I post blogs in groups of three and this is obviously not the exception.
I am sitting in the team house at Anchor Center in Nsoko (pronounced Nsogo), Swaziland. Our teams have just finished our first month of ministry. Alex and Erin are in the kitchen listening to Jack Johnson while making French toast and some semblance of fried apples and bananas.
Alex and I spent the majority of the afternoon removing the broken screens from the windows in the main room of the team house, which doubles as meeting room, dining room, and church sanctuary among so many other things, and taking measurements and creating plans for new screens. Our ministry here is unlike the previous two months. I love variety.
We have spent the mornings pulling weeds in the garden that will soon be used for different families in the community to plant, grow, and harvest vegetables for consumption or marketing. By pulling weeds I mean we basically served as human tractors and lawnmowers. The weeds were THICK and atrocious. Some had barely visible white thorns all over them. Others were so firmly rooted that I fell back on my butt when they finally gave. The dirt here mimics the familiar red clay of my particular home. It’s slick like clay because it holds so much water, but still seems dry. Because gloves impede my small hands, I rarely use them. Instead my fingernails turn dark brown with caked-dirt and the pads of my fingers are both calloused and stained from the dirt. It’s a lot of squat-labor, but I love it.
Tuesday and Thursday mornings we have the opportunity to harvest food for the care points with some of the go-gos (grandmothers) who cook at the care points. Several of the local farmers have allotted plots for the ministry here to grow vegetables (beet root, lettuce, cabbage, corn, carrots, bell peppers, spinach, onions, tomatoes, and basically anything else you can imagine). This reminds me so much of my granddaddy. My heart jumps with joy when I get the opportunity to share of the countless 5 and 6am mornings I saw during my summers that were filled with harvesting butter beans, purple hull peas, big boy peas, silver queen and yellow corn, and so much more that grew from my Granddaddy’s green thumb. Last month I spent so much time worrying and grieving his health right now, but God has blessed me so much with these happy memories of his heart and his humor and how he blessed me and taught me to work hard and keep working, even when my thumbs were raw from shelling peas. He taught me to look past the scary bugs in the garden or the field and keep working. It’s amazing how God knows exactly what a heart needs.
Our afternoons have consisted of various tasks. Monday and Tuesday were filled with home visits which are just that – visiting the homes of community and church members to offer encouragement or just chat. Relationships are held in high regard in Nsoko. Monday I was introduced to a woman who cannot provide for her children or herself because cancer has wrecked her body. We left her house after praying and talking with her about El Roi, our God who sees us always, and bought food for her. We were also able to give her a Bible. She told us she has never owned a Bible. Yet her faith is profound and strong. She knows God comes right when she needs Him. She is confident that He provides and He sees her. She is Hagar in the desert and our Adonai is still the God who sees. Tuesday I met a woman who has lived a century and then some. Her health is impeccable outside a bit of arthritis on occasion. She has an honest heart and shared with us her struggles against her flesh, much like Paul, in doing what she wants versus doing what God calls her to do. She was beautiful. (Sarah and Madison, she had more wrinkles than I have…I hope to have that many wrinkles one day!)
On other afternoons we have been able to visit the other care points in the area. Anchor Center is one of ten in the area that provide a meal and a lesson to children in the surrounding areas (Did I mention that we’re basically in the bush? And that some of the places we’ve visited are literally in the bush? It doesn’t look anything like I’d imagined). At care points we build relationships with the children and the go-gos (grandmothers) who cook and often teach the children. Overall, it’s a pretty grand month.
Concerning our team, we’re doing alright. Our team changed at the end of last month with one of our teammates being sent home to sort through some things that were better sorted through at home rather than on the Race with us. We are really taking this month to breathe and get to know each other in a way that we haven’t been able to in the past two months because of some issues we’ve encountered. God has been really faithful in stretching us and growing us, but also allowing us to rest this month in a really deep way. We are hanging out with an all-girl team this month, which has definitely been an adjustment. Growing up with two brothers and majority boy cousins, I am out of my element without boys around. We have two – Jonathan and Alex – but not having more than that seems odd, but we still have loads of fun with each other and with our other team. I enjoy the stretch in our mindset of how to treat each other and the other team when the dynamic is so different.
Also, I’m convinced that I will eat PB&J for the rest of my life and be perfectly content, but having pasta and potatoes and a little bit of taco soup every now and then warms my soul. Swaziland even has semi-decent hotdogs compared to South Africa!
