Happy February From Swazi

(I apologize ahead of time for any spelling/grammar mistakes on any of my posts. We only get one day a week to have internet so I type as fast as I can!) 
              I think it's good that I've waited until today to write a blog because if I would have written one Monday y'all would have missed out on knowing all I was able to see and do this week.  Marius, our contact here, has been so great and exposed us to so many different opportunities that we could take part in while in Swazi.  We have been to a facility for terminally ill patients, a school, care points all around Swaziland and had a little tour of Manzini.  It has been a very exciting week and I know the weeks ahead will be filled with so many life changing experiences for me. 

                Coming in to a trip like this, it is really hard to know what to expect, whether it is what the people will be like, your 'housing', the orphans, etc.  But no matter how hard I may have tried to figure out what it would be like, I wasn't even close! Swaziland is absolutely beautiful, it reminds me a lot of Italy (family).  The mountains are gorgeous, and it is so green because they get a lot of rain this time of year.  Definitely not the "Lion King" place that I imagined.  We (the girls) live in a hut with a grass roof :)  We are staying on Lelo's homestead in Timbutini. People in Swazi live in homesteads, where there are a few different huts that family will live in.  So Lelo lives on this homestead with his Go Go Shongwe (Grandmother Shongwe) and his 2 sisters.  Most homesteads have more relatives on the property but his situation is a little different.  We have had to get used to no air conditioning or fans, the electricity works about 50% of the time and we have outhouse type bathrooms, and a bucket that we shower out of!  We have decided the bucket showers are kind of fun, but not when the wind blows the door open; that happened to a girl on my team yesterday and she started screaming so loud I thought something much worse was happening.  There are 11 girls and 5 guys on my team, which is actually really big for a Real Life team. 

                When we went to Hope House (terminally ill facility) we got to go around and pray for the people there.  It was so humbling to walk into the room and just talk with them and see the hope they had.  One lady I prayed for was there because she had a stroke and although she could still feel her legs she couldn't walk.  After praying she looked up and said "I know that Jesus can heal me, nothing is too big for Him."  It brought me to tears to see the smile on her face, the joy that she was able to have despite here undesirable circumstances, and the hope she had in Jesus as her healer.  I really hope to be able to spend time there every week helping take care of the patients and just being someone they can talk to.  I'm really excited about that opportunity Marius gave us.  Another thing we did was go to care points.  Care points are places that children go to get 2 meals a day.  The Go-Gos (grandmothers) and Mages (mothers) in the community go there everyday to make the children meals.  The kids will walk miles just to get a meal, so we are able to meet them there and play, which is so much fun.  It's really funny because the younger ones that are not as good at English have memorized a few English phrases.  We got out of the combees (vans)  and walked down to the kids and they run towards us, jump in our arms and all at once they started saying: "Hello, my name is _____"  " I am ___ years old (and they hold up their fingers)" "I am a girl/boy". I started laughing it was just so funny because a few of them got confused at whether to say boy or girl.  Although there is a language barrier, I have realized that we share a language of love.  They just want you to hold them and play with them.  They love my watch and want to wear it and push all the buttons.  One day at the care points I was playing tag with a few kids, they love to hold your hand so we held hands and I started running around the field with them.  Then we started playing follow the leader, it was so funny because at one point I stopped and bent over because I was out of breath and they thought they were supposed to keep copying me so they all bent over and acted like they were out of breath.  By the end of the game I had about 6 kids running around the field with me.  This is a dream come true for me.  They win my heart the second you see them. 

                Another place we went was one of the schools in Manzini.  The king's son goes to this school so it is the top school to be at and the kids are very well behaved.  I will most likely be 1 of 4 girls that gets to go every Monday we are here, from 9:00 - 3:00 and teach Grade 1 & 2 crafts, songs and Bible stories.  I am so so excited about this.  All the kids speak English very well so there is no language barrier.  I hope to start on Monday but we aren't sure yet.  I will be helping Christine, a part-time teacher there who is actually from Connecticut.  So pray for that opportunity for me, I really felt like Jesus wanted me to be there and I know I could learn so much. 

                A few things you could pray for:  unity for our team because as you can guess with 11 girls there will be drama (although there hasn't been yet), restful nights, a continual breaking of my heart for the people here, good health for the team.  I actually felt sick this morning but I said "Jesus, I prayed for healing for the crippled woman with faith knowing you could heal her, so I know you can keep me from getting sick" within a few minutes I was feeling better so I was very grateful!  We are each also updating our team blog so check that out because we will all have different stories to share & what I post on there will be a little more 'formal' since it's not my own personal blog.

I miss home and family already! Mom, you are still the best cook in the world, and I already know all the things I want you to make me when I come home.  Happy late February 1st :)

Cute kid I got to play with at a carepoint;

This care point was very well sponsered by a church in California

 

Where the kids get a drink

of water; I thought it was a cool picture

This is Elliot; on our way from South Africa to Swaziland, we all of a sudden stopped on the side of the road and started honking..some boys ran down from the house in the field and handed these bottles to Elliot:  it is spoiled milk and Swazis LOVE spoiled milk

 This is the girls hut..African right? Definitely no fan or Air conditioning

My bed with the green; fam pictures at the bottom :)