Just as when a small child comes into the world, everyone leans over him with great love and care and everyone asks about his news, in the same way we feel that our brothers from Greece care about the first relative steps that the Orthodox Church is taking in Rwanda and Burundi. For this reason, we too would like to make you partakers of the rich Grace that we have experienced in the past period – mainly through participation in the sacraments of our Church. Thanks to the prayers and practical help from Greece, we had the opportunity to experience a particularly blessed summer with many newly converted Christians and the presence of fellow travellers. We started with the well-known doctor Mr. Anthony Liasko who took over the catechism in Kazimba, Ruanda, where the people are literally thirsty to learn about Orthodoxy and that is why they persistently begged us for a long time to teach them about our faith. Later on, a blessed company of young people from St. Demetrius of Loubardiari came with the accompaniment of Fr. Michael. Immediately afterwards we welcomed Mrs. Georgia Hatzivei, president of the NGO “People of Love” who visited Burundi for the fourth time, offering great help and endless love. At the same time, we welcomed for the first time the volunteers of the association “SYMBOLI in the Education of African Children”, who have developed educational activities in Metropolises such as those of Madagascar and Uganda.
First of all, our visitors got to know the indoctrinated community in Kazimba and admired the fact that these impoverished people have already organized themselves into groups focusing on the Orthodox faith, but also aiming to develop activities to support their families and the future Orthodox Church financially. All this is happening in a megalithic hut, but we want to believe that, with God’s help, it will be replaced by the first Orthodox Church in Rwanda, which will cost about 100,000 euros. Furthermore, these people, who are possessed by an unprecedented zeal for our faith, wish to have the first Orthodox kindergarten in Rwanda that will take care of all the orphans and poor children in the region free of charge, laying a solid foundation for education from an early age. The cost of construction and operation is estimated at around 10,000 euros. Before leaving with the volunteers for Burundi, we took them on a guided tour of the 1994 Genocide Museum, where we were pained to see the atrocities that took place just a few years ago, leaving countless open wounds. In this traumatized society, we are all told that Orthodoxy can give comfort and hope to all people, as other denominations have unfortunately participated in the bloody cycle of hatred, turning people away from the love of Christ.
Arriving in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, the volunteers of “Symoli” immediately began the preparation of the Orthodox camp on the hill of Buramata. This is a village where all those uprooted from their land by the genocide and the civil war found refuge. Although the government provided this rudimentary shelter, it did not provide a piece of land or even a water supply. So people can hardly find food for their children every two or even three days. A six-class primary school has been built on this site and we are doing our best to get water to the school so that the children don’t have to walk miles every day carrying cans on their heads. The headmaster at this school is Father Nektarios, until recently a deacon and now a priest. The Holy Church of St. Alexios the Man of God also dominates there, filled with the wonderful voices of the people at every service.
This place, so poor in stimuli and material goods, was filled with the life and joy of Christ during the camp organised by the Convention. “From the very first moment we were surrounded by hundreds of children who joyfully shouted about our arrival and tried to take our hand to greet us. We immediately realized that selecting only a few children for the camp was not possible, so we distributed applications for all the children in the village. We had over 550 children!!! We were greatly helped by the 32 group leaders to whom we offered the usual training for two days and co-ordinated the programme. The help of the priests was also invaluable as they were constantly with us and with great enthusiasm encouraged young and old to participate with the love of Christ in all the activities. Every day was a feast”. In addition to the camp, the volunteers of the Convention distributed school supplies to all the children and offered scholarships to all the elementary school graduates who were promoted to high school and are required to pay tuition. We asked them to take care of the scholarships for the children who want to go to university and so they informed us that they are looking for people in Greece who would like to take on some of these scholarships.
The highlight of August for our local Church in Burundi was none other than the solemn celebration in our Cathedral, dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We celebrated this great feast of the Mother of God with our Orthodox brothers and sisters who had come from Rwanda, Uganda, Congo, Tanzania and Greece. On the day, during the solemn Mass, the whole congregation shouted twice “worthy”. First for Father Nektarios who was ordained a priest and then for Father Panagiotis who was ordained a deacon. The celebration of these extraordinary events continued afterwards in the churchyard with food served to all the faithful, who did not stop celebrating for their new clergy. Immediately afterwards, we all departed together by road to Rwanda, where the catechumens were waiting for us to receive the Holy Spirit through the sacrament of baptism. Hundreds of people gathered near a small river to watch and congratulate the illumination of the first 230 Rwandan Orthodox. Men, women and children joyfully entered the river, our own little Jordan, all of them simulating angels in their white robes. At the outdoor Mass they shared the Blessed Sacrament for the first time under its new Christian name.
Then we visited all the communities that warmly invite us to get to know Orthodoxy. Even our brothers and sisters from Russia who live in Rwanda have been very much at ease with the Divine Liturgies that we celebrate in a special room in the house that we have been forced to rent. By basing this house, the Government has officially recognized the presence and work of the Orthodox Church. Of course we pray to Almighty God to direct people who love the Mission – that is, all of you and each one of you individually – to support us financially so that we can meet the many spiritual and material needs of the afflicted brothers and sisters of our Metropolis. The current expenses are many, as we have to constantly move from one country to another and to every remote area where the desire for the Truth of Christ is smoldering. We try to carefully plan our dreams of building a diocesan headquarters, churches, schools and structures that could alleviate the pain and poverty of the thousands of orphans who have been on the streets all these years since the civil strife. Finally, we would like to ask all our Orthodox brothers and sisters to remember us in their prayers for this new ‘vineyard’ planted by His right hand.
Burundi and Rwanda Innocentius
