I’ve been in Swaziland
for over a week now. Days have been
packed with one-on-one coaching/counseling sessions with our leadership
team. We’ve enjoyed worship and teaching
in the evenings. The guys played
Paintball one day; I don’t know what the girls have been doing! I’ve had two Filet Mignon’s and a T-Bone at
the Rustic Tavern since I’ve been here.
I haven’t had any more Kidney Stone episodes. I’m choosing to believe that God healed
them. Seth thinks God used them to get
me out of the field and back to civilization for a week of rest. Life is good!
After some delays in leaving Atlanta
the June World Race Team is finally all in Africa. They will arrive later today in Swaziland
and their training will begin tomorrow.
Squads A & B will provide most of the training with our overseas
team of Debriefers providing teaching each morning and evening for all of
us.
When we aren’t involved in training it is likely that we
will go out to “Care Points”- feeding and care centers for Swazi people. Sitting with my computer in my lap on a comfortable
bunk-bed it is easy to forget the AIDS rate in Swaziland
is astronomical. There is a small Mall
in town and like the malls at home it is covered with kids and looking in their
faces you would never guess that a significant percentage of them are already
infected.
Beyond next week I don’t know yet what we are doing in
southern Africa.
We have a lot of ministry options on the table. Some teams might stay in Swaziland,
perhaps even until we leave August 1.
Some teams are definitely conducting three weeks of Children’s Camps in South
Africa and some teams will spend a week in Kimberley,
South Africa working with
churches. Botswana
is on the table and who knows what else.
We should start getting briefings and prayerfully selecting ministry
sites later this week.
Pray for us. Squads A
& B are looking forward to implementing lessons learned during
Debrief. Five months into this thing and
we’re still learning to trust leadership and one another. We’re still working on accepting
one-another. Squad C will probably feel
overwhelmed and yet anxious to begin ministry.
All-in-all the mid-terms have been good.
I think we all passed! It’s time
to move on.
