Ya, titles are hard.
Currently, I’m recapping my months on the race so far with details of ministry, practical lessons and daily tasks. In the big picture of the race, it can be hard to update on the normal day-to-day, but without it there would be so much missed.
So here we are for part seven in this series.
If you haven’t guessed, this blog will be about Eswatini (formerly known as Swaiziland).
Ministry: AIM Base
Location: Nsoko, Eswatini
Currency: South African Rand (13 Rand= $1)
Language: Swazi
Overview: This month we lived at an Adventures in Missions (AIM) base. It was gender month, so all the girls were together. (The guys did ministry together in Lesotho.) We all lived in one large room that had enough bunk beds for the 18 of us. We shared three toilets, three showers and one kitchen. We lived on multiple acres where we could walk about, hammock and play with the kids the went to the school at the front of the property. Other than our property, there wasn’t anything in our town except a small grocery store and one restaurant. We also met a missionary couple that allowed us to come to their home on our off days to swim, use wifi and read books from their library. It was such a blessing.
Here’s a video of where we lived this month: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i7uk9NXhEmU
What types of ministry did you do in Eswatini?
In this country we did one ministry. We visited care points. Care points are a location in a community where kids can come to receive a meal everyday, as well as play with their friends. A care point consists of a concrete building (where a fire is built to cook rice and beans), a playground and possibly another small building or awning for shade and organized activities. Every day, my team and I would visit our care point, play with the kids and help serve food. To see more of my heart behind this ministry and the kids, read my blog “I Cry Everyday”.
These are the pots of rice and beans the kids got each day. They were given by an organization called Feed My Starving Children. In other words, food you package in the US really does feed kids around the world. Volunteer at a food bank and make a difference.
How did you get to ministry?
This month my team was driven to ministry because we were too far to walk. Each day the seven of us would load up in a van and be driven to our care point and then picked up later in the afternoon.
What did a typical day look like?
8am: Wake up/Breakfast/Personal Quiet Time
9am: Group Devo
10am: Leave for ministry
10:30am-noon: Play with kids (preschool age/those who don’t go to school)
Noon: Serve lunch to kids
12:30pm-1:30pm: Lunch and Team Time
1:30pm-4pm: Play with kids, Do skits, Feed school kids as they arrive
4pm: Picked up in van at care point
4:30pm-5:30pm: Cook dinner for whole group (rotation)
5:30pm: Dinner
6:30pm: Lice checks everyday all month (All but 3 or 4 people had them.)
7:30pm-9:30pm: Free Time
9:30pm: Lights Out
Doing my laundry in a bucket- just another day on the world race
11 Lessons from Eswatini:
1. 70% of children here are orphans.
2. A third of this country has AIDS.
3. The country will not admit an AIDS problem or allow adoptions for fear it will make them look bad.
4. 2,000 orphan children disappeared last election season. This is because candidates will go to witch doctors to advance their chances of winning. Those witch doctors will then ask for body parts in various quantities.
5. Eswatini is how you say Swaziland in Swazi.
6. Eswatini is a kingdom.
7. The king hosts a dance once a year in which all the young women of the country are to come and dance before him topless.
8. ATMs will dispense both Swazi money and South African rand in the same transaction. Both are used here.
9. If you’re bored, you can go outside and watch all the herds of cows, goats and donkeys roam around free, as well as tons of chickens, frogs and bugs. Haha.
10. The best way to kill a scorpion? Put on a thick soled shoe, like a Birk, for example, and stomp on it. Haha.
11. Lice treatment doesn’t exist in Africa.
Here’s a picture of my team and I this month on Galentines. We watched a chic flick, ate sweets and surprised each other with little gifts. It was the most fun.
ALSO, I will be writing a blog soon answering any/all questions you have for me/about the Race. If you have a questioned you’d like answered, comment below or send me an email. Thanks, y’all!
