The First week in Swaziland has been full of many changes to my daily routine. Bucket showers, hole-in-the-ground potties, living in a hut, enjoying the heat, and waking up with flies around my face are just a few of the changes I’ve been adapting too. Getting back to the basics of life has been a refreshing escape from all the distractions back home and the scenery makes it nearly impossible to not take note of God’s beautiful creation all around me.
We have spent the last week visiting the care points around Timbutini and Manzini including the Hope House- where terminally ill patients come to get care, a primary school- where we have the opportunity to teach a few lessons each week, and many care points where the children come just for the hope of getting a meal that day. After visiting all of the care points we will be choosing as a team which ones we are going to invest in the most. We only have two Kumbies (or vans) for our team, so it is difficult to work out a schedule to makes the most use of our transportation, but at the same time not wear us thin to the point that we are not truly investing in the lives of the people we are visiting.
One care point we have already chosen is about a ten minute walk up the road. On Thursday we had a few hours a free time so a group of us walked to the Timbutini Care Point to play with the kids. When they were done with their discipleship class about sixty kids came running out of the church building. Words cannot describe what it felt like to have a girl about nine years old run up to me from across the field and throw her arms around me just wanting a hug. I picked her up in my arms and held her as we walked back to the group of children in the shade. She didn’t speak much English, but she had fun laughing at my sorry attempts to introduce myself in Si-Swati. Praise God Smiles are a universal language!
