I am currently sitting on my top bunk at the compound in Nsoko, Swaziland, watching my squad mates pack up their stuff. Tomorrow morning at 5:15, we have to be ready to leave Swaziland. We have a “mini-debrief” for 2 days in Pretoria, South Africa, and then we fly to Kathmandu, Nepal on Sunday, for the next month of our journey.
There are a lot of different emotions around the compound right now involving leaving Swaziland, so I am writing this blog about how I am feeling about my time in Swaziland, and how I am feeling about the transition.
Let me start out by saying, I had a really hard time at the beginning of Swaziland. We have been here for 3 months, and it feels like a completely different place than it was at the beginning. For the first week, I had trouble sleeping, cried every night, and honestly wanted to go home every moment that I was here. We did not have electricity for the first half of our time, so it was normal to go to bed at 7:30-8pm because it was completely dark and there was nothing to do. We ate all of our meals on the dirty floor in the common room. After a few weeks of relying on God fully, I started to become comfortable in my new “home” (which I touched on in a previous blog post). In that process, I began to see the true comfort that God provides, and then actually enjoying my time in Swaziland. I think that the best way to organize my thoughts about the past 3 months would be to make a little list of what God taught me:
- God provides true comfort and joy.
I have touched on this point a lot, but it is definitely the biggest thing that God has grown me in on the Race so far. With no electricity, turning to the Bible is one of the first things you think of doing, so my emotional state combined with not much else to do, caused me to be in God’s Word more than ever before, which I could see really changing my experience.
- I am on this journey ultimately to be obedient, not to receive anything in return. But that’s not to say that God won’t shape you.
I remember texting Erin about a month into ministry, and I mentioned that I was looking for the “purpose” of ministry- so basically what God was going to teach me from it. She responded that maybe the purpose was simply to serve. I really saw that to be true during my time in Swazi because even though I did enjoy carepoint ministry, I never felt like I had any huge life revelation or emotional connection from it. Towards the end of our time, my teammates were very emotional about leaving the kids, and I expressed during team time that I felt like something was wrong with me because I was not as emotional about leaving. It made me feel like there was an area I was messing up in, which was causing me to not have the same reactions. My teammates helped me get out of the trap of comparison, and my leader Bry reminded me that I am on the World Race to be obedient, not to get things in return. But this is not say that God will not teach you along the way, which He did in the next point.
- Ministry, and starting to focus more on relationships than tasks.
This was one of the things on my list of hopes and expectations for the Race that I posted early on. I started to realize “oh, maybe God put me in a really slow, unstructured culture with not many things to do for a reason”- it showed me how to love His children like He would. This time has simply started my journey of focusing on the people around me more than the tasks ahead of me. I say that the journey is just starting because I know that it is not done. Although, it is a great place to start, I have so much more to grow in this area.
All of this to say, thank you for supporting me on this journey. The first 3 months are ending, and we are heading to Nepal!! When I post this, I will be on my way to Nepal. I am so excited for our next month in Kathmandu because I have absolutely no idea what to expect, the cold will be a nice break on an otherwise hot route, and it’s something new to experience. I will post about what our ministry is and just living there once I have experienced some of it.
