This blog is a recap of my month in Swaziland and then at the end is a cool story of how my squad brought the witch doctor’s grandson to Christ.
My month in Swaziland was spent at El Shaddai, an orphanage, on top of a mountain. We got up there and I never left that place the whole 4 weeks we were there. We didn’t have internet but we had the most amazing view. Everyday we would sit on this big boulder and watch the sunset and on clear nights we would gaze at the best starry sky I think i’ve ever seen. My new team, Reckless Light, started to bond and get to know each other. There were 3 teams including mine on this mountain so we played lots of card games together and had a couple bon fires. Our off time this month was probably the best on the Race so far and we never left our ministry site once. It was incredible.
Ministry looked a little different for everyone. El Shaddai started a school for the kids in the area and I taught 4th grade there. I mostly taught English but also at some points taught Math, Social Studies, Religeous Education, and Science. Being able to teach something on the spot, even if it’s something I know nothing about (like the history of Swaziland), is a new skill that I have developed on the Race. I did however have to put my foot down when they asked me to teach Siswati…a language is something that can’t be learned on the spot. Other people on my squad did gardening, manual labor, and play practice with the teenagers at the orphanage while my team was teaching.
In the afternoon we would have 2 hours with our assigned buddies at the orphange to tutor them and hang out with them. I was assigned 3 second and third grade boys
Mlungisi:
Mancoba (Chief):
and Sahkile (this is usually how I found him):
Getting them to do any kind of school work was usually pretty difficult, but they were always willing to play. These kids were all boy so their favorite things to do were to play swords with sticks, catch grasshoppers then cook them and eat them, swing rackets or sticks at a ball I would pitch to them, race, and climb trees. After that, our teams switched out week to week who would put on a half hour chaple service for the kids. We would also do the church services on Sundays. It was one of my favorite months so far.
At the school we taught at, my current teammate, Danielle, and my old teammate, Jordan, were introducing themselves to the 7th grade and sharing what they were doing in Swaziland. There was a boy who started challenging them on God right there in class. He had some hard things to say, but Danielle and Jordan didn’t back down and told him they would love to talk with him after class during break. He talked to them saying that he had prayed to God before but God didn’t answer him. He had a lot of anger and a lot of misconsceptions. We teachers continued to love him and talk to him whenever he wanted during the month. As it turns out, this boy was the witch doctor’s grandson. The witch doctor there really hates El Shaddai because when the orphanage started he could no longer do his work and he had to move to another mountain. He would sometimes let cows into El Shaddai to eat their crops. As we got to the last week, this angry student began to soften towards us. He would herd his cows right outside the fence to where we were staying and people on my squad would talk with him. The last week he said he was willing to give God another chance, accepted Christ, and was at church our last Sunday there! It was the most wonderful and surprising transformation in just one month. That’s the power of Jesus!
