womens devotion, prayed over people in the hospital (met a woman who tried to
commit suicide), butchered a chicken, led a high school devotion, befriended a
soccer field of teens, saw my friend from Minnesota in Swaziland, and babysat a
random 2 year old. Writing one specific story this has been kind of a challenge
to decide on- so I’m picking two stories.
First of all (the more serious one), the womens devotion I did was with the
ladies at Timbali crafts. We discussed a couple of verses: 2 Corinthians
12:9-10, James 1:2-5, and 1 Peter 1:7. Basically these have the common theme of
trials, asking God for wisdom, and faith being refined. These verses came to
mind from the book Crazy Love that I’ve already written about. Most of the
gogos and mages have faced so many trials and hardships. I’m sure they are way
more equiped to teach a lesson on trials than I was. Although the message
wasn’t exactly brand new information, I found it was a really good stepping
block for making friendships with these ladies. After that first devotional
some of the ladies had mentioned prayer requests and were vulnerable with the
group. Also, I’ve felt so much more freedom when talking to the women. There’s
more of a connection and trust to talk to me. I feel so much more comfotable
talking with them and their smiles are all so welcoming. It has been such a
blessing to feel like I’m connecting with these women and I’m really enjoying
getting to know more about their lives. I’ve decided to selectively ask some of
the women if it’s alright for me to visit them during the week. That’s what I
did this Monday. That leads me into my next story…
house. She’s one of the mages from Timbali crafts. I had asked her on Monday if
it’d be alright for me to stop by on Wed. So we went to her house and she said
she was going to put us to work. She actually didn’t really have much house
work for us but she had another surprise brewing. She wanted to teach us some
of the Swazi women ways. First we swept her house then she told us we’d be
making a fire. Then she slyly said “we will kill a chicken”. Pretty
sure my mouth just about dropped. My first thought was “who will kill the
chicken?! and will I be eating this chicken?”. Well…sure enough she
grabbed one of her chickens and a knife and wanted us to cut it’s throat. Me
and my teammate kind of wussed out so she did the cutting of the throat but we
poured the boiling water over it so we could pluck it’s feathers. I’ve never
plucked a chicken before so that was quite the experience (and I have it on
video). We cut it open and I touched it;’s beating heart…kind of eerie. She
had us build a fire for us to boil the chicken. We ended up staying to eat it
since she prepared it for us. We also tried the eggs that were inside the
chicken. Sorry if this story makes you a little queezy. If it does you probably
shouldn’t look at the pictures below. I felt a little sick to my stomach after
this whole experience because we handled the dead chicken and didn’t really get
to wash our hands well, then we ate the cooked chicken with our hands. I guess the
more I’m here the more I learn the Swazi women ways. Hmmm….what will I learn
next?
