I walked out of my room the first morning and looked up at the mountains that stretched from edge to edge of my view. While I took in the scenery of unfamiliar trees, and hesr the calls of unknown birds and insects I filled my lungs with the only thing still familiar to me, God, and felt a wave of peace rush over me as I took in the foreign scenery.
Here in Nsoko, Swaziland spring is ending and we’re now headed into the hot season, meaning summer. The mornings and evenings are chilly but the days can reach 105 degrees in the sun. My whole squad will be here at the Nsoko, Swaziland Adventures in Missions base for 3 months. AIM is in the process of building a brand new buildings for us. The building as of now has 2 bedrooms, which the girls are sleeping in on bunk beds, and 2 bathrooms with showers, toilets and sinks! The guys are sleeping outside in tents. I half want to join them because I love my camping gear and I want to use it but, the other half of me really enjoys the bedroom, mattress and walls that keep me feeling cool and safe from the blowing dust and hot sun. I’m happy with the conditions, I think we all thought we would have to “rough it” a lot more. But what a blessing this brand new building is! We also have a community room, kitchen and hopefully soon electricity and WiFi.
Since we arrived in Swaziland we have, started ministry at our care-points (Which I love, love, love!!) My team and I get to play with kids whose ages range from a few months to 18+ years of age. I have loved learning their fun hand games, dancing with them (they like my dancing haha that made me so proud 😀 ), also laughing with them, holding the babies, serving them lunch which could be the only meal they get that day, and sometimes teaching a little lesson. As a squad we attended a church service, figured out the public bus system, and are quickly learning to live with minimal if any WiFi, and electricity. However we are still getting used to how much red African dirt and dust ends up everywhere. It is a beautiful thing though to look down at my feet and see them red with dirt and know that is African dirt and then realize that I am really here, in Swaziland, Africa on the World Race Gap year doing God’s work! What a blessing.
Please be praying for my squad and I to be able to get to know the people here and make strong relationships that mimic those Jesus made. And thank you for all of your encouragement in the comments of my last post about taking on the position of treasurer for my team. It has gone very well actually, because we are staying at an AIM base all of the money for food and lodging is being wired to the hosts so there is not much I have to do. However, in later months I anticipate doing more work for it which I am actually looking forward to. And to teaching my team some lessons I am learning from it because they have expressed some interest in budgeting and financing as well.
Thank you for your prayers and suppiort I love you all so much!
