Day 3 - October 3rd

October 3rd was a Sunday.  We didn't do any real work on the project other than some conversations with Painito during the afternoon.  We went to church after breakfast.  This was the longest church service that I had ever been to: 3.5 hours.  It was a great experience.  The preacher spoke in Kurundi and the interpreter repeated everything in English.  There were even a few songs that were sung in English which was a refreshing thing to hear.  The songs that weren't in English were normally songs that I've heard before just with words translated into the native language.  The main thing that I took from this church service was the passion of everyone there.  It was infectious and I couldn't help but feel God's presence there.
There were lots of details discussed during the conversation that we had with Painito.  We were going to be working with ICM whose vision it was to disciple leaders and mature the African church.  This is a huge need because only about 4% of pastors in Burundi have any sort of training.  Painito began his ministry in 2000 when he was a pastor in Burundi refugee camps.  Burundi has suffered a devastating 15 year civil war which was based on the same problems that Rwanda had between the Hutu and Tutsi clans.  In 2008 the Burundian government granted this land to ICM.  There were stipulations that came with the land.  One such stipulation was that there had to be multi-story buildings on the land because Burundi so small and there isn't much land for future development.  Other important aspects of the site was that it was going to be  an interdenominational center so that future rifts between church denominations could be avoided.  The first phase of the project is going to be training for pastors and then later on there will be more training on the site for practical skills to help the economy in the area grow.  After hearing all of the various things that the site would eventually accomplish, I knew that Painito had been given a huge vision.  It was then our job to plan that out to the best of our abilities.  Below is a picture taken during that conversation.