church that morning. He lead in prayer as the men came down and fell on their faces before God.

Video of Worship

The choir sang a special song just for us; we didn't understand most of it but enjoyed the experience immensely. We captured a small portion of it.

A.L.A.R.M. in Burundi

We had wonderful hosts while in Burundi, the staff of A.L.A.R.M.-Burundi(Africa Leadership and Reconciliation Ministry). The picture shows the country director, Deogratias Nshimiyimana, on the left, Delphin, the youth director, Ed and Donna Edwards, Kim and Alvin Bates, and Ange, the women's director.


Faustin Ntamushobora, African Regional Director, accompanied us from Nairobi to Burundi. He assisted in teaching and leading the conference. In this picture, we are prepared to go to church on our first Sunday in Africa.

Bujumbura, the city


Bujumbura sits on the east side of Lake Tanganyika, the 2nd largest lake in volume in the world. On the west side of the lake are the mountains of the Congo, one of the largest countries in Africa.






LIVING WELL ARRIVES IN BUJUMBURA, BURUNDI

We arrive Bujumbura, Burundi (the capital) 41 hours after getting on a plane in Oklahoma City.



Burundi was a Belgium colony, the official language is French.