Once again I did not have internet for the entire month so I apologize for the lack of information. I have tried to briefly describe my month for you, but there is so much more that happened that I have not included. I can’t wait to tell you all about it at a later date when I am not so time crunched on the internet. So here it is:
Well, after spending about 4 hours at the Mozambique/Swaziland border because our driver didn’t have a passport and we had to wait for the company to send a new one, my team arrived at the El Shaddai children’s home. El Shaddai was our ministry for the month and we were with two other World Race teams. We did several different ministries while we were there. Through the week we would rotate between the baby house, preschool, and construction. In the afternoons we had the option of the previous things or we could help at tutoring. The local school was something that I was able to visit a couple of times as well but it was not a normal option for the month.
First of all, this place is one of the most beautiful places I have stayed on the Race. We stayed in dorms on the top of a mountain overlooking a valley with a river. In addition, the kids here are awesome and have really touched my heart. I was able to spend a lot of time with them and witness their challenges, victories, sadness, and joys. They are the future of Swaziland. International adoption is not allowed in the country because they want their kids to stay in the country. This is mainly because many people are leaving the country due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The kids love their country and they aspire to be vets, policemen and many other things.
As for ministry, I spent most of my time tutoring kids and spending time with them in the afternoons. Tutoring lasted from 1-2 hours a day and we would simply help them understand their homework. I helped with math (which I didn’t even know how to do some of it, lol), reading, and anything else they had. After tutoring we were able to play with the kids and do whatever for a couple of hours before dinner.
I spent a good amount of time helping in the pre-school as well. The pre-school here is located in the church and consists of about 40 four to five year olds. It was chaotic at times and the fact that there is really only one teacher for that many kids makes learning difficult. At this young age many of the kids only spoke SiSwati which made it hard for communication. Even though it was challenging I still had a great time.
