If you’re anything like me, you probably have never even heard of Swaziland until now. I didn’t until I saw it on my route and even then just learned that it was a small country inside of South Africa. Swaziland has a population of 1.3 million. The common language is Siswati. It has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS and the life expectancy here is only 51 years old. There’s actually an entire generation missing because of the HIV/AIDS outbreak. The people here are extremely relational and friendly, however the people are also a very jealous people. In Swaziland, you’re either very poor or you’re very rich, there is no in between like we have in America. (which is a huge reason of the jealousy). It’s a fairly safe country (safe enough to hitchhike… yes my mother knows haha) and like I said, the people are always so friendly and will greet any stranger walking by. They’re also extremely hard workers. Growing sugar cane is a HUGEEE thing here so you’re doing well if you’re in that industry. For every 1 working person, it has to support approximately 13 people.
Some words you’ll need to be familiar with reading this:
• Carepoint– a set up in a community where children go to be fed. (Not orphans)
• Shepherd– A person who is assigned to and is over a specific carepoint. Majority of them are men but there are a few women here who are the shepherd. Every carepoint has one and depending on the size of the carepoint, sometimes there’s more than one. (They just opened a new carepoint that has 500-600 kids, it covers 3 different communities)
• GoGo– This is what a grandmother is called in the African culture. The gogo’s are from within the community and are the ones cooking for the children.
This month, we had what they call PVT (Parent Vision Trip). What that is, is an opportunity for our parents to fly out and spend a week on the field with us doing ministry. If they chose to come, they had to go through the same process we did with interviews and fundraising. So, the first week we were in Swaziland, we were all in Manzini. The ones that had parents come were separated from us that didn’t have parents come for the week. The organization (AIM- Adventures in Missions) we’re through has 2 bases here in Swaziland which is who we would all be doing ministry with for the month. For us with no parents, we had a little time off to explore and get things done we needed to take care. We did some ATL and prayer walks in the mornings but other than that, we just got some time to relax which was very nice and much needed. One of the days, a few of us had the opportunity to go to a carepoint for a distribution day. That carepoint was sponsored by a church in Canada and they put together packages for each child. The packages had anything from candy, coloring books, crayons, hygiene items, clothing, and more in it and we got to pass them out. If you are familiar with the Operation Child shoeboxes that people put together in the states for Christmas, this was very similar. It was INCREDIBLE watching these kids’ faces light up as they received their packages! Sadly, not every child receives a package sometimes (might be due to them being newer to the carepoint) but thankfully this time every single child got one.
Once the parents left and all 50 of us came back together, we then left for our actual month’s ministry. While half the squad would remain in Manzini for the month, My team, along with 3 other teams, would be in Nsoko (pronounced Nuh-Sogo) which is where the 2nd base is located. Nsoko has THE highest rate of HIV/AIDS inside of Swaziland. In their hottest month (February), it can get up to 125 degrees farenheit. Nsoko is considered to be out in the bush. Aside from roaming farm animals, giraffes and zebras down the road, several homesteads and thorny bushes everywhere, you won’t find much else out here. There are mountain ranges all around us. If you look at one mountain, it’s the border of South Africa and then if you look at another mountain across a valley next to it, it’s the border of Mozambique.
Currently there are 12 carepoints here in Nsoko, and by Jan there will be two more added. The AIM bases here in Swazi are partnered with another organization called Children’s Hope Chest. Through this organization, People from all over can sponsor a child or an entire carepoint which provides money for food to be purchased and other ways to meet physical needs.
We are actually living at the main carepoint here in Nsoko. It’s called the Anchor Center and has the AIM office along with the team house where all 31 of us are currently living. 12 or 13 people sleep in their tents outside and the rest sleep in 2 bedrooms with bunkbeds. Nsoko is in the bush. Our morning visitors consist of either chickens, goats, or donkeys and always children.
The carepoint my team has been working at is called Minengeni. We walk 5 km every morning to get there which has been a really great time for our team to spend in prayer for the day and allows good conversation. We usually leave around 10am to get there by 11. Until about 2-3pm, it’s only the smaller kids who aren’t old enough to go to school. They’re no older than 5 or 6 and we have anywhere from 7-12 kids that’ll come. We spend that time just playing with them whether that’s reading them books, pushing them on the swing set that a gap year team (same as WR, through same organization, but it’s for younger people and 9 months instead of 11) just built right before we got here, playing at the water well, or just letting them sit in our laps and fall asleep. They eat around 12 so that’s when we sneak away and eat our sandwiches real quick so we can get back out there by the time they finish. Once school gets out at 1, the older kids start arriving between 2-3pm. We’ve had as many as 60-70 kids on a day where most are there. After they finish eating, they come hang out with us as well. Some will sit and read books, or play with our hair, or ask for us to “shoot” pictures of them. (Most of these kids don’t have a way of seeing what they look like so they are amazed at seeing photos of themselves) Sometimes, they’ll sing for us or try to teach us dances while they laugh at how silly we look. Between 4:30-5 we get picked up by someone, (there’s been a few days we had to walk back) and go home exhausted and covered head to toe in dirt but filled and satisfied at how wonderful the day was. That’s been our routine every single day this month! Saturdays and Sundays after church are off days for us, aka laundry day. Mondays we don’t go to carepoints but we’re either doing a morning devotion with the AIM staff, picking up trash around the community, or doing some prayer walking. As demanding as this month has been, it has been one that will hold a special place in my heart.
I’m not going to lie, when I heard we were doing children’s ministry all month, I was not looking forward to it. We’re in month 10 of the race and exhausted. How was I going to have the energy to play with kids all day long? The Lord gave me the energy and sustained me though! I fell in love with the kids we spent our month with and will miss them tremendously!
Monday morning we head to South Africa for our final month on the race!
