Alison Gill in Burundi email: 
alisoninburundi@beeb.net

Sunday 25 June 

Dear All, 

I have not been able to check emails all week but hope to do so again when I am in Bujumbura on Monday / Tuesday. Thank you for any who have sent emails – please continue to write! Well, I am feeling well and truly engrossed in Burundi life once again! This week has been a full, but wonderful yet at times very sad week. 

On Monday I travelled in a taxi to Gitega with Georgette Butera, her son, Greg and our cook. I had a very happy time there meeting Bishop John Nduwayo, her father, Mark a retired Archdeacon and many others working in the Anglican diocese. On Tuesday we went on the rather bumpy road to Karuzi and Buhiga in the NE of the country. I am told that this mud road has been significantly improved in the last few months since the President visited on his election campaign. So my sympathy to Geoff S-S and others who have travelled that road before the holes were filled in. I felt pretty sick during the journey even on the improved road! I think one of the worst things is that drivers don't seem to slow down much even for hair pin bends and your body is rocked all over the place! 

Whilst we were there we visited the Muslim governor of the Province who offered me a piece of land to build a house on so I can come and live here! Not too sure I know where I will need to be based at present but I appreciated the offer! 

We went to Karuzi and visited a Technical College that Georgette is having built to help people train in skills such as carpentry and catering. It looked very impressive. After that we went to the Internally Displaced People's (IDP) Camp. It was huge and very sad to see the state of people's lives there. These people have fled because of terrible killings in their own area. They are too frightened to return home even though they are told the situation has improved. The World Food Programme has now completely stopped even supplying the 5Kg bag of maize flour they used to receive once a month. People's little mud houses are so close together that there is no room to cultivate and many people were literally starving. I was amazed at the number of badly disabled people as well as naked children and others who are very sick. 

The lady in the photo below, whom Georgette knew, invited us into her little mud house. The smell was strong and it was so dark. She showed us her kitchen (where the photo below was taken) which had a few clay pots, and no food at all. She showed us her legs which had bad ulcers and I'm sure much more wrong with them. They looked very swollen. We prayed with her and asked Jesus to bring healing to her body, mind and spirit and provide for her. She told us the only thing she was living on was the grace of God. That is what has kept her alive up until now. The only clothes she had were the ones she was wearing. I discussed with Georgette and we felt it right to give her 20000 Burundian francs (around £11) to buy some medicine and food which will help for a while but so much more is needed. And this lady is just one person, like many thousands in IDP camps in Burundi and around half a million refugees in 10 camps in Tanzania.

Georgette Butera and I with Christian lady in her small, dark kitchen in IDP camp. 

Children in the camp 

Later that day we went to Buhiga, not far from Karuzi, where there were a large amount of killings during the war. We went to the ruins of the house of a friend's mother. Her mother had been killed along with 33 others in her own house all in one go. These people were brutally killed and houses destroyed. The husband (aged 75) of this lady saw his wife being killed and had a heart attack. He was not killed because the killers saw his unconscious body and thought he was dead. My friend told me that after the massacre, there was no trace of any corpses, not even bones and it is thought that the killers barbequed the bodies and ate them, including their hearts. This was the first time my friend had really been to visit the ruins of her parents' house and be in the place where her mother had been killed at the start of the more recent troubles in 1993. We prayed together asking Jesus to heal the pain in her heart and cleanse the land, agreeing together that this may never happen again. 

Ruins of the house at Buhiga 

I am now writing from Matana where I am staying with Roger and Miranda Bowen. It has been a precious time of sharing together over meals and in the evenings whilst catching up with friends during the day. On Friday I taught at the Theological Institute to the students there on trauma healing. We looked at how God wants to use His Church to be the agent of healing for a nation, symptoms of grief and trauma, how to help rape victims, how He wants to bring healing to those who are suffering and how we can take our pain to the Cross, give and receive forgiveness and move towards reconciliation. 

At the start when I asked the students for their thoughts on what Burundi is suffering from, I found them very factual but not very in touch with emotion. Many of the students have suffered greatly themselves. I return to Buj. on Monday 26th for a week, hoping to have meetings with people, spend time at the Trauma Healing and Reconciliation Services (THARS - Christian counselling centre run by David Niyonzima) and prepare seminars for the following week in Makamba. 

My mother has phoned to say that my Grandma had an appointment with the Consultant on Thursday and was told that she either has the myelodysplasia (as originally mentioned) or acute leukaemia. They have said because of her age they are not going to give her chemotherapy or a bone marrow transplant and have suggested she may last weeks or possibly months on blood transfusions. 

My brother, in Basra is sounding very depressed when he has phoned my parents. My mother, in particular is feeling very anxious about everything esp. since hearing about the American soldiers who were tortured and killed in Baghdad earlier last week. Please pray for me and my family at this time of pressure and separation. Please continue to pray for Burundi and for me as I do for you. I hope my emails can help you to pray clearly for this nation which has experienced so much trouble but which God is restoring. 

With love in Him, 

Alison