Author: Adventures

The language barrier is quickly becoming my biggest pet peeve.    I want to be able to joke with the street boys that I  have made a relationship with, but my humor often does not translate.   Soccer, however, needs no language. My relationship with a lot of the boys has started because we started kicking the soccer ball around. My love language with them is soccer. They know that I deeply care for them when we play…it is written all over their faces.     Gene and I went to see our neighbor, who has become our really good friend, play in a local game....

You know you’re in Swaziland when… You live in a hut. You become addicted to instant coffee. You smash spiders on your face. You name the longdrop the ‘green castle’ and weekly announce the Queen (whoever spent the most time in there) You live out in the middle of nowhere. You see the most beautiful sunsets nightly. You want to go to bed at 5pm when the sun sets… and get up at 5am when it rises. You walk miles and miles to get anywhere. You look out of the hut and see gorgeous mountains. You get used to hopping on a Kumbi and paying 70 cents to get to town...

Ever since graduating high school a few months ago I have really been praying about how to wisely spend my graduation money.   Like most Americans that visit third world countries, quickly after arriving in Swaziland it occurred to me that I need absolutely nothing and that I’m already living in excess compared to most of the world.             A few weeks ago I told you guys about the “dump carepoint”. If you didn’t read my last blog about the gutter kids, now would be a good time to click over and check it out.  ...

Who knew that it would take traveling half way around the world to really realize the power of the tongue? From almost the beginning our tongues were the biggest struggle for the team. Coincidentally, it is also the topic of the book I brought and one of the first things that God revealed to me I needed major work on and needed to do so a.s.a.p. It is so small but has the power to hurt others, unrighteously build oneself up, to ruin lives, and to completely ruin one’s testimony. Fortunately it also has the power to speak truth, bring about healing, edify each other, and boast of God’s...

I sit on the floor of a hut, where Gogos, Geckos, frogs, chickens, sisters, moths and Jeffries make cameos. The dirt never fully comes off of my feet or out of my clothes. I really only bathe and do laundry out of buckets for mental comfort. Not too long before I left, I found myself sitting in front of my flat screen TV telling my mom how badly I NEED an iPhone. Here I see needs, poverty, and emptiness on a whole new level than imaginable. Yet, I sit and complain about my phone? This is the end… Nights leading up to me leaving I would stay up late, again in front of my flat screen...

Last week I fell in love with the kids here. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved being here and holding them and playing with them. However, last week two little girls at different care points remembered me. I have generally stuck with the older girls because I can talk with them, so they remember me fairly well. Last week though, I walked into Manzini care point on Monday and a little girl who I had played with the previous week came running up to me. I sat down, in the dirt, and held her for a while. After a few minutes she began to climb all over me, balance on my legs and hang over my...