Print

[ccarr]

Dear GLO Gang,


Woooooooohoooooo!
     The big day has arrived.
          The website is hereby launched,
               so check it out at

www.more-than-conquerors.com

You can preview each film, make orders, etc. Any glitches, get back to me ASAP! Or if you want to order directly and not through the website, we can do that, just get in touch.

PLEASE PASS THIS ON to as many people as possible.

Please respond to my challenge to buy 3 each (at least) for a few friends or people in ministry. That way it'll get out all the more around the globe. We've already had pre-orders across 5 continents but I so want this maximized for Christ's glory, and you people are right at the start of what could be a massive movement, so do help us make it happen!!!

I'm back to Burundi on Thursday, God bless you loads, thanks for being on the team, big love,

Simon Guillebaud
Great Lakes Outreach
www.greatlakesoutreach.org

[ccarr]

Subject: Back in Burundi!

Dear GLO Gang,

Welcome to all new members, we're up to 2,772 now, which is nearly three times what we were a fortnight ago. Thanks to all of you who have forwarded invitations to join, please, you new members, invite others, as it's a great gang to be involved in!

I'm back in Burundi and loving being here. The impact we are making is amazing, I'm telling you. For example, I'm writing this from the King's Conference Centre which we launched in May. It already has the reputation as the best dedicated conference centre in Burundi, is taking loads of bookings, we've just had to take on another 18 staff as the 31 already employed were totally overrun, so the team is now 51 strong. I love it! That's 51 families being provided for, which is beautiful, as well as modelling excellence in Jesus' name, with literally tens of thousands of $$$ being made to recycle into God's work in due course. Being in touch with my emotions, I admit it has brought tears to my eyes! There's a long way to go and we are not the finished article, but it's going as well as I could have hoped. Do enjoy a quick look at the polished new website which is just about ready for launch – www.kccburundi.org]http://www.facebook.com/l/7b4e6;[url=http://www.kccburundi.org]www.kccburundi.org[/url]

Please, if you haven't ordered our DVD with 13 beautiful raw films on it, go and see the previews and order one or hopefully several copies at www.more-than-conquerors.com]http://www.facebook.com/l/7b4e6;[url=http://www.more-than-conquerors.com]www.more-than-conquerors.com[/url] After a week of being 'live', we have sold about 2,000 copies in 20 countries on 5 continents, which is fabulous, but with your help we can take it to a whole new level.

I'll stop there for now. Burundi is such an incredible country. There is so much pain, so much darkness, so much hurt, dysfunction and mess, but also some incredible brothers and sisters doing amazing things for God's glory; and by your prayers and support, you are a part of it. It's such a privilege to be involved, I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to serve the Lord here, and you also have a potentially key role to play.

So be encouraged, keep praying, help us out by passing this on, buying the DVD, whatever, here's to action and not being yet another random slightly pointless Facebook group!

God bless you,

Simon Guillebaud
Great Lakes Outreach
www.greatlakesoutreach.org]http://www.facebook.com/l/7b4e6;[url=http://www.greatlakesoutreach.org]www.greatlakesoutreach.org[/url]

[ccarr]

“As long as there are people suffering without the basic necessities of existence, to hold onto riches displays an attitude of disobedience to God.”
 
Dear GLO Gang,
 
I’m back in Burundi and today we’ve been part of a beautiful project reaching out to and empowering some of the poorest people on the planet – the Batwa pygmies. They have a life expectancy of twenty eight, an annual income of c.$50, and 47% of them die before the age of five. Shocking. They are the forgotten third tribe of this nation, totally scorned, despised and marginalized from mainstream society. Most Burundians, for example, refuse to eat with their Batwa colleagues, forcing them to go off and eat alone, and then insisting they wash their plates twice. Consequently the Batwa themselves believe that they have no value and live on the fringe of society in abject poverty. As a people group, they are highly resistant to the gospel and enslaved to witchcraft.
 
So Harvest for Christ, believing in both life before and life after death, has a long-term strategy to enable the Batwa to regain a sense of dignity and self-worth, and to come to know the great Liberator for themselves. It is a project based on trust that is slowly unfolding over a number of years, and we’re helping HfC gain credibility and acceptance with these precious people. To ensure efficient use of their limited land we’re equipping and training in farming techniques and have given out quality seeds for growing crops. Each week there are literacy classes, and today we gave out goats. Three people will share ownership of three goats to raise and breed, fostering a sense of communal accountability and responsibility. A school is under construction which will enable them to rise up out of poverty and oppression, and equip this community to not just survive but thrive in the fast-changing world pressing in upon them. The Batwa community is warming to us, suspicion is fading, and already there is a trickle of new believers embracing Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
 
I love this holistic approach, and here’s where you can get involved:
 
What do you want for Christmas?
 
That new gadget, iPod, article of clothing? As with past years, when I’m asked that question by family members, I reply that I honestly don’t want anything for myself. I’ve got everything I need. But I’d LOVE them to sponsor a child’s schooling, buy a goat, some seeds, or contribute to building a basic house for those destitute Batwa. I agree with the opening quote above, and choose to live more simply that others may simply live.
 
How about you? Do you want to join me?
 
It could be seeds for next season’s crops for $10, a child’s schooling for $20, a goat for $30, a house for $500, or anything in between.
 
Here’s to the joy of giving! Why don’t you help make their Christmas and their future more hope-full? Click here to make a difference and help us transform a whole community of the last, lost and least of Burundi – and feel free to forward this message to friends and family.
 
God bless you all,
 
Simon Guillebaud       
 Great Lakes Outreach
 www.greatlakesoutreach.org
 
PS Remember also to buy your More Than Conquerors DVD (or several – they make a great Christmas present too!) by ordering on www.more-than-conquerors.com

[ccarr]

Dear GLO Team,
 
If you haven't yet done so, please do visit www.more-than-conquerors.com and place an order for a DVD and/or book for yourself or someone you love for Christmas. Sales are going well on all continents (bar the Arctics!), thousands of lives are being impacted, but we need to build up momentum to make it a worldwide success and maximise the impact, so I really appreciate your prayers and help in getting 'More Than Conquerors' out there. Do pass on the link to your contacts too. Thanks.
 
And as Christmas approaches and presents still need buying, do remember our alternative idea of buying for your family member a goat or seeds etc for Burundi's most marginalised people group, the Batwa pygmies. To do so, click here (Cheryl can you get the link just a click please http://www.greatlakesoutreach.org/Groups/110660/Great_Lakes_Outreach/Get_Involved/Burundi_Christmas_Appeal/Burundi_Christmas_Appeal.aspx).
 
God bless you so much.
 
Simon Guillebaud
Great Lakes Outreach
www.greatlakesoutreach.org
www.more-than-conquerors.com
PO Box 2379 | Mt. Pleasant, SC 29465 US

[ccarr]

Happy New Year!
 
Here’s a few questions to ponder as we embark on the year 2010:
 
1 Will I love the truth enough to live it?
2 Will I choose to live by fear or by faith? And following on from that,
3 Will I choose to play it safe or take risks?
 
The choice is ours, the consequences either way absolutely huge.
 
I long for all of us to love the truth enough to truly live it, by embracing honesty and brokenness and sacrifice and surrender.
I long for all of us to choose the freedom of living by faith rather than being shackled by fear.
And I long for all of us to choose to step out of our comfort zones and see what God can and will do with someone willing to risk his/her all on the reckless pursuit of the Kingdom of God.
 
Let’s do it!
 
Otherwise we’ll end up echoing these sad words:
 
To sinful patterns of behaviour that never get confronted and changed,
Abilities and gifts that never get cultivated and deployed –
Until weeks become months
And months turn into years,
And one day you’re looking back on a life of
Deep intimate gut-wrenchingly honest conversations you never had;
Great bold prayers you never prayed,
Exhilarating risks you never took,
Sacrificial gifts you never offered
Lives you never touched,
And you’re sitting in a recliner with a shrivelled soul.
And forgotten dreams,
And you realise there was a world of desperate need,
And a great God calling you to be part of something bigger than yourself –
You see the person you could have become but did not;
You never followed your calling.                   
You never got out of the boat.
 
NO WAY!!!
 
Do start this new year and decade off with a challenge by viewing the first film on our DVD series ‘More Than Conquerors’. It’s called ‘Risky Business’. It’s what we were made for. Click YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. and please do forward the link: www.more-than-conquerors.com to as many people as possible to help us get the message out there. Thanks a lot. God bless you loads.
 
Here’s to a rocking 2010!
 
Simon Guillebaud
Great Lakes Outreach
www.greatlakesoutreach.org

[ccarr]

PRAYER LETTER NO.65 
www.greatlakesoutreach.org
 
 
Dear Team,                                        12th January 2010
 
God is great!
 
Yesterday I emailed one of my closest friends in Burundi, who runs what I believe in due course will be the most strategic Christian ministry in the country. I had some incredible personal news for him. I’m changing his name here to protect his identity and that of his organization, as things are too volatile right now - these prayer letters get forwarded to all sorts of people and could easily end up in the wrong hands. (One of our key people was murdered a couple of years ago in front of his wife and kids as a result of his work with M’s).
 
So ‘Peter’, founder of ‘Burundi Bible Ministry’, started BBM two years ago. We got our Masters together at All Nations Christian College, England’s leading mission training institution, and he was sponsored by John Stott no less because he is so gifted. As with any pioneer ministry, Peter and his wife have been under interminable stress and pressure. There were so many calls on his time. Ministry as well as family finances were permanently stretched to breaking point. It was unsustainable.
 
As GLO we want to get behind the most strategic leaders in the country to empower and release them to accomplish their God-given dreams. Yet many leaders are stunted in their effectiveness because they simply can’t afford to live and pay the bills. So my email was to tell Peter that we had agreed to finance the building of his house, to free him up from so much added tension and pressure and thereby help him more fully concentrate on God’s work through BBM. His reply was as follows:
 
“Dear brother in Christ,
 
There are moments in life when we are not sure whether we are dreaming or living a reality. Yesterday was such a kind of day. When my wife told me of your email, I was standing near a swimming pool ready to baptize an Imam, the third most senior Muslim in Burundi. I had had to stop a meeting I was having upcountry with the leadership team of the Great Lakes Initiative for Reconciliation to urgently come back to Bujumbura because this man was asking to be baptized as he thought he might get killed because there were already death threats from the Muslim community. He had come to BBM on Sunday (I was upcountry at the time) after Jesus appeared to him and to his wife on Saturday night and asked him to stop worshipping a dead religion. He said he did not know who the One he saw was. Elihud and Bosco at BBM explained to him that it was Jesus. They prayed for him and delivered him from many demons. He had been involved in all sorts of witchcraft and magic. After his baptism yesterday, we arranged to burn his tools, which included all sorts of things: clothings, Koranic books, bones, threads, pens etc. He resigned from his position on the Islamic Council for Burundi today and we are supposed to offer him, his wife and two children support. Of which kind, we don't know exactly yet.
 
Regarding your email and the incredible news of the house - to tell you the truth, I am "like them that dream" to use the Psalmist’s expression. Whatever it may be, its significance to me goes well beyond having a place we can call ‘home’. It is a living testimony that God is to me what others said he is: "The One who sees me". Simon, the coming of this man (his name was Omar but yesterday he asked to be called Paul) opens a new chapter for BBM and already before that I needed God to show me where and how I stand in relation to so many unbelievable pressures. May His name be glorified!”
 
Wow!
 
This is the latest of a number of stories I could share with you of Muslim leaders coming to know Jesus. The cost of their decision is huge. They usually lose everything – job, livelihood, house, children, family network, safety. Saleh of Prayer Letter no.34 had to flee several times for his life and is now destitute in Eastern Congo. From being a chauffeur-driven Iman he now sleeps under a car bitten raw by mosquitoes as a security guard on a few bucks a month. From riches to rags, his testimony remains: “I’ve lost everything, but I’ve got peace in my heart, I’ve got Jesus!” I find it profoundly challenging and humbling what these men are prepared to suffer for the Truth that sets them free.
 
One of our team reaching out to Muslims said to me: “Simon, I hesitate to share Jesus with Muslims, because I know that the cost for them to convert will be so high. If I can’t provide them with a living, I am basically contributing to their being rendered destitute.”
 
So Omar-now-Paul is the latest that needs our help. Please pray for him, his wife, and their children – that God would keep them safe, that Paul would become a powerful witness to the many others in Burundi who want to follow in his footsteps and convert from Islam to Christ, and that God would provide them with an alternative source of revenue to live by.
 
Or could you be the answer to that last prayer? If so, please reply to this with whatever contribution to the cause. You see, there are many other brothers and sisters in Christ from a Muslim background we’d like to support who are suffering unimaginably, and they have the potential to have a huge impact in redressing the rapidly expanding Muslim community.
 
My favorite worship song includes the words:
 
I’ve given like a beggar but lived like the rich
I’ve crafted myself a more comfortable cross
But what I’m called to is deeper than this
It’s time you had my whole life
Jesus have it all.
 
So I resolve to give it all
Some things must die, some things must live
Not what can I gain, but what can I give
If much is required when much is received
Then you can have my whole life
Jesus have it all.
 
Worth meditating on…
 
Simon Guillebaud
Great Lakes Outreach
www.greatlakesoutreach.org

[ccarr]

This Comes with a Warning...

Dear Team,
 
This raw and challenging film, 'Ubuntu', from our More Than Conquerors series, comes with a warning as there are some graphic images:
 
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lab6g-6YSUg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lab6g-6YSUg</a>
 
Each month we release a new one for free but I'd urge you to buy one or multiple copies of the high-quality DVD (which includes 13 short films) by going to www.more-than-conquerors.com where you can also see all the previews. Thanks for helping us to get the message out there.
 
God bless you all,
 
Simon Guillebaud
Great Lakes Outreach
www.greatlakesoutreach.org
 
 
 
P.S. On other news: there was an alleged plot/coup attempt last week in Burundi, although it goes down as the biggest damp squib of an effort, which came to nothing at all. However, it does highlight the need for prayers as we draw nearer to the elections in a few months time. Please do pray, as the stakes are very high for our precious nation; and if you want to join us in fasting on the 28th of each month leading up to the Presidential Elections on the 28th June, do get back to me and we'll keep you more closely in the loop.
 
Our ongoing visa issues for the USA continue. So meantime I am working flat out for GLO from the UK (do invite me to preach, always keen!), whilst also being Missionary-in-Residence at the UK's leading missions training institution, All Nations Christian College. So if you want to invest in training, this is the place to do it, from a 5-day course for preparation for a short-term missions trip, to a 10-weeker to full BA and MA. I totally believe in the product and am glad to help them out. If interested, get back to me and check out www.allnations.ac.uk
 
I'll leave you with Smith Wigglesworth's challenge:
 
“Live ready. If you have to get ready when the opportunity comes your way, you’ll be too late. Opportunity doesn’t wait, not even while you pray. You must not have to get ready, you must live ready at all times. Be filled with the Spirit; that is, be soaked with the Spirit. Be so soaked that every thread in the fabric of your life will have received the requisite rule of the Spirit – then when you are misused and squeezed to the wall, all that will ooze out of you will be the nature of Christ.”
 
Amen! As the message of the film above says: "Choose life!"
PO Box 2379 | Mt. Pleasant, SC 29465 US