Hope for Swaziland: Beautiful Feet

I didn't update my team blog this week because I really didn't feel like thinking of something to write about so this week it's just this blog I'm updating.

So first I'll explain the title of my blog. The phrase at the top of my blog on the mountains was kind of the inspiration for it and on a random note, today a girl on my team said "Jessica, you have really pretty feet." So after thinking about what to title my blog I thought that would be good! In Swaziland, so many kids don't have shoes. They have their school uniforms on but are barefoot (ed). These kids walk miles just to come get a meal at the care point, so their feet are calloused and usually have cow manure on them or just mud. Well, my feet definitely could use a pedicure (Mom) when I get home, but I still want them to be beautiful, in the sense of the verse I have at the top of my blog. "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news." We often walk to care points to meet these kids and spend time with them, and I know that I want my feet to be the feet of Jesus; bringing hope to Swaziland.

I will give you a brief description of what my week looked like. I'll try to do this each time I update, I think it's the best way to let y'all know what has been going on instead of just telling you one story from the week.

Monday - I went with a group of our team to the Primary School in Manzini. Each grade has 2 classes so their are around 40 plus kids in each grade. This school is very nice and the kids are so well mannered. We taught Noah's Ark to Grade 1 & 2, Kaci & I were introduced to Grade 3 because we will be doing a craft with them each Monday, then we went back to Grade 2 and they had to practice reading in English to us so they just had kids books to read and we would sign off on them, then we did the same thing with Grade 4. It was a lot of fun because when the kids come out to meet you they are so polite and say "Hello Teacher, how are you?" and anytime you address them they call you "Teacher" I love it! So I will be doing that every Monday.

Tuesday - I was with a group that went to the hospital. We had gone there our first week in Africa but I had not been back since then. Katie and I teamed up and went into the Children's Ward first. We went into the malnutrition unit which also is the place for abandoned babies. There are 2 abandoned babies there now. Since they are abandoned the hospital staff obviously doesn't know their age or name, so Katie gave this precious little girl who is probably about 4 months old the name "Nothando" which is my S'Swati name, meaning Love. She is the one I have a few pictures of holding here. As soon as I picked her up she started giving me this huge smile and it was the cutest thing ever. Just one more piece of my heart given away here. I don't know if I've written about this in my last blog but I will again. Her mother asked a stranger to hold her while she (mother) went to the restroom, but never came back. So Nothando has been in the hospital for a few months and I guess she is up for adoption or in the process. It's so sad to know that she doesn't have any family. So Katie and I will be her family the next 8 weeks we will be here. We walked around the ward and just talked with kids, they light up when you talk to them, hospitals here are so much more sad than in the States. Katie let a little boy listen to her iPod and he loved it. Then we went to the women's ward. There were probably about 15 women in this area. We prayed for most of them but some had family there so we didn't want to interrupt their time together. The first woman we prayed for spoke very good English. We just started talking with her and in the middle of the conversation she said "will you pray for me?" and we didn't really answer her but kept talking. She told us she has malaria and has been hurting all over her body, mainly her head and back. So then we asked if we could pray for her and she said "Seriously!" She was so excited about it, so we both prayed over her for healing and for her relationship with Jesus and when we said amen she looked up at us and said "All my pain is gone now. It's only in my head now." I like to believe that Jesus healed her and she was so happy, I told her we would be back next week but that I didn't want to see her next week because I hoped she would have been able to go home by then. She said she wanted to see us though, so I will let you know next time if we see her on Tuesday. Then she asked us to pray for the girl in the bed next to her. She said she has just come back from x-ray and cries all the time because she is in so much pain. So we just gently put our hands on her and started praying for healing & peace and all of a sudden she just stopped crying and relaxed. I don't know if he healed her permanently or just gave her temporary relief but either way it was awesome to see Him work immediately and in a way I had never seen before besides in the Bible. So Tuesday was a really great day to see Jesus use me

Wednesday - each week we are going to use this day as a day where we don't really plan anything but spend all morning until noon alone with Jesus and ask Him to show us where He would have us personally serve that day. So the morning was really a nice break for me because we are serving all the time that there have been a few days where I don't even get time alone with Him. So we had a few hours to be alone which I love. Then in the afternoon I went with a group on a home visit then came back and were done for the day. So overall it was a pretty low key day, which we need.

Thursday - this was the best day of my week for sure. I go to the TImbutini care point at our church up the road with just girls on our team, which is a nice break from the boys. There were only about 9 pre-school age kids in the morning so we just held them and some fell asleep, but I started taking pictures with the ones who were still awake because they love taking pictures and seeing themselves, they can't stop laughing when they do. So that's what some of the other pictures today are from. Then while we were at the care point, a huge flat bed truck, the size of an 18 wheeler pulls up and Musa (a guy on the Discipleship team at the church) asks us to help them load like 60 bags of porridge so we can take them to another care point. So 8 girls are picking up super heavy bags and throwing them up on top of the truck, it was hilarious and we were all laughing because Musa told us we were too slow. We spend a lot of time with Musa because he works for AIM as well and leads the singing on Sundays. He is a great guy, and very cute :) Then he tells us all to jump up on the back and go with them to drop the food off. So, in our missionary skirts we jump up on the back of this huge trailer and ride down the dirt roads to Tuwane care point. It was so much fun. Definitely an experience you would only have in Africa and we were all laughing the whole way there. The weather that day was also amazing because it was overcast with an amazing breeze so it was just perfect weather to ride on the back of a truck. It has been so hot every day so we loved the past few days of great cloudy/rainy weather. So we unloaded the bags and then got dropped off back at Timbutini care point. Then, walked back to our homestead and got in the vans to go to Spar, the grocery store in Manzini. We LOVE going to the grocery store. It's a nice taste of civilization for all of us and some people go crazy on buying snacks. Then a few of us went next door to this restaurant that has Wi-Fi, called Ramblas and got smoothies and iced coffee. It was so nice to be in a restaurant at a nice table with real glasses, not plastic. Then on the way home it was raining and we saw a double rainbow. Seriously the day was SO good, we couldn't stop talking about how great it was!

Friday - I go with the group back to the school in Manzini. But Mondays I am there from 8:00 - 1:00, but Fridays we just go from 1:00-2:00 and only meet with Grade 6. We will be doing a 'discipleship' type class/life skills with them. Today we just listened because Christine (the american teacher who also works with AIM that we work with) already had a lesson planned. Then we go to another care point in the afternoon, called Dabas. Katie, Stephanie & I are the 3 girls in this group and at this particular care point there are a lot of girls 12 & up that we are going to do a Bible Study with and mainly just talk about life with. So we met them today and they all wrote their crazy long names down so we could memorize them, and next week we will start the lessons. I am actually teaching the Grade 6 girls in Manzini next week so that should be fun. At the school on Fridays we will split up the guys and girls so we can talk about more gender specific things with them, so I was assigned by Christine to teach next week.

Saturday (Today) - This morning the Discipleship Team at our church in Timbutini put together a fun day for the kids in the community. They had a jump castle and soccer balls, bubbles, frisbees. It was a lot of fun and there were a lot of kids there. They all sang songs and I video taped it. I'm in love with their voices!

Here are some pictures from the week: