Author: Adventures

Timbutini care point. The sun is beating down. As usual, half of my team is sitting under the tree outside the church.The kids are laughing and asking us our names in a circle over and over. They’re jumping and running, lost in the afternoon. I look up to find my eyes fixed on a shirtless little boy with his belly pushing outward in hunger. His green pants are torn and dusty, barley able to stay up. He has scars and scratches all over his body along with oozing sores on his head. The flies are surrounding him and there is fear in his eyes. I ask him his name in siSwati and...

Some of you may remember from my previous “Truth’s of the Jumbo” blog the meaning of a Jumbo Run. For those of you who forgot, a Jumbo Run is the term used for the rushed transportation to the Jumbo in order to prevent premature arrival. Yesterday, I witnessed this race. As I was standing in the girls hut, along with numerous other females, Ryan Bodine ran past our window in the general direction of the Jumbo. His intentions could have been misinterpreted if it were not for the phrase that he yelled as he ran by, “IT’S COMING!” I’m not sure weather...

“I want to go home!” screamed Lungile during a church service last Monday. When we took her back to her room, she still persisted, “I want to go home!” She had no idea what she was asking. Calie and I visited Lungile, a 39 year old woman, every Monday and Friday for the last month at the Hope House, a long-term care center in Manzini for the very sick and terminally ill. Lungile had moved in the week before we first visited her in early February.  The first time Calie and I walked in we found a fun woman with a lot of energy. Our...

On Tuesday I visited a care point later in the afternoon. we told the story of Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. The kids loved it when they got to be the sea and “swallow” the Egyptians into their crowd. While we were telling the story I noticed a boy sitting by himself behind the main group of kids. His leg was all wrapped up and he couldn’t walk on it. Neil was sitting next to him during the story....

  On Wednesday Myself and six other girls went with our translators to do a few home visits. One of the GoGo’s that we visited was in her late nineties. I could hardly believe how young she looked! when I first saw her she was carrying a sack of corn in from the field. She was a petite woman with a cane on her right to support her arching back. This woman was the mother of eleven children, she has grand children, great grand children, and even great great grand children. We only asked how many grand children she had, after about ten minutes of counting and thinking,...

              I still can’t get over the fact that I’m in Africa, let alone have been here for a month and a half already. This is officially the half way point in our trip and it’s still going by so fast. At first 3 months sounds like a long time, maybe even a little overwhelming since this is my first overseas mission trip. Because this trip is about half way over, I figured I could give a little synopsis of what I’ve been learning thus far....