“Sometimes when I was on the mountain looking after sheep,” Abel Sibonio recalls, “I could hear some good and kind voices, often requesting me to consecrate my life to Christ.” That led him to working with the evangelical Friends Church in Burundi and later in a refugee camp in Tanzania, until threats from local police challenged by his protection of his congregation prompted him to relocate to Australia.
How did he persevere through such circumstances? “The strength comes from the peace, love, simplicity testimony,” he says, as he discusses the pastoral skills he’s developed over the years of his ministry. “Trust in yourself, and have the Inner Light in you, and just consider God in everyone.”
Resources:
- Subscribe to QuakerSpeak so you never miss a video
- See a list of all the videos we’ve produced.
- Read Friends Journal to see how other Friends describe the substance of Quaker spirituality
Transcript:
I worked as a pastor cause I was ordained in 1987. Several times I experienced nice dreams that were conducting me to the leadership of a chior. So I could hear the good song, I could hear the voice and the words and write them — and the next day I would have to teach the song to the choir. It was marvelous. One song which I used, and which was spread in the whole Friends church in Burundi at that time, it talks about the love of God. God is love, we should love one another. I will sing just one chorus for you.
My name is pastor Abel Siibonio. I grew up in Evangelical Friends Chursh, in Burundi. It’s now seventeen years I’m living in Australia, and I’m attending Queensland Regional Meeting of Friends. I was able to recognize some of my gifts through the holy spirit showing me the way. Sometimes when I was on the mountain looking after sheeps, I could hear some good and kind voice often requesting me to consecrate my life to Christ. I spent like four years in the bible school from 1974, and I returned to my village and was able to go through and work for Evangelical Friends Church. So it was not easy for me at that time to enter that field, but it was the holy spirit who guided me. Strength comes from the peace, love, simplicity testimonies. Love one another; that really helped me a lot to make sure we are bringing everybody on board.
Pastoral skills needed in this field are so many. Be able to listen. Be able to listen to other people. be able to discern what is good [from] what is bad. If you don’t have the spirit of discernment, someone may come and bring a bad teacher and the whole church will fall! You need to be able to listen to the friends around you, elders around you, and be able to listen to the holy spirit — because the spirit will go beyond you as a human being.
Another skill, of course you ned to be able to talk. In Africa, we don’t have always have the microphone. You need your voice to be able to reach 500 people who are there. I was not able to have the kind of voice when I was young. So often, when I was just outside in the mountains, I would try to practice the voice e. I would just shout, I could say, “Now, if I can hear the echo, that means the voice reached that mountain and came back”. Not only talking, but you need to discern what to talk [about] at the right time.
Sometimes we need, also, to have some skills on medical issues. Be able to recognize ‘this is that spiritual issues, this is malaria’. In my village, we had this bloody diarrhea, and people didn’t think it was a curable disease. Because I was able to know, I did support all of the people in the village. None of them died! So you need the skill to recognize what is the spiritual and what is physical.
Yes, another skill you need as a pastor, you need a social skill. You can interact with other — neighbors, people from different angles — because you will need them. You need to visit prisoners, and if you don’t have the skill to approach the leadership of our social places, you wont reach to anything. For newcomers, it’s good to have elders to help you to identify. You empower them to go beyond just understanding the newcomer and be able to identify some of their needs. Sometimes they may come to church because of the domestic violence issues they are facing in the families, or any kind of abuse. So we have trained an elder woman to talk to them. I did that even in the [Tanzania] refugee camp, where I became the first woman group leader in the the whole camp, so that I could serve them.
You have to be brave because of the authorities, sometimes they are not Christians. Sometimes with the police, who were taking advantage of, you know, young girls who were just working for them, and cooking for them, or washing their clothes — they started sexually abusing them. I said, “No. You have been brought here to protect my people, you cannot take advantage of them”. So one night, they surrounded my house, like fifteen police, at night to kill me. If it was not [for] the community who had protected me that night I could have died! Six refugees were killed the same night. So the next morning the camp commander came to office and said, “I want to view! I want to see what you are writing! What do you report?” So my immediate supervisor came to visit me with a sexual gender based violence program evaluator from England. When she it was a chaos in the office — and I started accusing these camp commandant[’s] about the crimes they did last night. So the office there in Geneva, and [the] International Rescue Committee in New York Office, they decided to find a refuge for me to go to Australia. It was not easy. It was…you take a risk. If you don’t take a risk a lot of people will be harmed. That’s how we were able to reduce the cases of domestic violence and the rape cases in the refugee camp.
You know, it is the power of God working in us. We are only just a pipe to let the power of God work. if you trust in yourself, and have the inner light in you, and just consider God in everyone — you will have respect to everyone. So those are some of the cores for Quakers values that really helped me to be able to do so.
Discussion Question:
- what skills do you find core to pastoral care?
The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.
Dear Abel, What wonderful testimony. thank you. I was particularly touched by your work in the refugee camp, for the women. I’ll circulate it to Friends in our small Worshipping Group here on Central Coast of New South Wales. Maybe I’ll see you at Yearly Meeting. Blessings, Helen Gould