- April 26, 2024
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As an African nation in the midst of political strife and tribal turmoil, Burundi is considered the third-poorest country in the world.
Eleven million people make up the dense population spanning a country the size of Maryland — which, for reference, has a population of just more than six million.
But it’s in Burundi that Ocoee residents Tim and Joyce Fake have people they consider family, and they leave a piece of their hearts there each time they leave.
The Fakes have run their own nonprofit, Fort Barachel Foundation, since spring 2008. The ministry fosters action-sports culture and provides a safe place for children and teenagers to hang out and learn about God.
Starting in 2011, though, Fort Barachel’s first global partnership began in Guatemala City. It expanded in 2016 to Burundi, but the Fakes’ involvement with Burundi officially began in 2014.
Joyce first went to Burundi in 2014 on a mission trip with First Baptist Church Windermere. For her, it was love at first sight. Some of the people she met became family to her — so much so that her translator, Yves Irakoze, now calls her and Tim “mom and dad.”
“Him and his family kind of became our family,” Joyce said.
In 2015, Burundi’s political uprising began to gain traction and get violent. Yves’ sister was getting married, and she wanted her “parents” to be there for it.
However, it was a dangerous time for Joyce to consider traveling to the country. As the Fakes and Yves’ family prayed about it, Burundi had its election and things calmed down enough so that Joyce could attend.
It was the following year that Joyce and the church went on a mission trip to Kenya, and Yves came with them. This was the start of Fort Barachel Burundi, because Yves decided while on the trip that he wanted to start an association for youth in Burundi.
“He’s been a youth leader in his church since he was a youth,” Joyce said of Yves. “He’s a leader of the leaders now. He loves the youth and wanted to do something there besides what he did at church. (There) they have soccer, basketball and volleyball, and he wanted to gear it toward what they do there. When we started we’d go to skateparks, so that’s what he saw as the opportunity for him — he said, ‘I can go to the soccer field, kids will come play soccer and I’ll share the Word.’”
“When it came time to start the association, we said, ‘What do you want to name it?’” Tim said. “(Yves) says, ‘Fort Barachel, of course.’ That’s how he wanted to do it and honor what we’re doing here.”
Because of Burundi’s current issues, it took nearly a year for the Fakes and Yves to get all the paperwork finished to create Fort Barachel Burundi. But Yves and his fellow Burundians never faltered in their faith that God would pave the way.
Yves wanted to empower young Burundians to make a living for themselves and show them that if they are talented and work hard at something — whether it’s sports, entrepreneurship or arts and culture — then they can be successful.
“It’s still very hard, but they blow me away with their positivity and perseverance,” Joyce said. “They just keep going. They really have no freedom at all, and they still just keep going. You’ll see them — they have a smile on their face. When you go upcountry and these kids’ clothes are basically falling off of them, they’re smiling.”
With that in mind, though, Yves also recognized the importance of education — and in a country as poor as Burundi, many children cannot afford to go to school. Children have school fees to pay, and then still must pay for uniforms, supplies and books.
But with a median annual income equal to $250, many families cannot afford the $20 it costs to equip a child for school.
“He came to me and said, ‘Hey, I want to see how many kids we can get to school,’” Joyce said of Yves. “Twenty dollars will get them their uniform, their schoolbooks and all of that. That’s not including their fees. So many of them can pay the school fee, but then can’t go because they don’t have all the (supplies).
“He said, ‘I want to see what we can raise, and when you’re here we can go to the schools and give supplies,’” Joyce said.
The Fakes put out a call for help in the Winter Garden community. In just one week, they raised more than $2,000 to send Burundian children to school.
The Burundian school year begins Sept. 9, and the Fakes will be heading to Burundi a few days beforehand. There, they will distribute the supplies to children who will be heading back to class.
Long-term, though, the Fakes are trying to find people who would want to support Fort Barachel Burundi monthly. The funds cover Yves’ salary, office rent, the salary for Yves’ part-time helper and general travel and supplies necessary for Fort Barachel Burundi’s operations.
However, the Fakes said, Yves has said he wants his fellow Burundians to take pride in what they are doing and not just live off of handouts.
“Because they have had nothing for so long, they do kind of get to, ‘Well, what can I have?’” Joyce said. “You have to remember it’s kind of all that they know, because they don’t have the opportunity to go get a job at McDonald’s. They don’t have the opportunities that we do, so you have to take that into consideration, too — they have no other choice half the time.
“He wants his Burundians to be proud Burundians and not let all the tribal and political stuff put a cloud over it,” she said. “He wants them to rise above it and show the world what Burundi can be.”
