August 2024 Monthly Letter

Dear Reconcilers,

Thank you for your prayers and support as we continue showing the importance of Reconciliation. I asked ORM Chapter Leader Evelyne Burkhard, who is overseas, to give us an update on her reconciliation work. I want to share her letter with you and I hope you find it as inspirational as I did. 

It has been three years since I moved from Ireland to Switzerland. I am living in a mobile home at a camp site on the eastern side of Geneva Lake and I love it. These days, I have a few health issues related to age and I cannot walk without crutches. Doctors have also diagnosed a lung disease with progressing fibrosis, which makes breathing difficult sometimes. Yet, I keep busy as much as possible.

I am very involved in a local evangelical church that was planted just when I arrived in Switzerland. It has grown from the original 12 members to about 35 people. The fellowship is wonderful and I have been asked to be part of the church council. It’s been a blessing to use many of my God-given gifts—mainly teaching—to serve the other members. 

For the last two years I have been facilitating small workshops, aiming for inner restoration. The Lord has performed many miracles, healing difficult or even traumatic experiences that people have gone through in the past. It’s been very inspirational seeing people healed from their tragic past experiences, especially those that included violence or abuse, which held great control over their lives.  

The church also presents a course to help couples or members of dysfunctional families learn more about the importance of good communication. At the beginning of the year, I was asked to go back into counseling. I work closely with another Christian counselor, and we are helping people who have been deeply hurt while growing up in dysfunctional or abusive families. It is challenging work, but it comes with a very joyful reward—seeing peoples’ faces change as they find peace and healing. Forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation is possible, especially when Jesus is part of the process. The Lord longs for us to trust Him and allow Him to restore our inner being so that we can embrace the good plans He has for us.

I am still teaching in Africa—specifically in Togo and Burundi. For Togo, I am part of a team of pastors in my church network, travelling to teach at a Bible Institute that is a hundred kilometers north of Lomé. We usually travel in October or November. The topics I present are about grieving, dealing with emotions, forgiveness, and reconciliation. I believe that future pastors need to be able to deal with those subjects in their parishes. Other team members teach about leadership and church management. 

I have served in Burundi in the past, teaching the same subject of forgiveness and healing to students of theological classes. Now I am friends with a pastor who is very involved in teaching pastors who are working in distant areas but have had no formal training. He asked for my help. Unfortunately, during the past two years he has been ill with cancer, so this will be the first time for me to join him in his project. If all goes well, I will travel to Bujumbura next October. 

If God is willing, I would love to come back to the U.S. and meet some of the chapter leaders who are working on interesting projects. Meanwhile, I pray for God to bless all the projects that will bring peace and change in our part of the world and abroad.

By Evelyne O’Callaghan-Burkhard