First of all I want to thank your Missionary Brotherhood for the moral and material support, which gives me courage to continue the struggle in this difficult African region where the Primate of the Throne of Alexandria and the Holy Synod around him have appointed me.
Next I want to describe the situation in the centre of the Diocese, Burundi, as well as in Rwanda and Eastern Congo.
As I have told you before, Burundi is a small and very expensive country because there is no domestic production; this contributes to its great poverty.
There is no health and education system, all schools are private, and hospitals have no doctors but experienced nurses.
The Holy Diocese, with your help, is offering important missionary social-humanitarian services in this country which the war has literally destroyed. Thousands of refugees are returning from neighbouring countries in search of their families and their earthen homes; many of them find nothing; most of them come to our Church begging for help, since everyone else is turning them away. We are doing what we can with your support.
The good news is that the Greek Community, unlike other expatriate communities, allows free admission of all Orthodox to the Cathedral of Buzubura, regardless of colour and nationality. At Easter all together Greeks, Africans, Russians, Serbs, Romanians, Egyptians (serving in international military, peace and humanitarian organizations) received in the same Church the joyful message of the Resurrection, we all greeted each other and felt the universality of Orthodoxy, the unity under its umbrella of all nations, all genders, all colors.
Eastern Congo is an unhappy region that Western interests will not allow peace. Whenever we visit these regions, the question “why?” arises in our minds. Everyone is asking for help, asking for a teacher, a school, a doctor, young and old people are slowly dying of simple diseases on the roadsides. In Uvira, which I visit more regularly, I see funeral processions every time; most of the time it is a small coffin held by the father or brother of the infant; each time the causes are the same: malaria, typhus, cholera, yellow fever, simple diseases that are curable but which, for lack of doctors and medicines, cannot be treated.
Before Easter another 97 of our African brothers and sisters were added to the Orthodox family, and in the next few days 70 more will be baptized; also a few days ago a pastor of Protestant denomination and a Catholic priest asked to become Orthodox. We are proceeding carefully, the Grace of God Almighty blesses the work of the Mission in spite of all the difficulties and obstacles.
With the Grace of God and the blessings of our Patriarch, two more clergymen were added to the Missionary staff of our Diocese, the sociologist-educator Vassilios Bonane, a catechist and a very good collaborator of the Mission for many years, who will serve in Bujumbura and the former captain and catechist in Uvira, Eastern Congo, Clement Mastaki, who is destined to serve the Holy Church of St. Demetrios in Baraka, a difficult town, as I described above, which is suffering from the rebels but with good prospects for the Mission.
With heartfelt wishes and warm thanks
The Burundi and Rwandan Savvas
Bujumbura, 14 June 2010
