Jesus In a Wheelchair

At Ramblas in Manzini

 Tnamiso wanted to take my picture

Tnamiso & I (he is one of my 5 boys)

Tickling Sibusiso (another of my 5 boys)

Excited about some good lemonade

My American relief

Outside the Manzini market with my 3 girls (Tori, Katie, Kaci)

 

Bakery goodness

Skype with the fam in the internet cafe

Me, Debbie, Kaci, Katie in Manzini

Landon, Tori & I outside the Manzini market

 

Sunset from our homestead

Sweet kids waiting in line for the jump castle

 

Passing out bananas & apples on Fun Day

These boys loved posing for the camera

Our kids at Timbutini

(left) Bentley (right) Sibusiso 

my 2 favorite boys at Timbutini

I have officially been in Africa a month on Sunday.  In some ways it has gone by so fast by then again it does seem like a very long time since I have been home.  I am building some really close friendships with a few of the girls on my team.  In a group of 16 people, it is natural for certain personalities to be drawn to each other more than others, and everyone seems to have found their place on the team.  Once again I will just give you an idea of what I did each day of the week, but first I want to tell you a little about Swaziland.  I realized last night that I haven't really said much about the country so I want to take the time to do that. 

Swaziland is first of all beautiful, as you can tell from some of the pictures I have posted.  It does not look like the Lion King, which is what I was expecting!  There are some places that do, just not in our village.  There are mountains all around us.  Actually if you are using the toilet that doesn't have a door, you have an awesome view of the mountains, it's so beautiful.  The other day, Kaci and I were filming the homestead because she wanted to do a video tour of the place and when we got to the toilets we were showing how gross they are and then looked up and said "Well I guess the view is pretty awesome"  as the sun was setting and the mountains looked pretty amazing.  So even in the dirtiest places, if you just look up you will see something beautiful.  Swazi people are incredibly friendly, sometimes too friendly.  The men here SO want to marry a white woman, that proposals are pretty much a daily experience for at least one girl on the team.

 Let me give you an example: Thursday morning I was brushing my teeth.  To give you an idea of how everything in this story goes I'll explain brushing your teeth here.  Obviously we don't have sinks/running water so we just grab our water bottles and go behind our hut in the grass to brush our teeth.  A 'road' runs behind our homestead, so every morning while we are brushing our teeth kids on their way to school stop and talk to us on the other side of the fence.  The road is about 20 feet from where we brush our teeth, and about 3 feet from the toilets, so we have to be careful & fast when we use the door less one in the day time because people will walk by, and if you are using the bathroom you just casually wave and laugh, only in Africa :) .   Okay well Thursday morning I was brushing my teeth and 5 men are walking down the road.  They all stop and come up to the fence and start talking to me, as my mouth is filled with toothpaste.  A little more background:  right now it is the season for a certain fruit that falls from the trees and the people collect it and make a very strong alcohol from it.  Their version of moonshine?  So all these men were on their way to very drunk.  So I just said hi to them and kept brushing my teeth.  They were very excited to see a white girl, and said that I looked "very lovely."  I've never been told I looked lovely while brushing my teeth.  Well my leader Liz is really paranoid about men talking to us here so she didn't want me to stand over there anymore so I had to finish brushing my teeth some where else. If I had stayed I probably would have been proposed to by all 5 of them.  But, a guy on our team, Billy, went over and talked to them.  They were offended that I had left (I felt rude for leaving) and one guy said that it was his Go Go's homestead we were staying on (which it was) so Billy couldn't tell him to leave, since we were from America.  Billy asked them where they lived and said he would come visit them.  The man said "I don't want to be friends with just you, I want to be all of your friends."  Another guy said to us "You don't need to be scared"  "We leave here with your respect and you have ours."  Pretty hilarious to hear them yelling across the fence.  Liz and Neil, our leaders are nervous about us talking to people so they always come out when men walk by and say "Okay bye, you have to leave now," but they are harmless, and just want to talk to you so I always feel bad when I have to just walk away or ignore them when they say hello, so when my leaders aren't around I talk to them!  Don't be afraid Mom, they really are harmless, just very friendly and hilarious. 

So all that to say Swazi people are very friendly and forward.  It's funny because in their culture it's rude to ask personal questions but they will straight up ask us if we are married or have kids, which we can't really ask them so it's kind of interesting.  Swazi people literally do nothing all day.  You ask them what they did that day and it usually involves waking up at 5:00 am or earlier, doing their chores and once they are finished with work around the homestead for the day, they just sit around.  We go on walks and you just see people sitting, everywhere, doing absolutely nothing.  That's one thing we were told in our culture orientation our first day here, that Swazis do nothing all day long.  It's nice at first but I am definitely excited to be home with things to do.  There is this thing called "Swazi time."  I don't know if I have mentioned it before but basically it means that Swazis don't really go by a watch.  If they say something is starting at 11:00, there is about a 50% chance it will start at 11:00 so that's why there is not really a time for us to get out of church on Sundays.  Church is never less than 2 hours, like this past week I think it was around 2 1/2 hours.  I can't imagine people's reaction back home if FBCNB went until 1:30!  Swazis just live a very slow paced life, so something else that I've noticed is that they walk SO slow.  Not a big deal, but they are never in a hurry.  They think PBJs are really strange.  They love to take pictures.  I gave my nice camera to Zanelle on the Fun Day last week so she could take some pictures and she got so excited and I saw her organizing all the kids to pose for the camera.  They are very strict with their children.  Zanelle told me that it's okay for you to 'beat' a kid with a stick if you don't know him.  So if a kid runs across the street when they shouldn't have, it's okay for you to "shia" (beat) them with a stick, and they parents don't care!  Can you imagine that happening in the States?  They love "umlungus" (um-loon-goos) which are white people.  We will be driving down the road and hear kids shouting "Umlungus!" and then waving at us and running after the van. 

Okay so I realize how long all of that was, so I will give more facts about the country on a different blog, but now I want to tell you about the week, it has been very different than the others. 

Monday - my day to go to the school in Manzini.  This is definitely my favorite day, besides communication day.  This week we taught them the Tower of Babel and had a craft for them to make their own towers which was a whole lot more fun for them than I expected.  It was really funny during the story when I was talking about how God confused the languages of the people and gave the example of a person going up and speaking Chinese to their friend, and their friend answering in S'Swati.  Then I said "Wouldn't that be confusing?" and one kid said "No! I speak Chinese" keep in mind I was in Grade 2.  We just started laughing because we forgot that kids outside of America can speak more than one language.  So I asked the kids to raise their hands if they spoke 2 languages and all of them raised their hands, then 3 languages and some put their hands down, 4 languages and their were 3-4 kids who still had their hands up!  It was crazy, and I was so jealous.  But we had a lot of fun telling them the story.  So that was my Grade 2 class.  Then Kaci & I went to our Grade 3 classes and did the Salvation bracelet for their craft.  They loved it and it was a really great way for us to present the gospel to them.  We did the reading time with Grade 2 & 4 which is one of my favorite parts because they are just so fun.  Then, the headmaster told us last Friday that we can go swimming anytime we want to as long as there is not a class swimming, so we all went to the pool, but I left my "swimming costume" as Swazis call it, at the homestead so next week I will be bringing it!

Tuesday - this was our day off from last week.  Since Saturday we did the Fun Day at church all morning we only had an hour and a half at the internet cafe so we got this day as our day off.  We left for Manzini around 9:30 so we were there by 10:00 and spent all day there.  First a few of us went to an air-conditioned internet cafe that we found a few weeks ago.  The A/C felt so good, I hadn't been in a cold room in like a month, so that was nice.  By the time we were done there it was noon so we walked to Ramblas, the restaurant by the grocery store we go to.  Eventually the entire team was eating lunch in there.  I got a chicken & cheese quesadilla, chips (fries), lemonade & a strawberry smoothie.  What a nice taste of home; that was the first time I had something other than a PBJ for lunch in the past 5 weeks.  They also have WiFi in the restaurant so I paid for that and anytime I go back I get to use it so I got to talk to my sweet mom on skype.  Then a few of us walked to a bakery called Bakers Corner.  The best baked goods and pastries, Dad we could have done some damage in that place and it is so cheap you would have wanted to buy everything!  Tori, Landon and I split a slice of carrot cake that tasted like heaven, I got a chocolate cupcake & a white-iced with sprinkles donut.  We decided we will be visiting every Saturday.  Then we all went to the Manzini Market.  It is kind of a 2-story building with no walls.  The bottom is just vegetables and fruits and next to that people sell clothes and shoes and other random things.  I would describe the look of the booths as what you would imagine houses in a slum looking like.  A bunch of tarps making the roof and walls of each of their booths.  Then the top floor is where I will be doing all my gift shopping at.  They have all the handmade jewelry, bowls, drums, paintings, jewelry boxes, etc.  I took videos of the place it's pretty crazy all the things they are selling.  I kept myself from buying anything this time because I want to do all my shopping right before we leave.  Okay then I went back to another internet cafe with Kaci & Katie (2 of the 3 girls I'm closest to, the other being Tori).  I got to hear Dad, Nathan, Adam and Mom's voice!  It was so good to hear from home and sorry for waking all of y'all up, but it was worth it right?  After round 2 at the internet I went to the grocery store, then back to the homestead.  It was a great day off to be away from our homestead because I get stir crazy there.  Then that night we did what they called a Prayer Watch.  We were up from 10-4 am and worshipped, prayed and read scripture.  It was an awesome and encouraging time for the team. 

Wednesday - Since we were up until 4 am we didn't have to be ready for ministry until noon.  I was up until 5:00 am because I've been sick the past week; I won't go into detail but most of the team has been some kind of sick this past week.  So I only got about 4 1/2 hours of sleep but God's grace is enough.  Wednesday is our day to do whatever ministry we want to do.  Yesterday there was a group that went on a prayer walk/home visits, one to the Timbutini care point, and my group of 4 girls stayed at the homestead and cleaned all afternoon, which definitely needed to be done.  I didn't leave the homestead all day which I didn't realize was a big deal until Thursday.

Thursday - As I write this part it is Thursday. So I woke up this morning feeling pretty discouraged.  Every morning we meet at 9:00 as a team to pray, sometimes we just pray as a big group and sometimes split up and pray in smaller groups.  I was completely honest with my group and told them I didn't want to be in Africa today.  I didn't leave the homestead at all yesterday so I think I just feel really bored and ready to get back to having things to do at home.  I told them I don't want to feel like that because my heart does desire to be here but today was just a day where I didn't feel like being here and wanted to be home.  But this afternoon we are going to Timbutini care point and doing some crafts with the little kids and I will get to see some boys that I've started building a friendship with so I'm excited about that. 

This part I am writing on Friday, about Thursday:  God really used the kids at the care point to lift my spirits, I knew that would happen once I got there.  We took bubbles and foam visors for them to decorate.  I had one of those really big tubes so the bubbles are huge and when the wind blew and the bubbles appeared the kids started screaming.  I got Kaci to video tape me doing the bubbles with the kids because it was the cutest thing, they would chase them so far until they popped them.  They loved decorating the visors and they looked so cute wearing them, except they couldn't keep them on so we had to fix them over and over.  At around 2:30 the older kids show up because they get out of school at 2:15, my favorite kid, Tnamiso (I have a picture with him on the last blog & today)  showed up and I wanted to go to the store across the road to buy some fat cakes so he went with me.  He wanted to race me so he said "1,2,3, we go!"  He was fast, but I beat him :)  Then we get to the store and he beats his chest and says "I AM TIRED!"  It was so funny so I did it back to him, then we raced back and he beat me.  I absolutely love Tnamiso.  He asks the rest of the team where I am when I'm not at the care point so that always makes me feel good.  I met another boy on the Fun Day last Saturday whose name is Ayanda.  He is 13 years old and one of the sweetest kids.  I saw him a few days ago on our daily walk around the village and we talked to him and his friend Pinda.  I noticed that Pinda's shoes were falling apart so yesterday I found out what size shoe he wears and I plan on buying him a new pair since he only has one.  So Pinda & Ayanda walked us back to our homestead then went on to theirs.  Here when you are good friends with someone you hold hands, so Ayanda & Pinda walked away holding hands.  When I first got here I was still in the American mindset so I thought it was weird, but now I think it is such a great thing.  So, then I see Ayanda again on this day, Thursday, and he is walking to the care point as I am walking back home and we stop to talk for a little bit and he says, "I wrote this for you,"and hands me a folded up note that says 'My Friend' on the outside.  He wrote that both of his parents don't work and he wants to go to an all boys school because they teach very good English there, and he doesn't like being distracted by the girls at his school, so he wants to go to the all boys school.  Since both of his parents don't work (which is not uncommon in Swazi) he needs support to go to school and was asking me for help.  Obviously I can't write him a check for his schooling but I want to do something.  He told me I am his very best friend and "I love you my friend, very very very much my friend."  It was a sweet note and I know that he really does want a good education so I'm not sure what to do, any suggestions Mom, Dad, etc.?  It's no surprise that I always am drawn to the boys here, having grown up with all boys, and I feel like I am just beginning to build lasting relationships with the people here, and I want to come back and visit (possibly bring my family, ya?).  So all this to say, that Thursday turned out to be an awesome day in the Lord, being blessed by my beautiful kids here that I grow to love more and more each day.

Friday - Normally on Friday afternoons from 1-2 I go to the school in Manzini and teach Grade 6 girls, but today is a holiday for them so we didn't do that.  But I am starting to go to another Primary school just down the road from our homestead with some people in the morning to do a lesson at their morning assembly.  Musa picks us up at 7:00 and drives us to the school, it’s about a 5 minute drive.  WEll as we were driving, I was sitting in the front seat with him and he slows down as we approach a little boy in a wheel chair that comes to Timbutini care point and church, named Thando.  Musa asks me if I want to get out and push him to school.  I jumped on the opportunity and got out of the car before Musa could even stop completely.  I walked over to Thando and his brother who was pushing him down the road and asked if I could do it, so he let me.  It was one of the most beautiful times for me so far in Swaziland.  Pushing a little boy down a gravel road, with the beautiful mountains in front of me and hearing the kids laugh behind me; it doesn't get much better than that for me.  I started praying silently for him as I walked, and the Lord brought to my mind Matthew 25:35-40 "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Then the rightewous will answer him saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?....' And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my borthers you did it to me."  All I could think about was that I was pushing Jesus in a wheelchair.  I can't even describe to you this moment for me, but it was beautiful, and something I will treasure forever.  Thando & I weren't even speaking but I felt so connected to him because it was just the 2 of us going down the road with only the mountains ahead.  Thank you Jesus for this amazing opportunity.  It is these kind of things that I long to do here in Africa.  I would walk that boy to school everyday if I could.  I could go on and on about this morning but I won't!  We did Daniel & the Lions' Den story with the kids and I got to play a lion, with my 3 girls (Kaci, Katie & Tori) so we roared/screamed as loud as we could, and Mom you know I loved that!  After we were finished with the assembly we say bye to the kids and you feel like such a celebrity.  They all ran up to me and wanted to hug me and do the Swazi handshake which I will be bringing back to Texas because it's so cool!  One of my little boys from the Timbutini care point, Sia Bonga ran up to me and gave me a huge hug, once again, melt my heart!  I so look forward to every Friday I will get to go and see these beautiful kids. 

Switch gears. We have to leave the country every 30 days, not sure why maybe it's because we only have permission to be here 30 days at a time, I don't know.  Sunday will be 30 days, so Friday is the best day for us to leave the country.  We went to Nsoko, Swaziland where another AIM team, the Novas Team which is an 8 month program, is staying and doing ministry and spent the night with them.  Our team got to go out to eat at a restaurant called Safaris and it was absolutely amazing! I forgot to bring the pictures to post this week, so I will put them up next week, but the restaurant was breath taking.  There was also a real crocodile outside in the pond that I took a picture of so that was pretty exciting.  I ate margarita pizza which made me think of Europe family!  Then got ice cream for dessert which was super tasty.  We spent the night in Nsoko and then came back this morning so we could come to Manzini for our communication day.  Less than 2 months left in Africa, this month has gone by so fast.  Each week seems to go by faster than the last.  Thank you to those of you who pray for me and my team, we have been so blessed. 

What I hope for myself each day in Swaziland:  Jesus above me, Jesus below me, Jesus to my right, Jesus to my left, Jesus in front and behind me, When people think of me they think of Jesus, when people look at me they see Jesus, that everyone I talk to hears His voice, and everything I touch feels the warmth of His hand. I want to be mistaken for Jesus.

Only 3 Pictures Because Internet is Slow! TIA

Bentley, Me, Sibusiso & I don't know his name

We named him Bentley because he dresses so well!

Kaci & I with the kids eating their meal at the care point

Our church/Timbutini care point that we spend a lot

of time at

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:

 Baby Nothando from the hospital

Sunset from our homestead

This is Tnamiso; I love this kid, he is such a trouble maker

but I'm so drawn to him

Some kids at the Timbutini care point they are so fun

The really good stuffed bread for dinner

on the night I cook with Tori

Me holding a Fat Cake/sweet bread Dad you would love them!

This is our homestead; the building you see is the kitchen/boys room

Me with baby Nothando at the hospital

She is laughing here, not crying even though it looks like it

Our ride on the back of the truck! Me, Liz & Kaci

The others on the truck; Katie Thrasher, Katie Tupper, Zanelle

and handsome Musa :)

Sorry I couldn't upload as many pictures this week the internet was really slow so next week I will put more

Loving God & People in Swazi

 Tori & I...this Friday & I hadn't showered since Tuesday, thank you Africa

 Team Blog Update

 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!

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 :)