In 2012 during a conference, Onesphore Manirakiza, a leader of a Christian organisation, felt compelled to start training other pastors in Burundi.
Two years later, a group of six pastors began to meet regularly to share ministerial challenges with Manirakiza. Two years after that, Transforming Burundi began, which aimed to train and coach church leaders with the aim of creating healthier churches. By 2018 Transforming Burundi became the Antioch School – a school which has already trained over 200 church leaders. After leaving the country, a few weeks ago, Russ Bennett (see photo – back row on right), missionary and trainer, reports on the work so far:
When the editor asked me to write this article, I was still living in Burundi completely unaware of the coming pandemic. As a team of seven adults and five children, we were doing ministry as usual. Burundi is a little landlocked country south of Rwanda that has been war-torn, had multiple genocides, and had a major political crisis in 2015 where over 450,000 people left the country to become refugees.
