Hosting Friends

Last night we hosted dear friends in our home... 5 friends from the Batwa tribe.  Two of our guests are Parliament Ministers, representing the Batwa at the highest level of government. One is the eldest Batwa in Burundi, a man of great honor among his people.  Two are university students - rare among the Batwa community.  This was an amazing group to host, and we were humbled and delighted by their company.  Liberate (seen center in the above photo) was the first Batwa member of Parliament.  She shared her story, of ridicule and shame and heart ache growing up Twa.  In Burundi, the Twa make up less than 1% of the population.  While the Hutu and Tusti have open hostilities toward one another, they share a mutual distain for the Batwa tribe and make their life one filled with ridicule, disadvantage and poverty of the most extreme sort.  But God has not forsaken or forgotten the Batwa, and neither have we.  As a matter of fact, these are our friends whom we will be working with over the next season to bring about hope to a Batwa community of 70 families.  I will share more later... but we were blessed to host our Batwa friends last night.  You need to know about them, to pray for them, to celebrate what God is doing for them!