Now that I am two months into my last continent- I’ve gotta let you all in on a reality of the world. AFRICA IS WHERE IT’S AT.
My heart has been waiting for this place & I didn’t even know it! So, you all really have been owed a blog for quite sometime now & side note, I was on the phone with dad the other morning and he pointed out even if it’s just a few sentences it’s worth posting something, so hopefully this will let you into some of the most incredible things I’ve experienced in Swaziland & now in Botswana.
Swaziland was pretty incredible from the get-go for a number of reasons. First of all, it was kind of an all squad month, my whole squad was placed up in the gorgeous rural mountains outside of Manzini staying in homesteads. Our homestead experience was probably one of my favorite housing experiences yet around the world.
We fit 14 people into a pretty small space, all sleeping on our sleeping pads. We had two porter potties; we had no sink so we washed our dishes and brushed our teeth outside using our water bottles or this giant green water system that was located on the side of our house. Our showers were in a tiny room at the side of the house and they were ice cold showers, to say the least. Oh, and did I mention we shared our backyard with 30 chickens, a few goats, and sometimes we had surprise guests like dogs and cows. Also, these chickens weren’t just any chickens; they were malicious and fearless chickens. At minimum five times a day we were chasing chickens out of our kitchen because they would fearlessly come into our space, eat our food and bawk at us! It would become a fun game to see different people’s reactions to these chickens getting into our stuff, but after awhile, just like everything else this year, it became normal.
With all this that made up our homestead experience in Swaziland the best part about it hands down, was the sunrise & sunset views we had. Every morning tons of people would wake up and get their sleeping bags at crawl to the side of the house to watch the sun creep over the mountains in the morning. Each day held a different uniquely beautiful sunrise always different than the day before. And sometimes at night we would hike over to this spot where we could almost dangle our feet off a little edge and watch the sunset behind some giant mountains and on the left side see a beautiful panoramic view of mountains fading with the sunset. It was incredible.
Our ministry in Swaziland was really a variety of just about everything, which was great, a lot of people worked at children care points, did administration in the office, sports ministry, and more. Since I have a few squad responsibilities and it causes me to have to miss ministry once a week I was put on the “flex team”. This team ROCKED- also this meant our ministry was a variety of a lot of things, but it didn’t take more than one day for my heart to fall in love with the care point n’tabas and basically every opportunity I got I would walk over there to visit and spend time with the kids.
One of the few reasons I love Africa is because you can form relationships with words here! English is almost always a second language for the children and so with that advantage I created some incredible relationships in Swaziland- these stories are pretty in depth so I’ll leave those for stories when I get home.
Needless to say, Swaziland was a hard place to leave at the end of the month, and I also knew after just a few days there that God is doing something in my heart for this continent.
So, now we are in Botswana, I am with everyone from my original team for the first time in five months & it’s been like a fresh breath of air! This month in Botswana is ATL month (ask the Lord) where we weren’t given ministry contacts, but instead encouraged to seek out opportunities and basically we get to create and decide what we want to do. The reason why this is the best is because Gods been at work since MALAYSIA for this month. Let me rewind for you real quick.
Back in Malaysia, we got to attend a church called Kingdom Cities where we met some incredible people who took us to prayer rooms and did street ministry with us. Among these people, were some who were from Botswana, and basically we told them we were going to Botswana in five months & so they gave us contact information of some of their friends who live there.
Now, fast forward we are in Botswana & ended up connecting with these people and are basically spending the month partnering with them as the plant the first Kingdom Cities church in Africa! It’s been an incredible movement to be a part of and God has definitely shown us that he lined everything up for us for such a moment as this. This last Sunday (as in like 3 days ago) was their first ever service and prior to this service we did a lot of outreach ministries, street ministry, and more to invite people and get the word out about this new church being planted.
Along with that, we’ve created lifetime friendships. The minute we stepped foot into Botswana we have been so embraced, loved, and cared for by this Kingdom Cities family- it’s unbelievable. Never in my life have I felt so loved by a group of people who don’t even know me! We have enjoyed doing life with them so much for the past week and can’t wait to see what the rest of our time holds with them. One of my favorite moments from this past week was when we got to invite everyone over to our house we rented and host an (unexpected) party. Basically, we were planning for a few friends and it turned into a party of like 20 people and it was GREAT. We made dozens of pancakes and eggs, played a lot of heads up, danced to a lot of music, and had the greatest time. It’s been ages since any of us have gotten to host people (since we are always the ones being hosted) and I realized how much I love and miss having a home to host people over or getting to use my gift for hospitality.
So with a month and a half left of my year, the rest of this month is still something we are praying for direction about, if God is going to have us travel to other parts of Botswana to do ministry we aren’t sure yet. And then our last month is South Africa! It’s hard to believe that I will be home NEXT month, but my heart simply cannot wait.
