By Bishop Martin Nyaboho, Makamba, Burundi (May 2013)- UCE Club Members from Kabizi Secondary School have been working hard to share the UCE message with other youth. The students, who have an array of wonderful talents, have been preparing poems, songs, and skits that talk about the importance of abstaining until a faithful marriage. This May, they were given a chance to showcase their talents for much of Burundi.
The students were given time to perform on Radio Star FM. The students read their poems, and performed their plays and songs in the small studio, they were so active that by the end of the recording session everyone was sweating thoroughly. The show was recorded successfully, and the students received wonderful feedback. One journalist recommended that UCE make the poems and songs available for sale, but we need help to do this! [Go to the Support UCE page to see how you can help.]
So far UCE Burundi has been focusing primarily on Secondary Schools [High Schools]. However, in May we stepped out and began to reach out to universities and colleges. Twenty different students from several universities in Bujumbura were trained as UCE leaders. They will be the spearhead of the UCE programs as we plan to hold outreaches and form clubs in their schools.
Keeping in the spirit of Acts 15:36 “Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” We decided to put a greater emphasis on getting back to remote hard to reach schools that we had previously visited. The team traveled to Gatwenzi High School, a few weeks before the students’ final exams. Although the school has an UCE Club, the full team has not been back to visit since the first outreach [only to check on the club progress]. We were thrilled to see them again and share with them, once again, about responsible sexuality and how to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and other STDs.
An altar call was made by the visiting chaplain and over 350 students responded by making a commitment to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. UCE is a faith based organization and we put Christ at the Center of everything we do. We praise God that we met all those students before they left for vacation.
