We arrived in Manzini, Swaziland after a long day of travel on May 30th. We pulled into the driveway of a large 7 bedroom, 5 bathroom house in a new residential neighborhood. The house was currently being occupied by a college group from Auburn, Alabama, so we set up our tents in the front yard and made friends with the occupants. We had a couple of days to hang out before the other half of our racers arrived and the house became vacant.
When the Auburn group departed for ministry, all 50 of the January racers moved in and set up house. The first week of June was spent debriefing with AIM leadership as individuals and as teams. The second week of June, 27 new racers arrived for the beginning of their 11 month journey around the world. We spent that week participating in, and leading training for the new racers. I was busy organizing food for the full house (see my blog; 80 Hungry Racers). We were blessed to participate in teachings and debriefs by Seth and Karen Barnes, Andrew and Mo Shearman, the Tom and Emily Davis family and the Gary and Lisa Black family (who are now residents of Swaziland).
As training and debrief came to a close, Tim Drew, an AIM staffer from the states, organized a safari for all the racers. (Ryan has some great pictures, ryansterwart.theworldrace.org ). On June 16th, my team celebrated James Spano’s ½ birthday since we won’t be together on his real birthday in December. James received a series of ½ presents through out the day and was treated to an authentic home cooked southern meal, including fried chicken, cooked by Clinton.
On Tuesday June 19th, my team accompanied by team Lego (a June team), set out for ministry about an hour and a half away from Manzini. This ministry is our opportunity to bridge the gap between Gary Black and the business men of Swaziland to set up Mercy Homes for the orphans. I will post more details on that as they come.
I believe that should catch you up to date on what’s been happening in Swaziland. We plan to be here until the end of July right before we depart for Thailand.
Links:
Gary Black- http://garyblack.myadventures.org/
Lisa Black- http://lisablack.myadventures.org/ Ladies… I reccomend reading her blogs!
Andrew Shearman- http://www.andrewshearman.com/
Seth Barnes – http://www.sethbarnes.com/
Tom Davis- http://tomdavis.typepad.com/
