It is so much better to be able to give out of the overflow than to be scraping the bottom of the bucket. I started off the month with the intention of wanting to spend as much time as possible with God. I would wake up early and start the day on the rock overlooking the amazing view. It was such a good way to start the day.
Throughout the second week, I began feeling exhausted. Just really drained from doing ministry and hanging out with the kids as well as being with our squad all the time. It’s a lot!
On Sunday, I stayed in bed instead of going to church. I wasn’t feeling well (slight side effect to taking malaria meds) and spent the morning praying. God reminded me that in my weakness He is powerful (2 Corinthians 12:9) and that He will still do His work in me even when I don’t think I can do it. It was great to share this with some teammates when they came back from church and they laughed because that is the Bible passage that our squad leader Andrew preached on – God is pretty funny.
Being refueled was the greatest blessing of being there. I learnt so much and thought about things that I want to continue to grow in throughout the rest of the year.
El Shaddai children’s home is incredible. The location itself is breathtaking. The secluded property is perched on top of a mountain and looks out on to the most beautiful view. As well as the main children’s house, there is a chapel, clinic and a huge assortment of animals. The school sits just outside the property and so we got to hang out with the kids quite a lot.
Our schedule was that we could out with the clinic, cleaning the pig pen, manual labour, baby house, preschool or intercession from 8-12pm. We were able to choose which ministry we wanted to help out with and most of us chose to help out with different ones on different days to get involved with it all.
We had lunch and a break (and naps) and then would help our buddies do homework from 3-5pm. On the weekends, we were generally free and we had the chance to hang out with the whole squad, which made for a fun month too!
An incredible month! I’m so blessed to have been in Swaziland and have fallen in love with the beautiful country!
Thank you everyone for all of your support and love! Love you all!
Here’s some videos from some of my talented squadmates!
A City on a Hill – Ministry at El Shaddai from Doug Linstedt on Vimeo.
A month in Swaziland from Harris Richie on Vimeo.
