Hello from Swaziland, Africa!! I am so excited to tell you about the amazing ministry location we have this month. We are at El Shaddai, an orphanage in the mountains of beautiful Swaziland. We wakeup and go to bed every day with the most amazing sunrises and sunsets! We are all feeling blessed to be here in so many ways.
This month is an all squad month. What does this mean? This means that instead of splitting into teams of 6-7 people and going to different ministry sites the entire squad is working at one ministry site together! An all squad month allows us to get to know one another and become friends with people who have not been on our team but also comes with challenges… you are living with 27 different people. That is always a challenge!
Another exciting thing is that we have an Exposure participant with us for the next three months. His name is Banele and he is from Swaziland and actually grew up in the orphanage that we are serving. He is 21 years old and is a great addition to our squad. We are very excited to have him with us for these next few months ministering to not only his homeland, Swaziland, but also Lesotho and South Africa.
(Exposure is when an international participant cannot do the whole race but wants to get a feel for what the race is and so they join us for a few months and live and work along side us and then go back to their home countries. During February and March we had a Vietnamese girl, Huong, with us as an Exposure participant. Exposure is a really neat opportunity for internationals to experience the race and better publicize the World Race and what it has to offer to other international future participants.)
What are we doing at El Shaddai? Well we are all split up into different ministries. We have teams all over working at the primary school near by, the hight school, health clinic, office administration work, gardening, and other manual labor workers. I am working at the primary school teaching English for half of my day and then doing manual labor during the afternoons.
Another part of our ministry here is that the orphanage assigns us one to two buddies. We tutor these buddies Monday through Friday from 3-5 pm. This is a good opportunity to not only help these students with their education but also start relationships with the kids. I have an 8 year old boy named Sakhile and a 15 year old girl named Nokhanya. It took a couple of days to draw them out of their shell and get them comfortable with me. I have really enjoy getting to spend time with them and get to know them. Nokhanya especially has been a joy to get to know. I feel that I am really able to connect with the older girls very quickly. We have already had a girls movie night, dance party, zumba classes, and taught them a team danced we made in January to the song Overcomers.
Another big change this month was that I was asked to step up to be a Squad Leader. What does this mean and how is it different than my past Team Leader role? Well, as team leader I was leading one team of either 6-8 people. As Squad Leader I will be leading all of the different teams, 24 people. I will be planning the monthly ministries, team changes, discipleship and leadership training, and ensuring the entire squad remains in a mentally, physically, and spiritually healthy state. This also means that I am not put on a team. I will be traveling between the different teams. I will spend one month with each different team observing,leading, and guiding where needed. This is a big change.
The World Race focuses on not only missions work but also very heavily on the discipleship of the body of Christ. My new focus will be on this body that I am living with every day. My first ministry will be everyone on the squad. The ministries we are actually in the country to work for will become my secondary ministry. I will be working with the team as they serve each month but I will be there mainly to check on the team members health and the health and growth of their team. This also means I am always working. Working double time. On off days, during late night chats, I will be focusing on loving the people on my squad and really making lasting connections and influence.
Right now I am currently away from the squad. We left this past Friday for Leadership Development Weekend, where I will be having my Squad Leader training. I will be returning to the squad on Tuesday, when I will begin to take on more of the Squad Leader roles with my co-Squad Leader, Sara. Our current Squad Leaders are Alum Squad Leaders. This means that they have done the whole 11 month race before and have come back only to Squad Lead. Alum Squad Leaders only lead the first five months. They then raise up new Squad Leaders (Sara and I) to take over when they leave at the end of this month.
I am very excited about this new season for me but also know it will take a lot of work and effort. It will be difficult, strange, challenging, but also very rewarding. With that, please please please keep me in your prayers for this next season of my race! I will greatly need your prayers. Prayers for strength, love, compassion, wisdom, understanding, insight, and perseverance.
With much love and appreciation!
Stephanie
