I leave Swaziland the first week of December and my heart is already breaking. The children at the care point have become my brothers and sisters, my shepherd has become my best friend here, and the Go-Gos have become like grandmothers and aunts that I look up to.
Before coming to Swaziland, even just the whole of Africa, it was just a continent to me, a country on a map that I was one day going to go to. I didn’t know anything about the people, culture, landscape, animals and plants, food or traditions, the language or lifestyle. But now, I can say I have friends here in this tiny little country of Africa. I can greet people, and sing worship songs in their native tongue. I know what Swaziland looks like, from the rolling hills, and sugar cane fields, to the rifts of Mountains that seem to reach from end to end of this country. I know what African heat really feels like, and have clothes that will always have a reddish tint to them because of the red dirt and dust. I’ve heard of the darkness of witch craft practiced here and I’ve heard of the corruption of power, and seen hungry children, poor families living with so little.
But, I have seen these same people overflowing with the joy of the Lord, servitude, humbleness, and love. When my team would go on home visits to the families of the kids that came to our care point, they were so happy that we came to see them that day, to check on them and ask how we could pray for them. We never witnessed a healing first hand but we know that God is working in those people to heal them in his timing and for his glory only. And in that we can have hope. Because God remembers his people, every single one.
As I leave Swaziland and South Africa and head to Nepal please continue to pray for the Swazi people, that they would keep looking to the Lord in all things. Please pray for the children I met at my carepoint that as they grow up they would continue to have people put in their lives that will love them recklessly like Jesus does.
“Truly I tell you unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven.” Matthew 18:3
Go check out my Faces of Swaziland album on Facebook!
