<b>By Mike Seymour</b>

As a young boy growing up in Africa, Prosper Ndabishuriye had the good fortune of coming to the attention of missionaries in Burundi who saw to his seminary education. Prosper took his training and become the Burundian National Director for Campus Crusade for Christ, with a mission to bring the gospel to students on high school and college campuses worldwide.

His peacemaking ministry began during the height of the terrible ethnic wars between Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups that broke out in 1993-94 in Burundi, Rwanda and Eastern Congo. He mobilized multi-ethnic teams of high school and college-age students to work together and go into villages where homes had been destroyed and people had fled in fear for their lives. Many had run away to Tanzania and were living in displacement camps.  There were an inordinate number of widows and orphans who, eventually, would become make-shift families out of necessity.

His army of young men and women became Youth in Reconstruction of the World in Destruction. The focus is helping the ethnic groups to reconcile and make peace through rebuilding homes together. There is encouragement to bring widows and orphans together, the running of an orphanage for boys and girls in a northern province of Burundi, and support for micro-finance projects (farming and goats) for a livelihood. Their website www.jrmd.org shows the scope of their work.

The Compassionate Beaufort Communities program is sponsoring Prosper’s visit to Beaufort so that more people may learn about his ministry. He will be in the area for a week, from May 4-11. Organizations and groups interested in requesting him to present his story are encouraged to contact Maggie Seymour at maggie@hol.edu or call 843-524-2010, or like and post on the Compassionate Beaufort Communities Facebook page.