I don’t really have any pictures from this month yet, but when I do I’ll be sure to post them to this blog! This is from month 10 of the Race.
After being in Asia for 6 months, we finally departed and flew to Africa and made our way down to Swaziland. I was referred to as “Jesu” far more than Kevin while we were there; I guess I’m starting to look pretty homely. It probably didn’t help that I played Jesus for our Good Friday skit either.
Like every month, Swaziland had its ups and downs, but when I look back on my time there, I usually think of all of the positive and good things He did in and through me–even in the midst of tough situations.
We spent our month in a rural area surrounded by small mountains–or large hills, rather–in a town called Gege. We stayed at a pastor and his family’s home next to a care point where kids would come to play games and have meals. Our ministry consisted of teaching preschool, helping prepare meals at the care point, organizing fun games to play for the large mass of kids, preaching and sharing testimonies at church, doing home visits and praying for/encouraging individuals, and baptizing young new believers. We got to see God show up in some pretty cool ways.
Instead of visiting a large amount of different individuals with the house visits, we met with the same people multiple times throughout the week. We prayed for people, and some were healed within the day while others seemed to get better with every visit and prayer.
One young woman we visited accepted Jesus as her savior after the third visit and after experiencing relief from consistent headaches and seeing her two kids be healed from flu like symptoms!
While in Swaziland, I had some of the best Jesus time that I’ve had in quite some time. My favorite thing to do was walk outside late at night and gaze at all of the crazy stars that I never get to see in the states, and just talk to Him as if He were standing right next to me in that moment. Those were the times I felt most at peace, when I was in His presence with my hands wide open–trusting Him with everything that troubled my mind.
But not everything was grand last month. Team funds were stolen from us when no one was at our house one day. They ended up catching the guy, and we made sure to check that all of the windows and doors were locked in the future. But then we were robbed a second time. Hard. I think we ended up losing 4 laptops, 3 iPods, and a bunch of other miscellaneous things. I only lost my iPod, but other than my journal, that was my number one thing that I didn’t want to lose.
I was frustrated and discouraged because I listened to music almost everyday, and I would often listen to stuff during my quiet times with Him. But I kept reminding myself that I didn’t need music to meet with the Lord.
I was later given a much smaller iPod that holds 200 songs, compared to my classic that holds around 40,000 songs, and it was/is more than sufficient for me. I found that less really was more for me in this instance.
Even though I lost a cherished expensive thing, with a ton of music loaded on it that I had accrued over the years, God showed me that it didn’t really matter; I can be content in Him in any circumstance, or devoid of any possession.
