Bishop Dieudonné Nahimana
Burundi
There is no future for Africa without forgiveness and reconciliation. The Bible says that anyone who is in Christ is a new creature and that God reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:17-18).
We know our Heads of State are not far from here. We know some of them are sitting together but don’t love each other. But our ministry as the church has power to bring together people who have hated each other and be reconciled and start to build a new Africa.
Growing up in post-colonial Burundi, from a very young age I started to realize that my country was very divided. I started to notice the injustice and segregation in my community. Even at church we would sing the same songs, pray to our Father in heaven, but after that we wouldn’t mix with one another.
I grew up during the civil war in Burundi. I was in a boarding school when I received news that my father had been killed along with 19 other people from my community. Our house and cattle were destroyed and there was no possibility to go back home. It was very hard for me because I was close with my father. What was worse, I found out that the leader of my church was the one behind the killing. My faith in God was shaken. I ended up questioning everything.
My boarding school was closed because of the war and I ended up on the streets because I had no home to go back to. A friend invited me to stay with him at his university dorm. When he started preaching the Gospel to me, I was very skeptical.
I asked him for a Bible, because I was determined to prove to him that there was no God. I came across the verse in Matthew 5 which tells us to love our enemies. Immediately I felt as though someone was the room with me. He filled me with peace I had never known., and this would lead to my decision to make Jesus the Lord of my life. I heard the Lord clearly say to me, “You are no longer an orphan. You are going to take care of orphans and you are going to change them into future leaders who are going to change this nation.” That was the beginning of my street children ministry and since then we have worked with thousands of street children.
Ten years later I went back to my hometown with a group of young people to see the man who killed my father face to face. I had been preaching about forgiveness and I wanted what my reaction would be. Was I really a new creation?
Truly that day I was able to say I am a new creation. I felt love and compassion and I wanted to see him born again. The entire community was touched by my message of forgiveness. To this day my wife and I have paid school fees for all of his children and supports them in all their needs.
Jesus is the head and the church. We are his hands and feet (Ephesians 1: 15-20). I don’t understand people who go to church and speak in tongues but don’t understand their full mandate to bring peace, reconciliation and economic development in their countries. We are born again for a reason. I personally took up the challenge and I ran for President in my country of Burundi. We have to take every opportunity to be agents of peace reconciliation.