In upcountry Burundi, sitting in an SUV waiting for the driver to pick up water, I watched three school boys laughing as they chased each other up the dusty unpaved street in the center of town. Suddenly all three stopped, bent over and carefully searched the red dirt near a phone stall. I thought they must have lost something until I saw that what they were picking up were individual grains of rice that someone had dropped in the red dirt. Together they picked up maybe 15 grains before pocketing their find and ran on.
-- July 2007, Treg McCoy, TSC Missions Director
Ten years after the genocide that swept Burundi, the move towards reconciliation and rebuilding has been a long and slow process. The scars are still evident in the decaying, crumbling homes that stand as monuments and tombstones of the genocide. Orphaned children in search of food roam and live in the streets, poignant reminders of its legacy.
Times Square Church traveled to Burundi in 2007 to hold evangelistic rallies as well as medical and humanitarian outreaches in the cities of Bujumbura, Gitega and Ngozi. While there, we met a woman that was taking hot meals to the children living in the streets of Bujumbura. A widow herself, with a family to support, she did not have the means to enlarge her feeding program. She prayed that the Lord would provide a place and the funds to feed even more of these children.
ChildCry was the Lord’s answer to her prayer. ChildCry provides the funds to continue and enlarge this feeding program to the street children of Bujumbura.
