Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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Leaving Swaziland was hard because I wanted to stay. Yet at the same time, I have this strange feeling that I WILL be back someday. In what context, I don’t know…but I just know I will be.

At times throughout the month I felt like I was drowning in an ocean of need. Every direction I looked, there were huge swells…swells of parentless children, swells go-go’s looking after 10 kids, swells of HIV, swells of poverty, swells of hunger and most of all–swells of hopelessness. I looked around me and all I could see were the swells…the harshness of them. I felt like the smallest person in the world in this ocean of need, with a heart so desiring to help and yet feeling so helpless.

The day I left Swaziland I went to a worship service at the missionary rest-house we’re staying at in Nelspruit. When they started singing one of my all-time favorite worship songs (I hadn’t known it jumped continents) I couldn’t help buy cry it out to the Lord with all my might.

“yeah He loves us, oh how he loves us….
…so we are his portion and he is our prize,
drawn to redemption by the grace in his eyes,


IF GRACE IS AN OCEAN, WE’RE ALL SINKING…”
 


And with that one line my ocean of need was transformed into an ocean of grace.

With that one song I was reminded of his great love for me and for the orphans and the go-go’s and the diseased and the impoverished.


The poor shall inherit the Kingdom to come.

As I sang to the Lord, I knew that the ocean was still an ocean of need: but I had to choose to see it as an ocean of opportunities for grace.
 
 
 
What do the swells of grace look like in Swaziland?

Swells of orphans being fed at care points sponsored by AIM and other NGOs.
 
Swells of women earning income through handicrafts (www.timbalicrafts.org).
 
Swells of young people being spiritually discipled to become the next generation of leadership in Swaziland, the generation that will change their country.
 
Swells of go-go’s coming together as sisters to listen to each other’s stories of pain and embrace one another with the love of Christ.
 
Swells of foreigners, one at a time, coming to love the people of Swaziland.
 


Swells of AIM employees giving their lives to take care of the orphans and the widows.

 

 
 
 
 
I asked God to break my heart for what breaks his on this Race. He has definitely answered my prayer. Throughout scripture–old testament and new–we are instructed to take care of the orphans and the widows. I believe that’s because God created us as humans to need each other, to take care of each other, and without doing so we are not fulfilling our purpose on earth. Adam needed Eve. Eve needed Adam. And so it goes. We were created to love and serve God, but secondmost to love and serve each other…especially those who have no one else to love and serve them.

 
As I enter month 9 on the Race, I look forward to seeing oceans of need transform into oceans of grace. Because it’s a perspective change, a change of the heart: the need will always be there–the poor will always be with us. But I choose instead to focus on the HOPE. On the grace of my Father who’s brought me out into the world to bring me in to His KINGDOM and learn how to bring that Kingdom, that hope, that grace, that peace, that joy with me every place I step my foot.
 
 

 
 Now I challenge you. What are the oceans of need around you–spiritual destitution? Emotional distress? Physical suffering?–whatever the oceans are, I challenge you to ask God to transform them into oceans of grace. Focus on the swells of His Kingdom. They’re all around…you just have to look at it from the right perspective.
 
 
—–
I was walking the short gravel road from Pastor Gift’s house to the
community center, ready to dive back into the crowds of orphans, when
one girl ran up and grabbed my hand. She was about 9 years old or so,
and she smiled at me–I recognized her from several times before,
though I couldn’t remember her name.

“What is your Swazi name?” she asked, knowing several of my teammates had them. I told her I couldn’t remember.

“Your Swazi name is Buhle,” she said.
 
That little girl gave me the name Beautiful. My heart smiled.