Church of the Brethren Global Mission executive Sharon Brugger Norton visited the Church of the Brethren in Burundi in late March and early April. The Church of the Brethren in Burundi is the newest member of the Global Church of the Brethren Communion.
The latest set of grants from the Church of the Brethren’s Global Food Initiative (GFI) have been announced. They support ministries in Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda that are connected with Church of the Brethren denomination in each country including the Great Lakes Bible School, Farming God’s Way training, and a goat and chicken farming livelihood project.
Brethren Disaster Ministries has directed the last grants for 2025 from the Church of the Brethren’s Emergency Disaster Fund (EDF) headed by a large grant of $120,000 to support the Hurricane Melissa recovery program of Églises des Frères d’Haïti (the Church of the Brethren in Haiti) and $5,000 to support emergency relief in Cuba after Hurricane Melissa via ASIGLEH (the Church of the Brethren in Venezuela).
The Church of the Brethren in Burundi has developed a small microfinance platform as a branch of their fledgling “Brethren Bank.”
The Global Food Initiative (GFI) has given its latest round of grants to support well drilling by the Haiti Medical Project, an agricultural training component for students at the Great Lakes Bible School in Rwanda, and “Farming God’s Way” in the Church of the Brethren in Burundi.
Brethren Disaster Ministries has directed grants from the Church of the Brethren’s Emergency Disaster Fund (EDF) to continued support for the Nigeria Crisis Response, to aid those affected in three central African countries by the warfare in Goma and the surrounding area, to aid those affected by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and to aid those affected by the war in Ukraine, among others.
The goal of the 2023 Shenandoah District Conference was to raise $4,000 to purchase sewing machines for use in Burundi.
International guests at the 2024 Annual Conference include top leadership from several Church of the Brethren sister denominations around the world as well as a number from B.E.S.T. in Nigeria.
The Church of the Brethren’s Global Food Initiative (GFI) has announced a series of grants supporting a new Brethren Volunteer Service (BVS) position in Ecuador, agricultural training in Mexico and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a community garden and soup kitchen in Alaska, and a water project in Burundi.
On Aug. 9-13 the young Church of the Brethren denomination in Burundi, in East Africa, celebrated the 315th anniversary of the Brethren movement that began with baptisms in the Eder River in Schwarzenau, Germany, in 1708.
