Sanibonani! (Hello All)

I knew it. I’ve been spoiled these last couple of months. We arrived to our new home in Manzini, Eswatini and everyone is oohing and ahhing over our accommodations and the fact we have a pool on the property and I struggled with being appreciative after the picturesque location last month. So I focused on listening to the joy of the people around me and soaking that in and really it is a nice place again. (definitely not whatever messy place was described to us last month)

(our place)

Most people are camping out this month. The weather is cool in the evenings and in the mid 70’s during the day. I am not one of those people. After I hurt my knee at the end of Romania I’ve been struggling to put weight on that knee when I’m kneeling. I’m fine walking though but I think getting up off the ground every morning is more than I want to have to think about. 

(tents)

We are split into 7 groups for ministry this month so everyone is all mixed up trying to do ministry with people they haven’t gotten to before. It means we aren’t really doing feedback time in the evenings because we aren’t together as a team during the day. There are 5 groups of 3-4 people that are going out to different care points and working with the kids and staff there every day. They go to the same one every day to help build relationships. There’s a group of 3 that are doing agriculture at different care points every day. Generally just pulling weeds but occasionally planting crops. I’m in a group of 3 that spends our days in the office with the staff there working on writing lessons to teach to the teachers (shepherds) at each care point. These are not lessons for the kids. The lessons are about one of three things; their relationship with God, themselves, or others. We’re working on the lessons about themselves right now so it’s like writing a bunch of lessons about their identity in Christ and how they can live that out. It’s strange to be able to use all that christianese talk that I’ve been avoiding for the last 10 months. In fact I don’t remember most of it and find it weird when I hear things said by others. I suppose that’s one of the things I’ll readjust to when I get home. 

How strange to think I’ll be home in less than a month. As I typed that sentence I realized it doesn’t feel like I’m going home at all but just the next step on the race. I suppose the race won’t ever actually be over because we’re all in this race called life aren’t we?

Once a week we get to leave the office and visit a care point. A care point, in my best description, is a pre-school and after school program that feeds the area kids and shares bible lessons with them. For some of them it’s the only meal they get that day. A lot of the shepherds or teachers grew up going to the care points and are raised up to lead. During our weekly visits we spend time talking with the shepherd and the kids, helping out doing chores, or spooning up the food, to chasing away chickens that try to steal the kids food. Our first week out we got to go on a home visit where M was ill and needed help with some chores like removing the grass from the front yard and the walk from the gate and scrubbing dishes and pots. It feels good to be able to make a visible difference in someone’s life especially after a month of just talking to people. Manual labor was exactly what I needed to refuel myself. 

This week when we went out to the care point we got to help the pre schoolers with learning to write the alphabet and their numbers and one little girl attached herself to me and so we hung out all day. We played until she could hardly hold her eyes open. Then her older sister took her home and a dozen kids attacked my lap simultaneously and instead of letting them get jealous of each other for getting to sit on my lap and pulling and hitting each other we turned it into a tickle fight. Much less violent but still got the kids moving so someone could take their place. At one point some boys started chasing each other around with a grasshopper and throwing it at each other to see if they could get it to stick to their shirts. Someone from the office got them to come put it in my hand and the boys swore it was dead. It most definitely wasn’t. He was a big ole thing too. My only reaction when he started moving was to laugh as even the little boys jumped back and squealed. If only I could have gotten that on video but pulling out our phones was risky. The kids would snatch it away then you had no idea what pictures you might find on it later, just ask Jack or actually don’t. You don’t want to know. 

Being in the office means I don’t have quite as much to talk about as everyone that’s out with the kids every day. My days look pretty much the same. There are plenty of jokes going around the office though. Like how someone here is going to try to come up with the bride price of 20 cows and send them home to my family so we can get married. I think shipping that many cows would be more expensive than the cows themselves plus I’m not really a fan of cows so I asked if we could switch to goats (imbuzi) instead and they said they would do 30 goats but I’ve since found out goats are only worth E700 and a cow is E8000 so they’re shorting me 198.5 goats so the entire thing is off now. There’s also someone that works in the office that we haven’t met yet so I claim he’s not real and at the same time every time someone new comes into the office and leaves again I ask if that was him. I have been told I will meet him at the staff meeting. I think my goal is going to be to avoid meeting him just so I can continue the joke. It means I’ll have to hide from the rest of the staff because they’re all eager to introduce me to the mysterious staff member. 

After we finish this month we will have a free week to go on trips with our squad mates and start processing the race. I will be spending that week in Nelspruit ZA. That’s the same town we had our last debrief in. That went well by the way. We did that safari i mentioned and saw a ton of elephants! But we spent most of our time together starting to talk about the transition back home and how there are bound to be a lot of miscommunications and things and that we shouldn’t immediately jump in and try and change how our family does things just because we like certain things about how the race did things better. Pray I can refrain and also communicate clearly my needs when I get home. We also got to do another safari. I have hundreds of photos this time and will probably over-share with all of you, but I can’t help it there were just soooo many elephants! I think there’s a group going up to Egypt for that week and another doing one last road trip this time while driving on the other side of the road! and there are two groups going to two different beach towns. I’m avoiding the beaches after all the problems I’ve had with them in the past and a road trip just doesn’t seem restful to me and the Egypt trip is a bit out of my budget. So I’m going to hang out in Nelspruit with Makalah, Caitlyn, and Samantha, and maybe a surprise guest but we’ll see. We have zero plans for while we are in Nelspruit except to relax and try to start processing. I can’t wait.

If you could all be praying, as we finish up this trip and transition back home, that we can stay focused on the present and not think too fondly of all of the foods and comforts we miss from home. 

Back in ZA they are preparing for “team season” and that starts here in the next few days. Pray the team will be able to continue doing the amazing work they already do and not wear themselves out with all the groups that will be coming through. 

Also if you could be prayer for Jaimy, my house mom from Costa Rica, she’s having a lot of health issues.

This may or may not be my last blog before I get home. We’ll see if I have anything in particular I want to share from the second half of this month, my processing week in Nelspruit, and/or final debrief in Gainesville or if it can wait until I see you all in person!

PS don’t be surprised if you hear me talk about going back to ZA. I’m only 2 hours from the border and I find myself feeling pulled back there. I want to just plop myself down in one of the extensions and show them I don’t mind doing life right along side them. I’d also love to be a constant point of hope and encouragement for whatever community I find myself in. Yebo (yes), it sounds extreme but I can’t get it out of my mind and I certainly wouldn’t have come up with that idea on my own neh (right). Yet it feels so right. Lots to do before that can happen though don’t worry. I’ll be around for a while yet.