HI EVERYONE!!!!
I can’t tell you how hard this blog is to even pathom right now because it’s being written during my LAST 5 days on the continent of Africa!!!! I cant even begin to express the AMAZING experience I’ve had here and how hard it is to sum all of it up in just a few paragraphs.
For starters, lets recap Zambia a bit. I’ll be brief because my teammate, Amber is making a video that will encapsulate the month way better than I ever could through writing. It was an INCREDIBLE month in Livingstone, Zambia. We primarily focused on evangelism and preaching with a little bit of children’s ministry thrown in from time to time. We worked with a YWAM base there as well as other outreach programs in the community. I can’t get over the seeds that were planted there and the stories of peoples lives that have impacted me indefinitely. Adventure wise we got to travel into Botswana, one of the neighboring countries to go on a safari! We also were able to go see Victoria Falls and of course my favorite adventure of all, swimming in the Devil’s Pool on top of the Falls!!
Now to Swaziland! As some of you know, our original route was suppose to take us to Zimbabwe instead of Swaziland but due to political unrest in Zimbabwe, we were rerouted to Swazi for safety purposes. My teammate, Amanda, put it best by saying that The Author of our lives wrote Swaziland into our route long before we even launched for The Race. He knew this was a place that needed to feel His Spirit and to feel His magnificent love but also that we needed to encounter Him as well on a whole other level. When we first arrived here, we were told that the country is ran by King Mswati III. Like all forms of politics, there are positives and negatives to his leadership. For starters, he promulgated a new constitution that allows freedom of speech and assembly for the media and public. He also has made attempts to invoke chastity rite to decrease the HIV and AIDS epidemic. On the flip side, he is a man who has 15 wives and over 30 children, and allegedly called for a parliamentary meeting to debate if HIV positive people should be “sterilized and branded.”. He also holds supreme executive authority over the legislature and courts and has attachment to a lot of government corruption. One of the most heartbreaking things I was told upon arrival was that around election year, people running for government will go to witch-doctors and ask for special prayers and sacraments to be preformed to ensure elections. To preform such things, the witch-doctors “need” certain body parts complete the demonic practice. They need an arm or a leg and the easiest way to gain these things are to abduct the most vulnerable people. Which are children. They say that hundreds of children go missing around election time. As we held sweet little sleeping, crying, and laughing children all month, the thought of the darkness that is in someone to make them believe that killing innocent children is okay frightened me and honestly made me extremely sad to see how lost a person is.
Now as we close up Swaziland, my heart ache’s for the love The Lord has given me for this amazing country/continent. For me, He uprooted fear, passivity, complacency, avoidance and planted seeds of trust, faithfulness, directiveness, and tenderness.
I know a lot of that was heavy and maybe didn’t answer a lot of questions you have. SPOILER ALERT!! My good friend Amber is in the process of finishing up a video of what our ministry looked like this month and from what I’ve seen of it, she KILLED IT!!! It should be finished in the next few days and hopefully posted before we get to Cambodia. Oh yeah by the way, we fly to Cambodia next Wednesday (2/27)!!!!!!!!!!!! So far it looks like we may be teaching and working with children for the most part but if The Race has taught me anything it is to always be prepared for change.
That’s all I have for now, thank you so so so so much for taking time to read this update and for the interest and support you’ve given over the last 7 months!!! I love you all so very much and I look forward to what The Lord has to come in these last 4 months of The Race! AHHHHHH!!
