Oh Swaziland! As we crossed the border from South Africa to Swaziland the border control officer told me "Welcome to the Kingdom" which he was right. Swaziland is an absolutely beautiful mountainous country filled with people who are extremely friendly and eager to build relationships. I pray that their country will prosper and all will know God.
I lived in Manzini with two other teams, The Less Thans and Grow Freely Inc. There were 20 to 22 people (depending on when the Squad Leaders were with us) living under the same roof with four rooms and two bathrooms. There were many moments of craziness, involving screaming, crying, and laughing, but I wouldn't trade a minute of it. We ran a 10K together, got pampered by the boys for Valentine's Day with pedicures, had movie nights, cooked together, and really just lived a normal life together. As it turns out, I love living in a large community!
(Our House in Swaziland)
I wanted to give you a taste of what living in a large community and my typical day in Swaziland looked like:
- 6:30 to 7:00 a.m. I would wake up. If I had to make breakfast for the house, typically eggs, I would be up by 6:30 a.m.
(I slept on the bottom left)
- After the first couple of days we met Patrick, our new Sprinter (bus) driver by God's grace. Our contact had set up numerous rides that never came through. One day after a ride did not show up again, we (Grow Freely Inc. and my team, so 14 people) went to the Sprinter stop close to our house. Several Sprinters passed us, refusing to even stop for so many people. A little joke of a prayer from a previous squad about a Sprinter was being told. "Jesus, Jesus come around for no Sprinter can be found." Right as the person finished speaking the prayer, we kind of chuckled but then Patrick pulled up with a completely empty Sprinter. Talk about God answering prayer! From that day on Patrick would pick us up at 7:45 a.m. at the house and drive us to ministry.
- We would arrive at Hope House at 8:00 a.m. The next two hours would be spent visiting with the patients. We would pray for them and build a relationship that was hard to leave at the end of the month.
- By 10:30 a.m. we were done with ministry for the day for the first week and half. Another team from Georgia had arrived in Manzini at the same time we did, which took our afternoon ministry away from us. We would either go home or stay in town to do some shopping, eat lunch, or go to the internet cafe.
- When we did get an afternoon ministry we would usually get to the AIM missionaries' houses around 12:00 p.m. They had us help clean out their garage that held a clothing center, a storage room (where we got some pretty awesome American things like face wash), and had us cut out crosses for the children to decorate at something similar to VBS.
- We would usually get home by 5:00 p.m. just in time to cook dinner. Our three teams took turns cooking dinner. I had a secret competition going on with the teams at the other locations in Swaziland, about who had the best cooking, to be judged by the Squad Leaders (my house won). We had chicken and mashed potatoes, spaghetti, chili, and stew served with a salad and vegetable everyday. Most importantly we had brownies with ice cream and rice crispy treats. Everything was made from scratch since we had to live on a $4 per person per day.
- After dinner, somewhere around 7:30 p.m. we would have team time.
- After team time we were free to do whatever we wanted as long as we were in the compound around the house. Typically, this involved the laughing and screaming. Games would be played, dancing would occur, and just pure loudness. I am sure the neighbors thought we were delightful. At some point we would go to bed and start the day all over again.
Even though Swaziland brought its own challenges, I really enjoyed my time there. I did not think I would enjoy the ministry as much as I did and living with 19 other people just made it even more enjoyable. This was a hard but very good and rewarding month.
