Our first few days in Swaziland were spent at month 8 debrief. It was a super cool place that had impalas, giraffes, warthogs, monkeys, and zebras! I also was able to go on 2 safaris while in Africa! Never thought I’d get to see HUGE wild animals close without being in a Zoo! At debrief we slept in our tents and there was even a GROCERY store close by! Squad time and worship was amazing. Something that the Lord has been teaching me continuously on the WR is freedom! Freedom in worship, freedom in speaking about Him, freedom from guilt, FREEDOM! I have a LONG way to go in experiencing true freedom in life and my relationship with Him, but I love that He’s never giving up on me!
After debrief, we drove a few hours away to an orphanage called “El Shaddai,” which means God Almighty. We woke up to an amazing view overlooking the valley with the river and mountains in the distance! Every time that we’re placed in such a ministry, I just stand in awe of a God who CREATED all of it!
Our ministry consisted of playing with the babies that lived there, doing construction (rebuilding the pig pens, making a drain down by the school, rebuilding a fence), cleaning and organizing a storage closet, knitting 25ish pairs of gloves, taking hikes with the kids down to the waterfall, preaching, daily devotions with the older kids, painting a mural, and I’m sure more things! It was such a great month! It was interesting because there was a lot of spiritual warfare…I say that for a lot of countries, but this was probably one of the worst. BUT, the LORD is RULER and PROTECTOR of His people and Satan hasn’t a clue how to fight that! J
The last week we were there, after fighting off a couple of fires already, we girls woke up to Lauren yelling at us to get up the fire is on this side of the “fire break” (a strip of land control burned so that the wild fires couldn’t pass it on to the property). We grabbed what we could, being maybe a laptop and camera, and covered our faces and ran up the hill. The smoke scared me more than anything, but after about 20 minutes of praying intently and running around like crazy people, the fires died down enough for us to carry buckets of water and big branches to put it out. After a couple of hours of this, we checked out the damage, and PRAISE BE TO THE LORD the fires had come within a foot of some of our houses, but NO problems (besides ash that blew into the window). WOW, even one night when we were putting out the fires, what looked like the word “GOD” was formed in the mountain opposite El Shaddai! He had us in the palm of His hand the whole time and I’m so grateful to serve a God like ours! J
