It’s now been over 100 days on the race and I can’t believe I’ve already learned so much. It feels like I left California yesterday and, yet, last year feels like another lifetime. Time on the race runs a little differently when you’re constantly moving from place to place and meeting new people. It seems that as soon as you’re starting to feel settled, you move to the next country. As crazy as that seems, it also keeps the time moving as you start to feel homesick or if you’re having a hard time at a certain place.
Month 4 for Q Squad is manistry month, the men at one ministry all together and the women at another. Yup, another month of being with over 40 people for the women… It’s quite an experience living with 45+ people for 3 out of the first 4 months on the race. Learning to live in a community is one thing I didn’t think would be such a struggle on the race for an extrovert. I think I’m starting to become an introvert because of community living… never thought those words would ever come out of my mouth, did you, Mom?
For April, the women are staying at an orphanage called El Shaddai on top of the most beautiful mountain in Swaziland. El Shaddai, which means ‘God Our provider’, is a beautiful place run by an amazing woman and her staff that houses and cares for over 80 children from 1 – 23 years old. Charmaine started this ministry after the Lord put missions on her heart and sent her to Swaziland to begin her work. She’s been here for 15 years, now, and has done it all on the Lord’s dollar. She’s one of the most humble and faith-filled women I’ve ever been blessed to meet. Her trust in the Lord’s ability to provide has taught all the women here still fundraising that God will come through, you just need to have faith.
When we arrived here at El Shaddai, we could all tell there something different about this place. When we arrived, Charmaine paired us with a buddy that she prayed about and looked on our profiles to try and put us with kids we might connect best with. We were in awe that she put so much effort and thought into our buddies and were excited to get to know them. But it wasn’t easy. Many of the kids here were reluctant to open up because they’re so used to racers and other groups coming and leaving. These kids have been through a lot in their lives from losing their parents to being abused by relatives so trust issues run rampant in their thoughts and they don’t easily open up. A few of us were paired with teenage girls or boys and no matter where you are in the world, all teenagers tend to have pretty similar attitudes about being forced to hang out with women in their 20s. I was paired with a 16 yr old boy named Meselane and we had quite the rocky start. Mese is one of the quietest kids I’ve met… instead of responding with words, you usually just get a nod or a shake of the head. It took a while for him to start talking to me but eventually I got through to him and he started opening up and talking. Many of us had trouble connecting with our buddies, but as we prayed through it and really reached out, we were able to have a lot of fun and to create relationships with them.
Besides playing with the kids, we also had different ministries we helped out with including teaching, gardening, grounds keeping, and helping Charmaine with administrative tasks. I have been helping Charmaine for the month, mostly organizing the library and creating a database of all the books. At first, we suspected it would take a few days… that quickly turned into about 2 weeks. I was just happy to be blessing Charmaine and the kids by helping them be organized. Since Charmaine does a lot of the work here by herself, it’s difficult to get all the little stuff done. She has women that work for her that everyone calls the ‘aunties’. They cook for the kids, clean up, do laundry, etc around the orphanage. But even with them around, all the administrative stuff is up to her and her daughter Chanel. Our group designated ‘Help Charmaine’ has been working hard to help with her fundraising and reaching out to new groups of people to help support this amazing orphanage.
Check out El Shaddai’s website: elshaddaiswazi.org and and you can see the kids we got to work with and read about them.
Also, I’m still fundraising for my race! Our final deadline to be fully-funded is July 1st. I’m a little less than $5,000 away from getting there!
Love you all and God bless!
