Hi everyone!
I’m so sorry that I haven’t updated my blog since I was in the Philippines about what is going on in Swaziland. I had three blogs all written and ready to be posted but my laptop won’t turn on so I can’t access anything on it 🙁 Sad day for your laptop to break on the race. I also haven’t good enough wifi on my phone to open my web browser to post my blog. Wifi in Africa is not good wifi! This is also written on my iPhone which is pretty darn hard to write a lot, but I’m writing another blog now so hopefully that will be posted sometime soon.
For the first month in Swaziland it was all squad month at El Shaddia which is a children’s home up in the mountains. It was a good month there. We were very excluded in the mountains though, it was a two hour drive into town to get supplies or wifi. I had two buddies that I was assigned to for the month. Their names were Chief and he was 8 years old and Benjamin who was 7 years old. They were the cutest boys there maybe I’m being a little biased 🙂 but it was a good month just playing with them every day and being their friend. For Christmas everyone bought their buddies Christmas presents and they got a couple gifts from El Shaddia. So in the morning Chief, Benjamin and I opened up their presents together. It was the cutest thing ever and to see how much joy it brought to them to get a couple little gifts made me so happy. Christmas was a really hard day for me, being away from my family and not being able to talk to them on Christmas so that sucked a lot. I hadn’t been homesick all month which is a praise since I was so homesick in the Philippines. But then on Christmas Eve and Christmas it was pretty rough and was very homesick but I got through it. I’m super thankful that I have not being homesick at all since then. We had a good month at El Shaddia, so far that has been my favorite month on the race.
This month were in Manzini until our debrief in February. All six teams are here but we have three teams together closer to the city then us and they’re staying at the aim office. My team and one other team are staying at a homestead about 15 minutes from the three other teams. But we moved into the aim office and are tenting since there is no room for us. We moved here because E squad is here currently. All the boys left to go back to El Shaddia for manistry. We had our own little house and it was a little crowded with 12 people here but apparently there was a team that stayed at this house and there was 32 people here so we don’t feel that crowded anymore 🙂 We got the pleasure of getting to use outhouses, doing our laundry by hand, and a tub that we use for bucket showers. This is the first time all of us have felt like we’re on the actual race because we were kinda roughing it for a while. Our first month was all squad, 2nd month and 3rd month was 4 teams of us, 4th month was all squad, 5th month was all squad again basically since we had to be with the whole squad from 8-4 but after we got to back to our house with one other team. The current 6 month is now 28 girls living in one house, so again basically all squad. At the homestead we got to cook all of our own meals so that meant that we’ve all been eating really healthy and lots of veggies which has been so good. Since there is lots of holidays that were going on in Swaziland and South Africa all the care points and the schools were still closed down until January 27th. We haven’t had any solid ministry this month. My team does hospital ministry for about two hours each day. We go to the children’s unit and play with the kids and talk with the moms but it can be extremely hard being there because multiple times the moms there have told us that it’s overwhelming when ten or more random people come in during their visiting hours. Not saying I haven’t made some great friendships with the moms there but it’s just been a very hard month for me not having any solid ministry. So we do the hospital and we have been doing ATL (ask the lord) and praying for the city and anybody we feel led to pray for. Have had quite a few good conversations with people so that’s been cool doing ATL.
This is the last week we are here so prayers for being able to finish this week well and that we are a blessing to these people’s lives. We’re heading to debrief on the 14th until the 21st and then we start our longest travel day yet to Nicaragua. Then we get to meet up with our parents on the 23rd for a week of ministry with them. I’m beyond excited to see my parents so I’m looking forward to this!
Peace and love, Ariel
