Okay so I’m one week in now.
I’ve been in Swazi for one week.
I have lived in Africa for a whole entire week.
It still doesn’t feel like real life, yet it feels like its honestly been a whole month already.
Life here looks so much different than in America. We hand wash our clothes and hang them on the fences to dry. There is no fan to cool down the rooms at night. Ants invade the kitchen as one speck of food hits the ground. Instant coffee has begun to taste like gourmet coffee. There is no internet, no coffee shop, and no sight of gummy bears to be seen. My team walks miles to ministry everyday. Sometimes the electricity and water stop running from time to time. The constant reminder we have to tell ourselves is, “T.I.A.” or “This is Africa.”
But none of those experiences have been quite as a shock to me as how the days look. Everything is simple. I was overwhelmingly underwhelmed.
I have come from a place in life that business was a part of life and I had no choice around it (I definitely did, it was just “more fun” to be busy). I was either at work, at church, with family or friends, and maybe occasionally being at the gym getting that grind in. I would fill my days in an instant, hardly ever catching a breath of air. My car sometimes became my home rather than going home. And EVERYTHING was at a set time and I would find myself apologizing when I realized I didn’t have enough hours in the day to get from point a to point b and still have an intentional conversation with someone. America in itself is timely and structured. That is how my life was… until I got to Africa.
Time doesn’t seem to exist here. We wake up to see the sunrise. We do our devotional to start the day focused on Abba so we may give Him continual praise. We go to ministry when we are all dressed and composed. We eat when we are hungry. We play games when we are bored. We shower when we feel dirty. We fall asleep when we are tired.
The structure we are given here is; for us to intentionally spend time with the Lord and make sure you make public transportation before 3 or you might not make it home.
The first few days I was overstimulated. This was because there was nothing to distract myself; no schedule to look forward to, no movies to turn on, no car to climb into and drive off in… there was nothing.
This has opened up a whole new door of time with the Lord. And oh boy people are creative. I’ve learned that there are no boundaries to how one can spend time with the Lord. Every morning we have someone share how they spend time with the Lord and each day looks different. How very wonderful is that! The Lord has created a space to make worship of Him be so vast and abundant.
I am looking forward to seeing what time is going to look like here and what time with the Lord will look like.
I am doing well and I’m very at peace being here.
I hope you are all doing well,
You’re in my prayers (-:
Lillian Holley
