Lots has happened since my last update. I will give a short explanation of what we did each day this week. I absolutely love our translators and I have gotten to know them very well, they call me GoGo Jesse (gogo= grandmother)
Zanelle, the translator I am closest to gave me a Swazi name this week. She says you have to get to know someone before they can have a Swazi name because here names actually mean something. So a few days ago she gave me the name "Nothando" pronounced (Notando) which means "Love."
Sunday - I experienced my first African church service which was beautiful. The people all have beautiful voices, and you know they are singing with all their heart, where back home I may be in the sanctuary with a couple hundred people and still hear my own voice; the church we go to is about the size of my kitchen, living room & computer area at home (for those of you that have been there) and there were not nearly as many people, half of them children and the singing was incredible; all the kids sing and dance, I loved it! So the singing lasted a little over an hour and the preaching was over an hour too so the service ended up being close to 3 hours which is crazy considering I start getting anxious after an hour back home but the time went by so fast and I can't wait to go tomorrow. Also I have been so impressed with the kids here, they are so well mannered and even the youngest ones all sit so still during the super long services, definitely taking notes for one day when I have kids :)
Monday - we went to a "Game Sanctuary" which is basically the same as a wildlife ranch but the animals are actually supposed to be here which is really cool. We didn't see much though so that was kind of sad so I'm hoping we will get to go on a safari before we leave. We drove around in our vans for a long time looking for animals and saw some zebras, wildebeests, monkeys, wart hogs and some other weird animals but no giraffes or hippos so that was sad. Then we went to this really great shaded area and spent 2 hours by ourselves praying and seeking God in what we feel He has for us personally to do as we are here in Africa. It was really good to hear what everyone felt like they were here for
Tuesday - we split up into 2 teams, so 7 each with 1 translator per group and went to two different care points. If a place is within walking distance, we walk, and walking distance here is much longer than what I would consider it to be at home. We walk to church which only takes about 15 minutes, we can see it from our homestead, and that is also the location of one of our care points. So one team went there, and my team went to another one, which was almost 1 hour walk one way and it was so so hot. I will probably write about how hot it is the whole time, because it just is and I'm jealous of the apparently crazy winter weather y'all are experiencing back home! So at the care point we played with the younger kids while we waited for the older ones to get there from school, which they walk from. (Side note: most people don't have cars so they walk crazy distances just to get groceries then carry them back on their heads which is really impressive). Once the older kids got there I was the one who got to serve them their food. It was such an exciting moment for me, realizing I was in Africa serving food to hungry kids who walked miles just to get there. They have such good manners. Once it's their turn to be served they hold their bowl out, I would scoop the food into it, and they would bow/curtsey and say thank you. Then when they are finished eating they all (even the 3-4 year olds) go rinse out their bowls and wash it off with clean water, bring the bowl back to me, bow/curtsey and say thank you again. What would your reaction be if a kid in America did that? I think I am definitely going to experience some culture shock coming back to American kids! Then we taught them the story of Noah and had them be the animals and make the noises which they thought was so funny. I taught them a song I learned when I worked at TbarM, called Bombelela, which is an African song and you say "Bombelela.....Jesu Bombelela" which means "Hold on....Hold on to Jesus" and they all really like it so it's fun for me to teach it to all the kids at the different care points.
Wednesday - we went to the hospital. I'm not going to write about that because that's what I wrote about on my team blog so you can read it on there.
Thursday - we went to another care point we have spent a lot of time at, and it is also the place where one of the Americans who works for AIM here has this group called Timbali Crafts, and the women make purses and jewelry that I will definitely be buying as gifts. So I had the privilege again of serving the children their morning meal. Okay, so the reason I basically get to serve all the meals is because I go up with Zanelle our translator and start serving, maybe that's selfish but I really like doing it. So we were at the care point for a pretty long time, playing games with the kids and singing songs. Then we left and went to the grocery store! Which is seriously like the highlight of our weeks because it is air-conditioned in there and it's just fun to buy food.
Friday - we went on home visits to some people in Timbutini. My group went to a man's house who goes to our church; he is 32 and has to use a cane because he's had lots of health problems so we wanted to just go spend some time with him; we walked; we asked him to tell us the testimony he told on Sunday in church because that day no one translated for us so we didn't know what he said but at his house we brought our other translator Titi, so he told us his story from Sunday, then told us how he came to know Jesus; it was a beautiful story and he, Samson has such a heart for the kids in Swaziland; then after lunch we split up again and went to 2 different care points we hadn't gone to before. The one my group went to is brand new and hasn't had any visitors so the kids were very different than the other places we had been. They didn't run up to us wanting us to hold them like most do and they were just staring at all these white people which probably looked strange to them. This care point, being brand new only has 2 pots the Mages (mothers) cook with and then they have an area plotted out for where the kitchen will one day be. The 'framing' was just big tree branches being held together in a square with wire, it's something you wouldn't have seen from the road because it was pretty far back in the bushes. So we gathered all the kids and walked down to a more cleared area and I started out by teaching the kids Bombelela. They loved it and wanted to sing it over and over. We told them the story of Noah and had them act it out, which broke the ice and they started laughing and having fun with us. After the story they sang some of their songs, we knew one of them because we sang it on church Sunday. Every time the kids here sing, I feel like I'm getting to listen to the African Children's Choir because they all have beautiful voices. Then we just started playing random games with them and I ended up playing soccer with all the boys while all the girls played a game kind of like duck-duck-goose. I preferred soccer and the boys thought it was fun that I was playing with them. They didn't really speak English but I could tell what they were saying because they would tell each other to always pass me the ball, so I had a lot of fun with them and it has been so great to learn how to get past the language barrier. We didn't even have to talk when we were playing soccer but we could laugh and joke with each other. Once again I see that love is our common language.
So as you can tell it has been a very busy week for us and today we found out, FINALLY, what we will be doing on a regular basis, but T.I.A. and plans can always change. I don't remember if I wrote before but that stands for This Is Africa. Fluidity is the key, not just flexibility. But I was SO excited (mom) to find out that I will be going to that really nice school in Manzini, every Monday and Friday and teaching some music/crafts/Bible stories to Grades 1-2 and maybe 3. I think I mentioned in my blog from last week about that opportunity and how much I wanted to do it so I was super excited when I found out today that I will be going there every week. Then we will be doing some hospital visiting and prayer as well as the Hope House and care points every week. Sorry this is so long but I have one chance a week to tell y'all what I've been doing, so it will always be long!
Love you mom, dad, N&K, Adam and Daniel and everybody else but I have to say my family's name :)
I have had a dreams the past few nights about being home and so the homesick-ness is starting to set in so pray for me that I won't get too sad!
Here's some pictures from this week:
On the game reserve..not what you would expect in Africa?
Crocodile pond; but didn't see any :(
Wildebeests (not sure if I spelled that right)
There were so many monkeys jumping through the trees
Me & Zanelle (my favorite of our 2 translators; she is 26)
Cow stomach & rice..Zanelle tried to get me to eat it, I passed
Titi (left) Zanelle (right); they wanted me to take a picture of them eating the cow
stomach that they think tastes so good
One of the carepoints; at Pastor Walter's church (where we go)
This little girl wanted to take so many pictures;
they love cameras & say "shoot me, shoot me"
The girl above wanted to take this of me
I want to bring these 4 home!
