Home 
Years ago, in the small African nation of Burundi, there lived a young Hutu tribesman named Binyoni. His name meant “Little Bird,” which seemed fitting because of his fondness for music. As a child, Binyoni was always singing or humming or whistling, and as he grew older, he used his love of music to express his love for Jesus.
In college, Little Bird trained to be a teacher. After graduating, he returned home and took a position within a local school, eventually becoming the principal of a Christian academy. There, Binyoni spent his days leading the faculty and pouring into their students. His life was filled with peace, a love for others, and of course, an ever-ready song of praise to Jesus, his Savior.
However, Binyoni’s homeland knew nothing of peace or love. Burundi was being torn apart by violent conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes, and the clash inevitably made its way onto the grounds of Little Bird’s school in the form of armed soldiers carrying a list of names marked for execution.
Binyoni’s name was on the list…along with eleven other Hutu teachers. Under the direction of a wild-eyed lieutenant, the soldiers ordered Little Bird to gather the other teachers. Binyoni stalled as best he could, but the eleven men were soon rounded up and marched to the top of a hill far enough from the students that they couldn’t see what was about to happen.
Knowing they were going to be shot simply because of their ethnicity, one of Binyoni’s friends broke down and began to sob. He begged the soldiers to kill him first because he couldn’t bear to watch his colleagues die. Little Bird objected immediately! As leader, he would be killed first. He wanted to show his friends that there was nothing to fear about death because it would usher them into the glorious presence of Jesus.
But before the soldiers could carry out their gruesome task, Little Bird made an unusual request. With rifles pointed at him and his friends, he asked the lieutenant if he could pray for him and his soldiers. The lieutenant was perplexed, but finally agreed to Little Bird’s strange plea. This caused Binyoni’s friends to breathe a sigh of relief. Surely, Little Bird could pray them out of this life-and-death predicament….
But Binyoni didn’t pray for deliverance. Instead, he thanked God for His presence with them and then asked the Lord to give them courage. He also asked God to care for the families they would soon leave behind. Finally, Binyoni prayed for the menacing soldiers. He asked God to have mercy on them because they would have to live with the terrible burden of what they were about to do. He asked God to send someone – anyone – into their lives to tell them about the grace, the forgiveness, and the freedom Christ could give them.
When Binyoni finished praying, the soldiers once again aimed their rifles at the humble teachers. But Little Bird had one final request. Could he sing one, last song? The soldiers were stunned. None of their previous victims had ever asked for permission to sing before being executed. However, the lieutenant agreed again, so Little Bird began singing an old Christian hymn called “Jesus, I Come.”
Out of my bondage, sorrow and night,
Jesus, I come; Jesus I come
Into Thy freedom, gladness and light,
Jesus, I come to Thee
Out of my sickness into Thy health,
Out of my wanting and into Thy wealth,
Out of my sin and into Thyself,
Jesus, I come to Thee
At first, Little Bird sang alone. Then, one by one, stanza after stanza, the other teachers joined in. By the final verse, all twelve of the condemned men were singing together. When the teachers finished singing, the soldiers carried out their evil orders and left the bodies of all twelve men lying on top of the hill.
The song had ended. Little Bird’s life had ended. But the story hadn’t ended!
When the soldiers returned to their base after the grisly day’s work, they went to a pub to drink away the memory of what they had done, but their lieutenant didn’t join them. Deeply shaken by Little Bird’s faithfulness in the face of death, he waited for nightfall and went to the Christian Literature Center where he met an old Quaker woman who’d been born in Africa. Trembling, he cried out, “You must tell me about the God who could allow men to die like that! I want to serve a God like that!”
Carefully, the elderly woman began telling the lieutenant about Jesus – His life, His love, His death on the cross, His resurrection from the dead, His grace, His mercy, and His forgiveness. Immediately, the guilty man who’d killed Little Bird, the teachers, and so many others, placed his faith in Christ. He then hunted down his soldiers in order to share the Gospel with them – a direct and ironic answer to Little Bird’s final prayer. As the lieutenant told his men about the love of Jesus, so many of them became Christians that they began holding prayer meetings and Bible studies. Not only did those soldiers tell other soldiers about Jesus, but they stopped their merciless killings, as well. The newfound faith of the lieutenant and his men quickly proved so troublesome to their commanding officers that all of the new converts were soon killed, themselves! But it was too late. The message of Jesus’ life-changing love continued to spread across the tiny nation of Burundi.
Decades ago, the powers of darkness tried to silence the song of hope in Christ, but in spite of the evil that once roamed the landscape of Burundi, these days more than 90% of Burundi’s population identifies as Christian.
Little Bird’s last song had become an eternal anthem.
