Swaziland is a beautiful country that very quickly captured my heart. Partly, it was the way the sun set behind the mountains each night and the stars that completely filled the sky. It was each African child who ran down the dirt road and into my arms. It's because a simple life is my favorite kind and that's what they have there… But more than anything, it's because of the hope I found in a place you might not expect to find any.
Swaziland is the country with the highest HIV prevalence in the world. There are over 100,000 children orphaned because of it. I heard it estimated somewhere that by 2050, the entire population of Swaziland will cease to exist. Let that sink in. Picture a young African child in your mind… barefoot, tattered clothes that are a bit too small for her, and her dark skin is lightened by a layer of ashy dirt. But she looks up at you with a twinkle in her eyes and the most innocent smile that lets you know there is a beautiful, childlike joy in her heart. But part of her childhood fades at age seven when she loses her father to AIDS. Five years later, she loses her mother the same way, and is woken up to the the reality of now being the one left to care for her four younger siblings. And so together, these kids face one day at a time wondering how they'll make it and who will take care of them. The thing is though that their friends get it, their neighbors get it, their teachers get it… because they've all been affected, they've all witnessed the invasive power of something they have no control over. This disease doesn't discriminate, poverty doesn't spare the innocent, and you might be asking, "Where is the hope in that?"
I've learned on the Race that in life, we pity the people who don't have what we value the most. When we value money and comfort above all, we pity those who are materially poor. When we value family the most, we cry for the orphans. When we value health, we pity the sick and dying. A few months ago, each hungry child, each sick grandfather, and each orphaned child I met would have ripped me apart. But I've prayed over and over for God to break my heart for what breaks His and He has. What breaks my heart now isn't the barefooted boy who stops at our fence on his way home from school and asks for a drink of water. It's not the little girl who has a terrible cold and no mom to nurse her through it. What truly breaks my heart now is the thought of somebody dying without knowing The Lord, for this is the most valuable thing. Don't you think that's what breaks God's heart more than anything? This is why it's so important to share His love and truth with these people.
In Swaziland, it's like a race against time. If the 2050 prediction is true, that leaves only thirty-five years for this nation. It means that I can hold a young child in my arms, look them in the face, and realize there's a good chance they won't live to see forty. But there is hope because faith is already winning out in this place. I saw it each time the children gathered in the school yard and sang their hearts out to Jesus. I saw it in every orphaned child who walked to church, not because any adult made them but because they wanted to be there. I saw it in a church full of people with their hands raised in praise the day after a car accident claimed two lives. I saw it on our last day there when a teenage girl didn't say goodbye but instead said confidently, "I'll see you in Heaven." Because she is so right.
In a place like Swaziland, it's easy to lose heart because of the seemingly hopeless situations they face, but you don't have to look hard to instead find the hope. This life is not actually what it's about; it's about what comes after our time on this earth. Faith was alive in that place, and when people know The Lord like they do, they have the one thing that actually matters. No matter how hard life is now, no matter the trials they have yet to face, no matter if they fail to escape the greedy hands of AIDS, their futures are secure. The magnitude of the greatest suffering that exists in this world will pale in comparison to the magnitude of the blessing that is coming to all believers, for we are promised, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9). What a reason to HOPE!
