The One With the Not So Clever Title

I always try to come up with a title for my blogs that might catch your interest.  With this blog, I couldn’t come up with one.  That probably is correlated with the fact that this has been a strange week.  I was talking with a friend a few days ago, and I was telling her that I don’t even know how to put in words some of the events that have gone on.  Put simply, the 3 of us have had a really hard time being here.  I’ll go over some of the reasons it has been so hard:

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1)  I personally came in with the mindset of, “Jessica, beware of any expectations you have, because you know expectations usually lead to disappointments.”  I had especially prepared myself mentally for the fact that relationships probably would not pick up right where they left off last year in April when we left.  This was the main thing I was concerned about.  I wanted to be prepared for the worst.  Maybe the people we spent a lot of time with, didn’t really want to spend time with us or maybe they aren’t even here anymore.  So, this was my main focus.  I didn’t really think about my expectations for ministry.  I wasn’t too worried about it because I just thought to myself “we will just do the same things we did last year: spend time with the children in the community at the care points and visit the terminally ill at Hope House.”   Plainly put, ministry has been incredibly difficult.  Everything has been so much more difficult than we could have expected.  Today for example, we planned on going to the care point and being with the kids of Timbutini, but when we got there, we found there was no water = the women can’t cook for the children, which is the entire reason the kids even come to the care points.  So when there is no water, there is not food, and therefore no kids.  So we just walked home.  It’s hard to do ministry when people aren’t there.  This has kind of been the norm for us.  Basically things that we plan don’t end up being possible.  Even in the smallest of plans, we feel very defeated.  If you are reading this that probably means you supported me in coming here, so I don’t want you to think that your donation to me was a waste.  I’m just being honest about the difficulties we have had here.  That is not to say that we have not had beautiful moments as well. 

2) Coming independently (without an organization) has proved to be harder than we thought.  I am an INCREDIBLY independent person (right mom!) and love when I can do something on my own.  So coming to Africa, on my own, with just 2 friends was very appealing to me.  I was completely confident that we had everything figured out, and the things we hadn’t planned, would just fall in to place once we got here.  Simple enough in my mind.  Obviously everything has not fallen into place as we would have liked it to.  We have been able to do ministry at Hope House and with the children in the community, just not as much as we wanted to.  We are constantly reminded that things in Africa are just more difficult than in America.  For example,  one day we planned on going to the care point, but it was pouring down rain and freezing cold outside.  If I were home, the only thing that would be different is that I would grab and umbrella and jacket then go get in my car and go wherever I wanted to go.  In Swazi, when it’s cold, people don’t do ANYTHING.  If it’s cold and raining no one goes anywhere, they stay inside ALL day long.  There are a few reasons for this:  Swazis don’t like the cold and most people don’t have cars, which means if you want to go anywhere you have to walk and no one wants to walk in the cold rain.  So we stayed inside all day.  We were getting very stir crazy by the next morning, but there was no reason to go anywhere because everyone was locked up in their homes for the day.  Also, I have been reminded of how thankful I should be to have a car.  When you have to take public transportation everywhere you go it 1) gets expensive 2) is inconvenient and 3) takes at least twice as long to get where you want to go.  So for the times we have gone places for ministry, we don’t get to spend as much time there because we have to factor in the time it takes using public transportation.

3)  Here’s a short one; being in Africa with 2 other girls and no man is scary.  Yes we live on a homestead where Lelo, 28, is 2 huts over but it’s not the same. 

4)  The 3 of us have talked a lot about the fact that we weren’t worried about the whole “giving up American comforts” because we had been there, and done that for 3 months last year.  We forgot the consider that we have been back in America for over a year and have very much adjusted back to the comfortable American lifestyle.  The only thing that’s different this time is that we knew what to expect as far as no running water and poor electricity.  That has not made it any easier though.  It’s not like we have been able to pick up where we left off and be really good at ‘roughing it.’  Unfortunately we are more spoiled than we wanted to realize. 

5) I CAN NOT wait to be back in a country where women are respected.  You may read this and disagree with me, thinking that American women are not respected.  But here in Swaziland, women are merely objects.  I can’t even describe how old it is, having men come up to you saying they love you, want to marry you, coming within an inch of your face telling you they want you, being grabbed as we try to find a khombi that is going to our village in the bus yard, being followed around by men, and the list goes on.  Yesterday we went to Mbabane, and on the bus ride there I was sitting next to Kaci.  She was sitting in an aisle seat, and as always men stopped and talked to us as they walked past, but there was an especially obnoxious drunk man that would not leave her alone.  He was literally an inch from her face as he harassed her.  At one point he even said, “I am not harassing you, I am just talking.”  I think his need to ‘clarify’ this, proves he wasn’t simply talking to her.  We have all come to the point where we are ready to backhand any man that bothers us.  I know that’s not the most loving response, but I think any woman that came here might feel the same way at this point.  We just can’t tolerate it anymore.  Even the weird attention we get as we walk around town, with men whispering all kinds of vulgarities about the “white girls.”  There have been many times where I told one of the girls, “Oh, if one of my brother’s were here, that man would not have just done that.”  I’m thankful for all the gentlemen in my life. 

Hopefully this blog has not come across as me whining the entire time.  I just want those who are following my trip, to know everything, even the hard stuff.  If you are discouraged after reading this, then go back and read my “Sweet, Sweet Reunions” blog of when I first got here.  I have been constantly reminded that mission work isn’t easy.  There are days when you feel like your presence is pointless and there are days when you feel like the Lord is using you in great ways.  We have had both.  We have decided that maybe the Lord needed to teach us some lessons that He couldn’t teach us as well in America.  The slow-pace lifestyle has forced us to rest.  This morning we all spent time reading.  I told them that if I were at my home in Bryan, I would have woken up and eaten breakfast then probably opened up my computer and spent an unhealthy amount of time on the internet.  But here, that’s never an option so we are taking advantage of that.  I have had conversations with the Lord asking, “Did I have to spend all this time and money, for you to teach me such simple lessons?”  But I’ve realized, I wouldn’t have learned some of these simple things at my home.  He brought us to the other side of the world, and is teaching us very simple, but good things. 

Thanks for you prayers and support.  I am so thankful to have been on this trip.  The Lord has shown me some things that I needed to figure out and couldn’t have done without coming back here.  It has been so good to spend time with sweet friends and make beautiful memories with them.  We will be flying out of Johannesburg, South Africa on Monday, the 8^th, so please pray for travel protection.  I always get a little nervous when I’m flying over the ocean for extended periods of time.  Can’t wait to be home.

Love to you all.