Speech delivered by the Right Honourable Emmanuel Sinzohagera, Speaker of Burundi Senate, and legal representative of the United Methodist Church, at the opening of the annual conference

Gitega, September 2, 2021

• Your Excellency Bishop, Representative of the United Methodist Church within the East African Community, and its annual meeting in Burundi;

• Mister Governor of the Province of Gitega;

• Dear Representatives of various Churches here present;

• Dear Deputy-Legal representative;

• Dear Preachers here present;

• Dear Representative of seculars at the level of the Conference in Burundi;

• Dear members of the executive committee;

• Dear delegates who came to take part in this Annual Conference, all protocols observed;

• Dear Journalists;

• Distinguished Guests;

May the love and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ be with you!

1. Let us first of all praise our God the Almighty, who is merciful forever, and who enabled us to gather here as a body of the Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church in Burundi. Let us join to cheer for Him!

• Let us next thank our Bishop for having come to chair these ceremonies of the Annual Conference. Let us express our gratitude towards him with applause for his effort!

God did us a favour by giving us a bishop who cares for us and who loves us very much as a Church here in Burundi. May God bless him!

I would not fail to welcome and thank all of you delegates for your effort to come to this conference; you also deserve applause!

Distinguished Guests,

• We met today at this political capital as leaders within our Church, representing all the members, in order to analyse and exchange views which should enable the United Methodist Church in Burundi to progress.

• We also met just as apostles and elders met in Jerusalem to trace a good way for the people of God during their time (Acts 15:6).This Annual Conference is a good opportunity for us to make adequate decisions which are liable to honour our Church.

• Let us remind you that in our five-year plan, as the Burundian Annual Conference, we set the objective of awakening the United Methodist Church in order to buckle down to evangelization and economic development activities.

• No one else could achieve this objective except ourselves as leaders, chosen by God to serve the people he has entrusted to us. We must therefore act, each according to his vocation, and in the light of the Holy Spirit.  We take this opportunity to ask Preachers to adopt the good habit of producing daily reports on the achievements at the level of parishes in order to encourage one another. We would like to see the good accomplishments of our Church posted on its websites.

• In addition, we are holding this Annual Conference, after our Church has saved its face. In the recent crusade held in Kayero-Rutana district, we managed to reconcile as believers. Let me remind you that, guided by the Spirit of God, we confessed and forgave one another, and we declared that henceforth we form a truly United Methodist Church, promising that no one will ever again be able to divide us.

Brothers and Sisters servants of Christ

• We hope that there is no member of the Church committee who still hold divisive ideas.  If there is any, we tell them once again that their ideas are already out of date and we would like to announce them that they have no place in the United Methodist Church of Burundi. That is my announcement to you today in the name of Jesus!

• You have to change over time. We experienced times of quibbling until outsiders laughed at us. But now it is the time to recover our dignity.

1. Furthermore, you have to know that if we choose to unite, we will achieve a lot of progress. But if we get divided, we will destroy ourselves; for every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation! So, it is not the time to seek to ruin ourselves. Rather, let us be aware and know that this is the time of obvious victory and progress because our leader is Jesus Christ who triumphed.

1. For these reasons, we call on everyone to be a good example everywhere we are. May our mission of evangelization be supported by dignified behaviour! It is time for us to bear the fruits of repentance in order to enlarge the kingdom of God in our country as provided for in our five-year plan.

1. Dear Pastors, heads of districts and parishes, you know that you are servants of the people of God. We would like you to be good leaders who love and care for God’s sheep. But if you say to yourselves: “our master is taking a long time in coming”, and then you begin to beat and ill-treat the sheep that God has given you, remember the word of Jesus when he said that: “The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.” (Luke 12: 46). So, let us be careful in this mission of servant that God has entrusted to us, knowing that we will be accountable to Him.

1. We call upon you once again to take advantage of this unity by carrying out spiritual and material development projects. Nehemiah says, “Come, let’s rebuild Jerusalem’s wall, so that we will no longer be a disgrace!” (Neh. 2:17). We call on you too to come and rebuild the United Methodist Church so that we may no longer suffer disgrace.

1. Let us remind you that this Annual Conference has the following theme: “Be strong and brave. Don’t be afraid of them and don’t be frightened, because the LORD your God will go with you. He will not leave you or forget you. » (Deut. 31:6)

1. It is then time to accomplish the will of God because God is with us. Let us get rid of the spirit of disregard because God doesn’t choose powerful people, but rather, He strengthens those whom he has chosen.

1. Let us also get rid of the behaviour of expecting what the Church should do for us, but rather think of what we should do for the Church. In other words, it is our task to help the Church but not the opposite. We are called upon to develop the Church.

1. We don’t mean that the Church should not do anything for us, but we should not expect benefits from the work of God because there are some of us who wait for benefits from the Church rather than to think about their contribution towards the Church.

1. It is time to think about our contribution to build the Church, instead of always waiting for the Church’s aid. It is in that respect that we should review our way of contributing towards the Church as it is noticed on the Christian card so that every member may contribute adequately.  During this conference we can come to a compromise to fix the funds that will be given by every faithful to begin with this year 2021.

Distinguished Guests,

1. Before concluding, let us thank you for your annual services in the different parishes and in different areas. May God bless you for the way you have safeguarded the work of God in the various trials you have gone through.

•  We take this opportunity to comfort members of our Church in the District of Kayero-Rutana who have lately lost their Reverend Pastor. But we still salute their courage to have kept on their mission of working for God until now.

• We should not conclude without thanking the Government of Burundi for its support to Churches, and particularly to the United Methodist Church in Burundi. For our part, we promise to always support the Government’s projects. As an illustration,  let us recall that we are at work in various provinces:

• To begin with the province of Rutana, the United Methodist Church participates in the development of the health of the population by providing medicines at the health centre of Kayero. We are even doing our utmost so that the hospital that we have built in Kayero should be operational, and the sooner the better.

We had been wishing that this hospital should be operational before the holding of this conference, but due to the fact that the building materials delayed to get in our country, we have not been able reach our objective. But we hope that we will soon achieve our mission.

• That is not all. In the same province, we have taken the lead to fight against malaria as well as Covid-19 by training pastors and chiefs of villages so that they should sensitize the populations to prevent those pandemics.

Moreover, the United Methodist Church, in association with around 20 schools located in the commune of Mpinga-Kayove are  teaching about fighting malaria.

• Such achievements are also to be found in the province of Cankuzo through the health centre of Murore in the commune of Gisagara.

• Furthermore, the Church is planning to set some health centres in the province Ruyigi, in the commune of Nyabitsinda, but  also in the province Ngozi in the commune of Busiga.

• The United Methodist Church also supports other projects set by the government in other fields such education. Thus, we would announce that members of the United Methodist Church from the provinces of Cankuzo, Ruyigi and Rutana are collecting funds to effectively contribute to the development of those provinces.

Let us recall that the United Methodist Church, in full collaboration with the natives of the province of Rutana, has already supported the building of the provincial office of Rutana.

• The objective of the United Methodist Church in Burundi is to get in all the provinces of the country in the coming years and carry out various projects which should contribute to the development. This requires us to renew and strengthen the field of teaching the news of God so as to reach that achievement.

• Before concluding this opening speech, let us recall that we have come to this conference at a time when the whole world is threatened by covid-19. We thank God for keeping on protecting our country Burundi. If God had not been on our side, we would be suffering a lot. Nevertheless, we urge you to keep on praying, but also to follow the advice given by the Ministry in charge of Public Health with regard to protective measures against this scourge. You should even get tested regularly to find out about your health.
• To conclude, we thank you all dear delegates for having effectively attended this conference despite the long travel you made from different parts of the country. God bless you.
• We urge you to show humanity and good character as true children of God in our ministries that we start today, led by our beloved Bishop.

We wish you a good stay and all the best in this city of Gitega.

Thank You!

God Bless You!