Hello from Eswatini! Eswatini??? If you’ve never heard of this place, I’ll begin with a little background info. The land locked country of Eswatini is located in Southeastern Africa, with its borders meeting up against the countries of South Africa and Mozambique. It’s borders are only 120 miles from North to South and 80 miles from East to West, making it one of the smallest countries in Africa. This place is known as the land of the Swazi people, and was previously known as “Swaziland” until recently renamed to “Eswatini” in 2018. Eswatini is a diverse place containing some developing cities, mountainous highlands as well as a manufacturing industry and a big agricultural presence. The Swazi people speak Siswati as their native first language, but thankfully for me, English is also mandatory in schools, so most everyone can speak English as a second language as well. Another interesting fact about Eswatini is that they implement an absolute monarchy government, which means they are ruled by King Mswati III. I didn’t know that was still a thing! Unfortunately, there is not much of a middle class here and jobs can be tough to find, making it hard for some families to adequately provide for themselves. The Swazi people also face the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the entire world. Despite some of these tough situations, this country is a beautiful place and there can be so much joy found within the Swazi people here.
This month of ministry is set up as what’s called an “all squad” month, where our entire squad of twenty is together at the same place for the month rather than splitting up into 3 separate teams in different locations. We are working with the Adventures in Missions base here in the city of Manzini, and are plugging into the mission via several different ways to help with all that the base does in impacting the surrounding communities. Some of my squad mates are helping with administrative things in the office, while others are helping out with community “care points”. I’m part of a team that has been working on something this past week that has been titled.. drum roll please.. Agriculture Ministry!! Before I get into what agriculture ministry has looked like over this past week, I’ll give a little bit of info on what kind of presence the Adventures in Missions base has here in Eswatini.
The office for the base is located in downtown Manzini in a repurposed Christian radio station building. There are over 100 people on staff that work with the base and we got to see a glimpse of just how big the mission really at this past Monday mornings staff meeting during our first day on the job. The organization has implemented more than 40 different community “care points” where more than 7,000 children receive a nutritious meal and clean water in a day, 5 days a week. Now that’s a lot of meals! In addition to fundamental needs, the care points also provide a safe place to learn and play, healthy adult role models, school scholarships, access to music, sports, counseling and other programs. Five of these care points also provide an accredited preschool program. Each care point is overseen by a “shepherd” who has received leadership training and is dedicated to the children in their care. Shepherds are assisted by local volunteers, including cooks, church leaders, and other members of the community who recognize the value of the care point. Adventures Eswatini reaches out in big ways beyond the greater Manzini area and it’s pretty cool to be a part of what’s going on here!
Adventures in Missions has also recently acquired a plot of 65 acres of tillable land through the help of one of its generous partners. This farm was previously leased to a pineapple cannery for commercial pineapple production, but is now beginning to be utilized by AIM since being purchased. There is quite a big 20 year plan for this plot of land that currently sits as an old pineapple farm. AIM has plans to build different shop buildings to teach trade work such as plumbing, electrical work, welding, woodworking and sustainable agriculture to those in the community looking for further education and new opportunity. There are even plans for things like a bakery, soccer field, fishing ponds and a building to house future mission teams. The current caretaker of the property, Melinda, was able to show us these blueprints for the finished product of the farm, and it’s pretty cool to think that we get to be a part of the start of something so much bigger. Until any construction starts these buildings, the land is planned to be used to help provide fresh fruits and vegetables for the community care points. This is where our agriculture ministry comes into play!
Melinda showing us the blueprints of what the AIM farm will hopefully look like someday
So, what has our team been up to out at the farm? Well, farming Swazi style looks a bit different from setting the autosteer A-B line and knocking a hundred acres worth of seed into the ground within a couple hours at home! We have done a variety of things and all of them have included a pretty healthy dose of dirt and manual labor.
Thankfully, the farm has a little John Deere 5503 with a 3 bottom plow to help us out with the grunt work. We got to help plant a field of beans in one of the areas that was previously worked up. Jerry, one of the guys working at the farm, runs the tractor like a pro and opened up some seed trenches with the plow. We sprinkled some dry fertilizer down by hand and then followed along dropping the beans in the seed trenches. The beans were then covered up by hand with garden rakes. Suddenly a few acres looks like a pretty big field! It was fun to work alongside the local guys on this project and it felt great when we finally got that last seed trench closed up! There was an applause and a group photo to celebrate.
Jerry at the wheel of his power puller
Justice dropping some beans down into the furrows
Our group together after getting the entire field of beans planted!
We also spent a day prepping some ground and laying grass seed down on the sides of a newly graded road system that will one day connect the future buildings on the property. They brought in an actual road grader for the job and although the roads look a bit out of place in the open field now, I’m sure it will all come into play later on. We spent time spreading out some organic fertilizer before seeding the grass so hopefully all that we planted takes off! It’s nearing the end of the rainy season down here so we’ll be praying for a little rain to get things up and growing.
Spreading out some organic fertilizer (dried chicken manure) to fuel some grass growing along side the new roads
Let the seeds fly!
Some other jobs we’ve worked on throughout the past week have included digging drainage trenches around fruit trees to prevent erosion, weeding in various areas, picking volunteer pineapple plants out of our bean field, leveling and loosening up the ground inside the newly constructed greenhouse, and transplanting some flowers around the inside of a roundabout within the new road system. We work hard out at the farm, but we work as a team together with the local guys and we have fun while doing what we’re doing. The day begins when Jerry picks us up at 8am and we usually get back to where we are staying at about 5:30. We stay busy so it feels like this first week in Eswatini has flown right by!
Katlyn digging through some nice African dirt to make some trenches around the fruit trees
We definitely have a little fun while on the job
Our squad is staying at the property of a local AIM partner, Babe Khumalo who often hosts mission teams. We’re about 15 minutes outside of Manzini in a pretty quiet area. There are a bunch of chickens that wander about the property throughout the day and a couple of dogs who keep watch at night that also have a litter of young puppies belonging to them. We have a guest house to ourselves here at the Khumalo’s property that has a couple of bedrooms containing 6 beds total. This means that the majority of us have pitched our tents and are living the camp life for the month! The evenings here cool down to make for a pretty pleasant sleeping temperature, so it’s really not bad. I need to give a shoutout to my wonderful cousin Alyssa for providing me with a lot of the gear that she used on her world race journey. The tent and sleeping pad are working great, Lyss! 😀 The biggest perk of our “home” for the month, however, is the swimming pool that we get to take advantage of here! Almost every day after work, we’ll hop in the pool for a little swim before dinner. This pool is the real MVP and such a blessing after a long hot day!
I must say, this first week in Eswatini has been a good one. Ag ministry looks a lot different than the way we farm at home, but it makes me think of being in the fields of central Wisconsin. It’s kind of a bummer thinking of how I will miss the spring planting season at home this year, but it’s also satisfying to think that the physical seeds we’re putting in the ground will be cultivated to plant seeds for God’s kingdom in the years to come. That’s really a thought to keep me going strong!
It’s currently Sunday evening here in Eswatini as I’m typing away in my tent. Earlier today, some of us went along with our host family to their church’s Sunday service. We got to sit in on a good ole fired up African church service that lasted a solid 3 hours. At one point, the children of the congregation returned back into the sanctuary from their children’s church program and we sang the chorus of “Yes, Jesus loves me” in both English and Siswati as they returned. I couldn’t help but think about the way I’d sing the same song so many years ago when I was just a youngin. It made me think of just how faithful God has been to me throughout my entire life; from singing those words when I was in Sunday school to singing them in a church in Swaziland as a missionary away from home. The words of this simple sweet song apply just as much to my life now as they did 20 years ago. It brings me such great joy to know that the same God will be oh so faithful to these young kids throughout their lives as well. God is good all the time!
As always, a big thank you to those you following along with my blogs and thank you for your continued prayers! It’s great to know I have fellow faithful believers supporting me from afar!
