(I am currently in South Africa using the internet in b/c we had to leave Swaziland to renew our visas for Swaziland)
We arrived safely here in Nsoko just over a week ago.
Ministry here has been good and we are slowly but surely seeing progress in starting new ministries here in Nsoko.
We are working with 4 “carepoints” in the area helping them with immediate needs and long terms needs.
Carepoints are areas within the local community where children who are orphaned, too poor to go to school or don’t have food at home they can come and be taught basic education and receive one hot meal a day.
Normally they are just small “buildings” (sometimes concrete and sometimes chicken wire, rock and sticks formed into a building) where the children can congregate and be fed and such.
The poverty here is hard to describe and sometimes impossible to comprehend.
Here are a couple of pictures of the children that are served and loved at the carepoints.
Our days are spent getting up with the chickens and the workers who arrive at the ranch to get started at work at 6am.
Living on the ranch (which we like to call “our homestead”) you are either awakened by the chickens or the workers singing as they arrive at work.
We get picked up at 9am which always means 9:30am and Nicholas (this amazing man who works for Troy and he helps us with translation and is very respected in the community).
Then we go to a care point and sing and play games with the children.
The last couple of days we were able to teach a lesson b/c one of the teachers has been sick.
The children eat at 11:30am and we spend that hour fending off the chickens from eating the children’s food.
We head out about 12:30 and eat on the side of the road.
In the afternoons we have been going to other carepoints and meeting the people and assessing the needs.
The day is finished by eating dinner that has been cooked over the open fire.
A few of the children have caught my heart and I love them and look forward to sharing the love of Christ with them each time I see them.
One is a 12 year old girl who looks size wise like an 8 year old child.
She is HIV positive and therefore she cannot attend school.
She is very smart and a asset to the teachers (Go Go’s) at the carepoint.
The Go Go’s are the older women in the community who serve the food and teach the children every day.
(here is a pic of some of them)
They take on a lot of responsibility without payment and they are a great blessing to us as a team.
Another little girl that has captured my heart is very quiet, gentle and sweet.
When we arrived on Monday the teacher was telling us she was very hungry b/c I don’t think that she had eaten all weekend.
When we stopped by the carepoint to drop off more food on Wednesday she ran up to us and we noticed that she had a black eye (and we had just seen her on Tuesday).
That was a very difficult experience for us as a group. I want to hold and comfort her and take her home with me where I know that she will be loved and protected. But I am constantly being reminded that God is the great protector and I must entrust her to His care.
Please continue praying for our team and all that the Lord has in store over the next month in Swaziland.
Prayer Needs
1. Continued open doors for ministry (we may be doing some street preaching on our homestead)
2. Provision to make our short term goals last for the long term
3. That God will continue to use us and guide us as we share Christ here. We plan on starting an afternoon program for teenagers at 2 carepoints so pray that will be received well.
I plan on blogging again tomorrow and I will put (Lord willing) lots of pictures so you can get a picture of the daily ministry in Swaziland. Thank you for your support and prayers!
Blessings, CLP
