Remar Center
Remar Center in Manzini. Remar is a Christian rehabilitation center.
It is supposed to be for drug addicts and people getting back on their
feet. Evidently Swaziland doesn’t have a huge need for that type of
ministry and somehow the Remar Center became a place for people to drop
off kids. This place now has 122 orphans living there.
they have. They have some help, but definitely not enough for 122
kids. They are constantly looking to have the physical needs of the
children met, which takes a lot of money. They spend a lot of time
trying to make ends meet. They get donations of clothes from Spain
that they sell in their garage. They make pretty good money doing
this. They also sell detergents to raise money.
from a few months old to 22 years old. The teenagers end up carrying a
lot of the work load as far as washing and cooking. The responsibility
to take care of the small ones also falls on them. They were
constantly busy.
school, so they hired some teachers and made a school on-site. The
teachers have VERY few resources and the situation for them is very
difficult. They aren’t trained properly….they aren’t certified
teachers….just people looking for a job. Don’t get me wrong, all of
these teachers had an amazing heart for the kids, they just didn’t
always know what to do. Many times they had one student book that they
were using to teach a whole class. They do the best they can with
what they have, but they just don’t have much. And on top of that,
they had kids of all ages in their classrooms. If a kid doesn’t pass
the exams, they don’t go to the next grade and there were 8 year olds
in 1st grade. 13 year olds in 3rd grade.
5th grade can’t go to school. They just do chores. That is all they
have to look forward to. They can’t go out and get a job. They can’t
go to school to try to better their lives. These girls are just filled
with such hopelessness.
middle are just left to fend for themselves. The teenagers terrorize
them. (We spent most of our time at the girls house because the boys
lived so far away) They are all extremely competitive for any sort of
attention.
There were always kids around looking for love. The couple who runs
Remar Center just doesn’t have the time or emotional resources to
really pour into these kids. They ate up every single bit of love and
attention we were willing to pour out.
We struggled to make a difference. We didn’t want to just come in
and love on some kids and then go home. We wanted to HELP them help
themselves. We worked with the teachers. We talked with and
encouraged the leaders. We held small groups with the girls. We
talked to them about how BEAUTIFUL they are and taught them the
importance of encouragement. The men played soccer. LOTS of soccer.
One man on our team played soccer in college, so he ran drills with
them and really tried to teach them some skills. We played games with
them. We read to them. A couple of people on our team are good at
landscaping and gardening and they taught some kids how to garden and
take care of the gardens around the center.
All we could do was show up and show Jesus. When we left I wasn’t sure
what I did. I felt like I did nothing. I was wrong. I came and I
loved. In my next blog, I’m going to tell you about a girl that I
really connected with.
