Soni Bonani! (Hello!)
The move to Nsoko went really well. It is just over an hour drive from Manzini. We now live in a team house which I am liking a lot better than where we had been living. We have upgraded to having toilets and showers! Oh the things we take for granted haha.
I am really loving Nsoko and I could tell you some stories that have taken place at our new home but I want to tell you about a man we met on one of our last days in Manzini. We were sitting outside of the Pick N Pay grocery store waiting for the rest of out team to finish up when an older man walked up to us and said hello. Usually we would be prepared to decline yet another marriage proposal or pretent we didn’t notice the man to avoid having to tell them to go away but this man was friendly in a good way. The first question he asked us was if we were with Adventures In Missions and we were like Ya we are. He said ” I knew it. I can always tell when it is an AIM team and when it is someone else like the Peace Court because you have Jesus in your eyes! You even walk differently than they do.” I was so suprised haha what a compliment!
A few us have been struggling with what our purpose is here in Swaziland and I believe God sent us this man to tell us! The next thing he said was ” You are only here for a short time and then you leave ( I thought we were going to be getting a lecture about how we shouldn’t just come and go) BUT the work you are doing here in Swaziland is irreplaceable! It is IRREPLACEABLE! Thank-you so much!”
I was so suprised again I didn’t have anything to say back to him. We invited him to sit down with us so he did and started to tell us about his family. His wife had died a couple years ago and he was left with his four children. He talked about how he has been sick so many times but God keeps making him well again so there must be something he needs to do on this earth yet before God will take him home. We had some sandwiches with us so we gave them to him and he was so thankful. He said he has been reduced to a beggar and he has to go home and tell his children there is no food some nights but there is nothing he can do about it because there are no jobs.
He got up then to talk to someone he knew and Eleisha, Alison and myself were like is he seriously an angel? There was just something different about him that was inexplicable. I was curious so when he came back I asked him ” Have you ever seen an angel?”
He thought for a little bit and then said “ You know if you want to see an angel look into the eyes of a child. Look deep into their eyes. The complete innocence that a child has…I don’t know there is something angelic about it.� I was astounded again.
I probably could have sat there and listened to that mans wisdom all day but we were ready to leave so he jumped up and insisted in taking the heaviest cart back to the van for us.
I can’t tell you if Yul was an angel or not but I thank God that he sent this man in dirty tattered clothes to encourage me in a way that would be impossible for a person who had it all together to do. I look forward to the day that I will meet Yul again and we can praise the Father together with the angels. He won’t be wearing those clothes anymore… or have to worry about showing his halo.
