NSOKO, SWAZILAND
Ministry Day 1
I wake up to the sounds of a rooster, flies, cows and goats.
I do some casual morning yoga on our cement “living room” floor.
I join the 19 other women in our house for a breakfast of cereal and banana.
We pray for our first day of ministry and I go have some quiet time before our contact comes with two Swazi men who are going to be our guides, translators and drivers for the rest of our time here.
Sanele, the man assigned to my team, announces that we are walking to ministry.
We head out the front door, past the children, chickens and mud to the highway and walk down for a mile or so to a “care point”. On our way, we pass a house with flags waving in front of it to indicate it’s following of ancestor worship. Once there we see a solitary swing set and building that is already swarming with children from the ages of 12 months to 20 years. They see us coming with Sanele and I can see them trying to figure out how to respond to our smiles and waves- fear or excitement? In the end, we get a little bit of everything. From being pounced on by small children from all sides, having names foreign to my mouth written on my hand to make sure I remember them, to convincing a 20 year old mother that I could hold her 12 month old baby so she could go jump rope with her friends, we are beautifully inundated with eyes, hands, and smiles. When the kids I am picking up and holding close are so dirty they turn my white shirt brown, I begin to understand that I am now in the Africa I have been waiting for. There are goats, chickens, turkeys and cows right outside our front door. Bats, frogs and bugs of all new shapes and sizes, are inside. We technically have running water, but I would call it dripping rather than running water. I took a shower today using a yogurt container to dump water from a bucket we filled at the pump outside our door on myself.
We then go to a homestead to deliver clothes to a family whose home had burned down. I’m not sure what I am expecting, but it definitely isn’t what I found. There are children all alone on a plot of land that has 4 “houses” each about the size of my childhood bedroom and made of mud and sticks. Sanele tells us that each building is the home of an entire family; each holds at least 5 people. Without parents home to receive the clothes, we go over to their neighbor’s homestead. There we find children playing in the yard and parents milling around. After inquiring about the whereabouts of their neighbors, Sanele brings us into one of their buildings and introduces us to a young woman who is HIV positive. At first I assume she suffers from some kind of paralysis because she is lying on the ground without any indication of moving, and her whole body is emaciated. Sanele explains how although she has medication to help her body fight the virus, it does more harm than good because it has to be taken with food in order to work, and she often goes days without any food.
Coming back from that I need some space to process and talk to God. So I go outside to our playground that is directly next door. I crawl up into the fort that is simply a square of planks lifted above the ground with some railing. After sitting up there for a while, I hear a little voice calling out to me through my headphones and before I know it I have an adorable little snot-nosed girl in my lap with her older brother and his friends soon joining me.
Some of my teammates and I then go on a run through some of the houses across the highway. As we circle the homes, children that we met earlier today in the care center pop up from the bushes. Two of the older girls start running with us, along with some of the younger boys. On our second loop around the community the little boy I had held that day starts running with us. When I say little I mean little. He couldn’t be any more than 3, probably closer to 2. He tries so hard to run with us and the older kids. After about 3 minutes he just can’t keep up anymore, and his adorable little hop-skip run comes to an end. Everyone else is still running and he looks so sad that he is going to be left behind, so I scoop him up onto my back and run the rest of the loop with him up there. Catching up with the rest of the group, I can hear their laughter and see their smiles; I’m sure I look absolutely ridiculous with him bouncing on my back and me trying to hold onto him without falling in any of the potholes.
The grand finale to my day of true Africa was the revival. The church that is about 20 steps away from our front door brought in a pastor from South Africa for the week to head it. And they are definitely being revived. Honestly, I cannot understand anything that they are saying, but I can see the joy on their faces, the freedom that they dance with as they praise our Lord, and the weight of their lives being lifted from their shoulders, if only for a few hours.
Day 1 of ministry in Swaziland.
This is Africa.
