One of the many beautiful things about Swaziland is its mornings. Each one is drastically different. I am blessed to spend every morning perched on my favorite rock, gazing out upon the overlapping mountain ranges, watching the fog slowly disappear slowly revealing even more mountains, listening to the roosters proclaim the coming of the light up and down the mountain valleys that surround me. There isn’t a better way to start off each morning than this view, a mug of piping hot coffee in hand, and the Word.
On this particular morning, I was reading Mark and stopped to ponder after Jesus sends out his 12 disciples. They set off in pairs and took nothing with them. They had no plan other than sharing the gospel with who ever they met. They were given the authority to cast out demons, heal the sick, and preach the good news. That’s it. They didn’t take anything with them. They just went.
They probably walked for days through tough conditions. The only mode of transportation available to them was their own feet. They walked, and walked and walked, continuously picking up their feet, avoiding obstacles in their way as they blazed paths that probably didn’t exist.
Just a few hours after reading and thinking about this, I had the opportunity to walk the walk. Seven of us unknowingly embarked on a longer than expected adventure of homestead visits. In Swaziland, families build multiple huts on their land for their sons and daughters and their families to live. These homesteads are isolated and the people who reside in them are extremely poor. It isn’t uncommon for families out here to go days without food. There isn’t much inside of their huts and their poverty is viewable as their naked children run around, with distended stomachs and off colored hair, both symptoms of long-term malnutrition.
The homesteads that we went to happened to be three mountains away. We set off in our Sunday best (long skirts and shirts that covered our shoulders), bringing with us buckets filled with cooking oil, flour, rice, soap, and bibles for each family we went to visit. We started climbing up, only to reach the top and not see any homes. We started the descent down the other side, realizing that we would have to climb to the top of the next mountain. This happened twice more before we saw a valley of homesteads.
About half way through climbing the second mountain, when my arms were tired from lugging oil and bibles and my feet weary from precariously walking along a path that did not exist, I realized I was doing it. I was walking the walk. Like the disciples I had read about earlier that morning, I was setting out with no concrete plan other than to deliver the buckets of goods to a couple of families and be an encouragement in the name of Jesus.
Its no wonder why the disciples were willing to walk such distances and endure such hardships; nothing compares to the joy that comes with sharing the Good News.
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