This article, by a 36-year-old Burundian pastor, gives the clearest picture of the significance of Bujumbura's Central Market fire of anything I have read. The following is an excerpt, describing the economic impact of this catastrophe:
It is important to note that our economy is mostly an informal one. This market is home of over 5000 business people, big, medium and small. To this figure, we need to add young people selling things moving here and there, thousands of intermediaries between potential buyers and sellers and you easily get close to double the number of people whose livelihood directly depends to the central market.
A world bank commissioned study last year said that daily transactions in the central market are worth $5000, 0000. This is the first business in the country far before the brewery (Brarudi) which serves Rwanda and the Eastern part of DR Congo.
It is clear it will take years before people get back to their feet.
The situation today is that thousands of families lost everything, food prices have tripled especially for rice and beans (which is what people eat everyday). Some churches have announced they are already receiving people and many threatening to commit suicide. We do not have psychologists who can help with this situation and churches will have to play the role. Already on Sunday, a woman with a baby on the back went into the flames and another man of Senegalese origin forcefully entered into the fire and was consumed by it.
Some journalists were comparing this situation with 9/11 – not in the origin of the fire (unknown so far) but in the consequences and taking all the necessary proportions into account!!
Please continue to pray for the people of this nation, the fourth poorest country in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund's 2011 gross domestic product per capita (GDP per capita) report. They need wise leadership and great peace as they face the future. Burundi has suffered terribly in its brief time as an independent nation (it celebrated its 50th anniversary last year.) May God grant them courage and strength to deal with this new crisis.
When you mention Special Friends Camp to Laurie
Fertello, her eyes light up and she's ready to talk!
Laurie is the Disabilities Ministries Director at Warm Beach Camp in Stanwood WA. She's been on staff there since 1989, when
she moved from Oregon and served as a Program Staff Counselor her first summer.
Over the years, as she has worked with campers, she has developed many
programs to reach out to the hundreds of children and youth who pass through
the camp every summer. She's a fixture at Warm Beach and has touched many lives
through Christian camping.
From time to time folks would approach the
leadership at Warm Beach, asking if there wasn’t some way they could provide a
program for the developmentally disabled. It was a great idea, something the
camp was open to, but they were waiting for “an expert” to come along, someone
who knew the needs of that population and how best to meet them.
About seven years ago a couple of community women
came to Laurie. One was Shelly Rubatino, the director of Stanwood High School’s
Transition Center, which provides transition experiences and training for 18-21
year-olds with developmental disabilities; Leah Merklinghaus, the coach of
Stanwood’s Special Olympics teams, was the other. Both women were passionate
about serving the special needs community, and they had an idea.
They wanted the camp to sponsor a four-day day camp
for special needs adults.
Not only did these women have an idea, they also
had the expertise the camp was waiting for. And that’s how Special Friends Camp
came to be.
During the summer of 2007 Warm Beach Camp hosted their first week of day camp for special needs
adults. I attended a portion of the orientation session for the camp staff and
volunteers. Most of the workers had little experience serving people with
developmental disabilities, but they were eager to learn how to make this week
at camp an outstanding experience for them.
Special Friends Camp was a great success that first
summer! So great, in fact, that it has become a regular part of the summer
schedule. In its 6th year in 2012, they hosted five sessions for folks 15 and
older.
Each week saw 70 to 100 people -- campers and staff
-- hanging out for four days full of activity. From swimming to chapel to
mini-golf to group time to climbing the tower and ziplining, Special Friends
campers are treated to the same activities that able-bodied campers enjoy. And
for many of them, it’s the first time they’ve had these opportunities.
Mother and Son
Goofing Off
When I dropped by the camp one day last summer to
see Special Friends Camp in action, everyone was having a great time! The fire
truck had just come and campers were checking it out. Some donned the uniform
or climbed into the driver’s seat of the truck.
Although the camp provides some of the staffing,
most of the staff are volunteers. They might be teens or retirees, even
families, who give a week of their summer, just for the joy of it. Most spend
the week as a buddy to one specific camper. Others are rovers, available to do
whatever they can to make the week go well. All have a heart for service and
are loyal and full of energy!
The experience is really a close-to-home mission
trip for the volunteers. It puts them in a setting different from their home
environment, working with adults with developmental disabilities, growing in
their awareness of the world around them and loving them in Jesus’ name. And
from what I’ve seen, the volunteers love it!
They arrive on Monday, the day before the campers
come, and have an 8-hour orientation. Most stay in the cabins at Chinook
Village and after the campers have left for the day they get refreshed at the
chapel service at W-Bar-B Ranch where youth camp is in session.
For now Warm Beach Camp will continue to host
several weeks of Special Friends Camp each summer. You’ll find the dates for
2013 camps – along with other details – at the Warm
Beach Camp website. Their dream is to one day offer overnight
programming and camps for younger children. They are making slow and steady
progress toward those goals.
I asked Leah Merklinghaus about Special Friends Camp. "I'd like to say how amazing Warm Beach Camp is for saying YES [for starting the program] and how amazing God is in his faithfulness in growing the camp. It's been great to watch him at work in the lives of the campers and, much to our surprise, the volunteers."
Laurie Fertello says the best thing about Special
Friends Camp is that "we are continually ably to say 'Yes!' Moms bawl when they hear,
'Yes, your child can ride a horse!' 'Yes, your child can swim!' 'Yes, your
child can go on the zipline!'”
So here’s where I get to say, “Yes!” Yes, you can!
- Are you interested in volunteering at Special
Friends Camp? Check it out!
- Are you thinking about starting a camp where you
are but don’t have an expert to help you? Or are you the one with the knowledge
and desire to see something happen but don’t know where to start? Go for it!
Don’t be afraid to look for other like-minded people who have an interest too.
Pray for the Lord to direct you to them. Contact Laurie Fertello at Warm Beach
and pick her brain.
- If there’s the slightest nudge inside that you’d
like to be a part of Special Friends Camp, follow the example of Laurie,
Shelly, Leah, and hundreds of volunteers who have gone before you. Yes, you
can!
Denise Patch of Sister Connection, a ministry to widows in Burundi, posted the following on Facebook:
For those of you asking how you can assist the widows and orphans, there are two great ways. Sponsoring a widow will bring ongoing support to a widowed family struggling to survive. If this is something you would like to do, please follow this link. http://www.sisterconnection.org/sponsor.php
Critical Needs is the fund we have in place for times like this for general contributions to the extraneous needs of widows and their children. Please follow the link below to our website where there will be a link for online giving. If you'd prefer to send a check, please use the mailing AZ address on the website. Thank you for your caring hearts--this is a gift to us.
Sister Connection is a sponsorship program connecting the priviledged of this world with the poorest of this world's people - the widows and orphans of Burundi, Africa.
Central Market, Bujumbura, Burundi, January 28, 2013
I can't even begin to comprend the tragedy that is unfolding in Burundi. Early Sunday morning fire broke out in Bujumbura's Central Market, destroying the market and, it would seem, collapsing the economy of the nation.
I did not visit the market while I was in Burundi last summer, but I understand it is the hub of commerce for the city and the nation. I found this video on YouTube, filmed in December of 2012, of a walk through the market.
According to Denise Patch of Sister Connection, "thousands of merchants have lost everything. Not just their inventory but their life savings as many stored their cash in their market boots rather than pay the high bank fees. Prices on food and clothing and household good are already skyrocketing with the now extreme scarcity of these things, and it is being said that this is a national crisis."
"Word is that many stored their life savings in their market booths to avoid high government taxes and bank fees, and suicide is claiming the most devastated. Others were killed or injured as they went into the fire to retrieve as much as they could."
"Where does Sister Connection come in?" asks Denise Patch. "We have widows in our microenterprise program who were operating their businesses in the market. We do not have word yet from our staff on any more details, but as we receive them, we will post them. Until then, please pray for our widows, for our staff, for the nation. My heart just keeps crying, 'Surely our widows know we will not abandon them, that they do not face this devastation alone. God, fill their hearts and minds with reminders of Your truth, Your peace, and let them be instruments of encouragement and healing to their fellow merchants. Let the widows rise up and lead."
Please pray for the people of Bujumbura -- for their safety, for peace in a situation that is rife with opportunities for mayhem, for wise leadership, for doctors and hospitals and others who are caring for the injured, for people who don't know the whereabouts of loved ones, for merchants and shoppers and tourists who were in the market.
The quotes from Denise Patch are from several different postings on Facebook. If you want more information, Denise will post on the Sister Connection page of Facebook as she has information. This may not become a front page story in our American newspapers, but it is huge and we must keep the people of Burundi in our thoughts and prayers.
Wednesday was my dad's 87th birthday. I've been privileged to spend the past 62 years with him. He has brought joy and laughter into my life, and has been a support in all my endeavors. I know my siblings would say the same thing.
Dad is a man of integrity. He is a giver, a teacher (not by profession, but in every other way), a provider, and a man of God.
For weeks now I've been hearing, nearly every day, about someone who is going through tough times. I've lost track of the number of people who are grieving the loss of a loved one -- a parent or in-law, a child, a sibling, a spouse. I have friends dealing with serious illness or job loss and those whose children are struggling with life threatening health issues or mental health problems. Folks are facing the fallout of bad decisions. I doubt I know anyone who is not living through something pretty heavy right now.
When I hear the stories of people suffering I want to gather them around me and shield them from the pain. Yet while I'm trying to protect people from their pain, I hear Jesus tell me what he told Peter: You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men (Mark 8:33).
So what does God have in mind when we go through difficulties? Why do we suffer?
There are many answers buried in the pages of scripture, but I this morning I'm thinking about three in particular:
1. To humble us -- As the Lord was reminding the children of Israel to follow the commands God had given, he included these words: Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands (Deuteronomy 8:2).
2. To purify us -- When Zechariah prophesied about the shepherd being struck and two-thirds of the sheep being destroyed (he was talking about his people Israel) he promised of the remaining sheep, "This third I will put into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, 'They are my people,' and they will say, 'The Lord is our God'" (Zehariah 13:9). Not only does the Lord desire a humble people, he desires a pure people.
3. To bring us to maturity -- He wants us to grow and become mature, just as we want that for our own children. James even tells us to rejoice in our trials! Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:2-4).
Peter encourages us with these words: And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast (1 Peter 5:10).
If you are suffering today I can do better for you than try to protect you from the pain. I can lift you up to the God of all grace and trust that he is working in you to humble you, to purify you, and to help you become mature and complete. I can remind you that one day soon he will restore you and help you to stand.
May you know his presence today, even in the midst of your suffering.
It's summer in New Zealand right now. It seemed like a good place to go for a few minutes. There is still plenty of snow and ice for you winter-lovers. Enjoy the quick trip.
