This month we are in Swaziland! Swaziland is a kingdom about the size of New Jersey. This land is absolutely beautiful. The area we are in, Nsoko (pronounced "Nosogo"), is only 5 kilometers from the southeast border of the country, and we are in a valley surrounded by mountains. We are so close to the border that South Africa is on the other side of those mountains (we actually hiked to the top of the mountains the other day to the border).
The land is so beautiful that it's almost hard to believe its inhabitants suffer so much. Many people we interact with come from broken homes and are infected with HIV/AIDs. While the children we play with laugh and goof around like the children in America, we absolutely have to wear gloves when we bandage their knees when they fall because it's more likely than not their blood is infected. In addition, most of the population suffers from extreme poverty and malnutrition. We work at an Adventures in Missions (AIM) carepoint, which is right next to a primary school. The carepoint has a well and also provides daily meals and church lessons to the children and community.
The past two weeks our ministry days have started working in the community garden plot. This plot is going to feed about 40 families in the community. Like Bulawayo (Zimbabwe), the water situation is unreliable and as a result it's hard for people to grow food for themselves. This garden has an irrigation drip water system, which is the most efficient watering system available. The combined effort of the AIM carepoint, local farmers, and community members allows the whole town to take a part in this outreach.
Knowing all of this, it has been incredibly rewarding to take a part in this effort to feed local families. When we arrived at the beginning of the month, the plot was just a chunk of land that hadn't been planted in. Our first job was to clear the land to allow for the community members to start planting on the 14th. This means that we started each morning weeding. Normally I find weeding very mundane and tiring, but because we were doing this to help feed these people I found so much joy in this task. It also reminded me a lot of my mom, who loves to garden and takes part in a group of women who call themselves the "Weed Ladies" because they meet each week to weed each others' gardens. I felt very connected to all these women during the month, not only because I was weeding, but also because I know many (if not all) of these women are my main prayer warriors during this race.
My favorite way to spend time weeding was to find a section of land, put my headphones in, and listen to sermons as I methodically pulled each plant out. I learned a ton about God during this time. There are so many lessons and metaphors about gardening in the Bible, and it was a great reminder that God is our Master Gardener, continually growing us in our journey of faith. One of my favorite lessons that he taught me was that he loves me so much that he continually is on his knees weeding parts of my life that need to be removed. It's not me who weeds–it's him. Some weeds go deeper than others, but all need to be removed from the root. All he desires from me is opening the gate to let him in to garden.
Anyways, that's what's been going on out here so far! I'll have more stories later…I'm literally finishing this sitting outside my ministry contact's front door, because she graciously allowed us to borrow her internet so I could send some leadership emails. Swazi internet is crazy…I will try to send out as much as I can before I leave for China, but please keep sending me updates on your life and comments! Even if I can't send anything back, I get them and they mean SO much to me and are very encouraging. This is a really hard time to be away from home and any comments or messages really help keep me going :). Love you all!
