Aurélie serves with Multiply in Burundi and is primarily supported by Mennonite churches in her home country of France. She works as a school teacher and pedagogy trainer in the Karubabi Harvest School in Muramvya, a partnership initiative of Multiply and several other organizations.
Not too long ago, I had the privilege of visiting preschool centers in four different provinces throughout Burundi. We went to evaluate how the teachers had applied the training that we had given them some months earlier. The visit allowed us to see how we could improve our training the next time.
The visits, however, turned out to be more challenging than I had imagined. When I arrived in one community, I quickly had tears rolling down my cheeks. Their teacher was brilliant, the classroom felt alive, but people in the community were dying of hunger every day.
The area was in a drought, so no rain had fallen since the sowing. Insects had eaten the seeds and those that managed to germinate were burned by the sun. For the first time in my life, I heard mothers saying that they wanted to die because they couldn’t provide for their children. What to do?
Injustice in the world can be overwhelming. I can easily give in to despair. But I don’t want to give up hope. Rather, I want to invest my time and energy in crying out to God for rain, for food for these families, for reconciliation amid the brokenness, for life and health for the malnourished.
Today, the best I can do is to be aware of the misery, and to put this misery into God’s hands. I do it with many tears, many questions, and many frustrations. But I leave it in God’s hands. He can do the impossible—I cannot. “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” (Matthew 19:26).
Would you pray with me? It is not a matter of some formula or repetition, it is about an honest heart before God. In faith, we trust that he hears, and he answers.
PRAY
Please pray for hope amid despair in Burundi, and for God’s miraculous provision for those who don’t have enough food to eat, clothes to wear, or clean water to drink. Pray also for teachers in Burundi, that God would provide for their needs and make their investments in children fruitful.
Aurélie’s story was previously published in our Daily Prayer Guide. To receive this monthly prayer resource by email or post and to stay up to date with prayer requests from our global workers, go to multiply.net/dpg
