This one’s for my friend, Jenny Rain.

She’s in Burundi today. Burundi is in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west.

Photograph by Bruno De Hogues/Getty Images

Burundi hopes to soar clear of a long civil war fuelled by clan divisions between the Hutu majority and Tutsi ruling elite. Burundi has the lowest per capita GDP of any nation in the world.

Jenny is there with a team to help train pastors and relief workers.

Jenny is one of the morning people.

Like us. Because we are the morning people too.

We might have nightmares, thrash around in the dark and grope towards a night light. But we are the destined-for-morning people.

We are the sunshine creeping over the edge of a dark rock rolled away people. We are the gaping hole in the side of a hill defied by the Light people. We are the dew early rise with the Gardner people.

We are the Sunday morning people.

We are the promises of new mercies every morning people. And these promises are our flaming torch in the midnight hour. They blaze a trail for our confused hearts and blind feet. They carve a way out of the darkness when there seems to be none. And they lead us towards the horizon.

And the whole universe testifies that morning will come.

As surely as the earth turns on its axel and rotates around the sun. As surely as the sun burns at a temperature of 13,600,000 kelvins at its core. As surely as its light travels to Earth in 8 minutes and 19 seconds to crack through the clouds and paint my son’s eyelashes golden.

Morning will come.

We must not become so accustomed to the dark, so confined by its four walls, that we doubt the morning. But even if we do, even if we lose our sight and our will to keep walking forward, the morning sends a messenger back to find us – to bring us out into the light.

He will lead us tenderly, blindly forward, one foot at a time, until we feel the first flush of warmth on our cheeks. And eyelids swollen shut with weeping will be bathed in sunshine. And we will be the reflected glory of the Son who saved us.

The people walking in darkness

have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of the shadow of death a

a light has dawned. Isaiah 9:2.

We are the morning people.

Amen and amen.