Shapevine Missional Simple and House Church Spiritual Leaders -- Alan Hirsch Sally Morgenthaler Ron Martoia Steve Sjogren Reggie McNeal Brant Hansen Frank Viola

http://newwaveministry.com/?p=106

Despite drastic economic problems in Burundi, worse than the USA, we have a good report of the fruit of our $300/mo Burundi missionary budget below:

Just arrived from up country. Here is the April Report

In Bujumbura, the capital:

April has been a good experience for us in evangelism. As decided during March, every group (women, men, and youth) reached people of their gender . They did evangelism once during April. Here are the numbers (from 2 networks):

1st Network

15 Men were touched and 7 got saved

47 Women were touched and 11 got saved

31 young people were touched 6 got saved

24 new believers to disciple. We’ll know how many are going to continue in the Lord as time goes on because follow-ups are being made.

2nd network

34 Men were touched and 19 got saved

69 Women were touched and 35 got saved

21 Young people were touched 5 got saved

59 new believers to disciple. We’ll know how many are going to continue in the Lord as time goes on because follow ups are being made.

We are praying and working on developing methods of reaching men and young people more effectively since those seem to be resistant.

We need prayer for the following requests:

- Wisdom while developing methods to reach men and young people

- Wisdom while discipling them to reduce losses.

Up country

The new province reached is Muramvya

2 teams of church planters went to 2 communes among its 5 unreached communes to see which one would be more receptive.

In fact, commune Kiganda was more receptive than Bukeye. 92 people got saved out of the 500 reached in commune Kiganda. But only 13 got saved out of the 321 reached in commune Bukeye.

10 local people are being trained extensively to oversee those 2 networks

Joyfully

Bienv

TOTALS:

The capital, Bujumbura 84 New believers from 217 touched.

Up-country 105 New believers from 821 touched.

The new ground is tougher, but after the new believers have shown the good fruit I expect improve results from 13% to more like the 39% near the capital. Also we will improve with experience.

My Wife’s Amazing Testimony:

I had 2 great long videos of her amazing testimony, but I get repeated errors when trying to upload them, so I’ll try to give a short account of what she said.

Her story is really funny & amazing. Like me she was focused and taking action before she really understood salvation. Like my liberal Methodist upbringing, she was surrounded by people who were religious, but usually not converted in the Catholic church.

She liked to visit Pentecostal churches and even go to conferences & seminars & was recognized for her singing. Somehow she decided she wanted to be a pastor. She didn’t like school-work & got in a lot of trouble, but someone told her she needed to take theology to be a pastor, which meant she had to finish the equivalent of high school. So suddenly she started studying and her parents were very happy. But she loved the bible & music, so she stopped bringing her school material & only brought her bible and music scores. I never did my homework either.

When the headmaster discovered this he called her parents & her mother was ready to come to school. They showed her the school bag with a bible only & she was angry, so she took her bible away. She went to a Pentecostal pastor & he gave her a bible which she hid from her parents. She started preaching and singing in houses starting one meeting after another. She even rented a small building for a church about the time she had the dream (when she was 15) that led her to her spiritual mother who led her to Christ. Even after her conversion, her parents gave her money for food and clothes, because they were wealthy and she used it all to rent the church, wearing worn-out clothes and shoes. Her parent’s friends were amazed and one of them bought her shoes, etc.

Someone told her you have to be a priest or a bishop to build the church & her heart was broken. But the pentecostal pastor said, “I’m not a bishop & I have a church!” So she went back to preaching & singing with greater fervor after the women she saw clothing people in white in a dream was found by her in nearby Uganda (because she recognized the city) and led her to understand conversion through the work of Christ. We met Justice in Uganda visiting her spiritual mother, Bishop Jori. After her conversion her Catholic parents were very angry with her & refused to pay her school fees, clothes, or even give her soap. But Bishop Jori, took care of those things so she continued in the same school, staying sometimes with her for a while. Through that she learned the Uganda version of Kinyarwanda & Luganda, so much that they let her in over & over without the $50 Visa thinking she was Ugandan.

When she was about 17 someone prophesied to her mother that if she didn’t support her daughter God would kill her. I think this happened more than once. Then her mother began to have dreams of God killing her. Providence was very afraid when her mother sent the house boy to get her, but her mother bought her a bible and started providing for her again. They even started the church where I met her in her parents home when she was about 17. No wonder she was so ready to start churches in houses when I brought that idea 14 mos. ago. I was leading the fellowship of Christian Athletes and my Methodist youth group at that age.

Until he died, she became her father’s favorite & both parents give her money to dispurse even though she is younger and actually the step-daughter of her father. It’s a good thing they love her so much, since the traditional pastor who took over that church wanted the usually corrupt Goma police to find her and kill her after I met her last year. But they were afraid when she told them her Parlimentarian father’s name. At that age I was leading a discipleship group I started with the disapproval of my traditional church pastor & criticism of my wife. But all the men in that group are strong in the Lord with long marriages, except for me. But I have a long marriage starting now with the miracles of favor with her parents, that none of the other son-in-laws got.

He parents are down from owning about 10 houses, 4 factories, & gov’t income, to one house, one owned by the gov’t in the capital and one gas station in Goma. Her mother doesn’t have enough income, because 3 of her daughters live with her in Goma with their 16 children and some other orphans she has taken in. All the daughters have been separated from their Congolese husbands, because they are mostly catholic, maybe not Christians, and the Congolese turn against the Tutsis from Rwanda. Although she tells Prov, “I don’t have any money” she was given $1,500 that she is loaning to us for wedding expenses that will be repaid when she sells one of the 2 computers I sent her.

My wife said she will make deposits on room & clothing rental with $500, but I can send the rest to the USA to buy more electronics to sell. Then we will use what we sell to pay the rest of our expenses. Some how her mother will pay an equal amount of dowry ceremony expenses the morning of our May 24th evening wedding.

Providence will be trying to collect from sales in Goma, which we need now, for our Burundi trip, since I just spent $80 for another month of internet & bought a lot of Bibles for Congo leaders & her.

I didn’t know most of her testimony until 3 or 4 days ago, because her English was poor & we’ve been separated by USA immigration.

Naye Lia kwa Mapenzi na Furaha,…

He Who Weeps with Love & Joy, for the Beautiful African Bride of Christ

(Known in the past as Greg Cunningham)

Mail & donations to:

New Wave Ministry

29731 C. Rd. 28

Elkhart, IN 46517, USA

www.newwaveministry.com

(+) 1 574 217 0552 All the time.

(+) 250 0337 5026 in Rwanda from countries except USA.

(+) 1 574 679-0011 or 295 9696 Cunningham Air & Heat (working in IN, MI, & NC, USA)