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On Saturday,the 11th of February, we left our contacts home a little after 7am. We met up with our squad at 8:30am and by 12:30am we were on our way- smashed in a small bus with 27 people and ALL of our packs/bookbags/foodbags to head to Swaziland!
If you like maps and have checked out the distance between Swaziland and Mozambique, you will see that they actually border each other. Which means, our travel day should have been about 4 hours. We were like “WOW, we have the shortest travel day EVER!” …
Things were going well. I mean, I was sweating because it was over 100 degrees with full humidity and I was crammed into a row on the bus with 5 people that normally holds 3 comfortably. I also had 3 bags in my lap- but I was happy because – this was not going to be a LONG travel day!
We all crossed the border from Mozambique to Swaziland fine. Then we passed thru the border of Swaziland in record time. We piled back on the bus because all of our squad was done at the border. The first bus leaves with our squad leaders. They were going to pick up the SIM cards so our leaders can have access to their emergency phones and we were going to meet them at the store in town.
So, we get back on the bus. And wait. And wait. Where is OUR bus driver?!
“Oh, I see the bus driver over there” — squadmate.
“Hey Logistics guys, what is the bus driver doing?” – another squadmate.
—A lot of time passes as our logistics guys try to see what is going on—
Logistics guys come back to the bus and say, “Hey guys, please pray- our bus driver has NO passport so he cannot cross the border into Swaziland”
What happens on the bus? We all pray. We de-board the bus as a huge thunderstorm comes thru. We are happy because things cooled off from the insane heat we were feeling to a cooler degree. We were not happy because the border closed at 8pm and there was no sign that our bus driver was going to be able to drive us across the border to our ministry sites.
In the meantime, miracles happened- a new bus driver came and at 7:45pm we passed thru the border officially! YIPPEE!! That only took 5 hours at the border alone.
We drop off 1 team at their ministry location and the three other teams (mine included) stay on the bus for what we thought would be 1 hr until our stop. I kept glancing at the clock. First it said, 10pm, then, 12am. Finally by 3am we were on our way up a hill towards our ministry site- and our van stalled out on a 90-degree hill. NOT GOOD. We quickly de-boarded the bus- put rocks behind the wheels so it did not fall off the mountain and started to unload our bags. One squad mate was vomiting on the side of the road (Eh, if you know me, I have a slight fear of vomit). And, finally by 4am we were at our ministry site, eating dinner, and getting ready for bed!
Now that we have been at our ministry site for nearly a week, I wanted to fill you in on what we have been doing here! We have been BUSY!!!
We are with 2 other teams, so, there are 20 of us doing a rotation with our teams of the different ministry options. We have been working in the baby house, which has only 1 baby, Jacob, who has stolen my heart, and then, the rest of the many kids are age 2-5. We basically just love the kids. And play with them on the playground they have on the property.
There is a preschool with over 50 kids and 1 teacher. Children from the community come to the preschool as well as kids from this orphanage. We help keep the kids in line, feed them lunch, play games, and continue to show them love and encouragement.
Next, we have kitchen duty- which is self explanatory and we also have a clinic here on the property! On our team, we have a girl who was in nursing school- yet not completed- and that was good enough qualifications for her to work in the clinic 2 days a week. That is the thing, basic health care that we all know in our homes in the states, they are unaware of. Such as- using soap. Or, putting a Band-Aid on a wound (wound care). All foreign to them- and expensive.
We also have the school, started by the orphanage, but again, community kids attend. If they did not have this school- there would be NO school for any of the kids in this area to come to. And, you know what else? Most of them WALK nearly 1.5 hours to get to school. Can you believe that? We have a few teachers on our team and they have graciously accepted roles in teaching at the school. We have learned much about the education system here and it requires MUCH prayer.
There are construction projects happening all the time here as well, so we can always do construction and each afternoon from 3-5 there is tutoring. There is also chapel from 5:30-6pm.
Needless to say, we have been BUSY!! They have us on a tight schedule, but the views here are GORGEOUS! The weather is cool at night and not nearly as hot as we have been in the rest of Africa during the day. We are in the mountains and so there are not nearly the amount of mosquitoes here (I think I have seen like 7 in the time we have been here…) PRAISE JESUS! We have clean water to drink and plenty of beans and eggs to keep our fiber and protein levels in check! The stars are SO bright. You can see the Milky Way. So far, the Kingdom of Swaziland has been a good experience!
(above: this little boy, Jacob, may have just stolen my heart…. )
