When our team received our ministry placement this month, our squad leaders told us that since we had been living in tents for two months, it was time for us to get to experience the “city life.” We are grateful to have electricity, running water (we have a shower…WITH a curtain!) and space for the 7 of us to spread out. We are blessed to have a kitchen and a grocery store nearby. The mall is only a 30 – 40 minute walk away and there is even a cute little Christian bookstore we found closeby. It feels a lot like home. But then we walk a few minutes down by the dump to a Care Point off the main road where starving children flock to get fed both physically & spiritually. Swaziland has 20 – 30 Care Points set up around the country and we are volunteering at a few of the locations this month. Care Points offer pre-school education, as well as community children’s activities/childcare & daily meals for the kids. In between classes today, the kids were out playing and we had asked the teacher if another group of kids would be rotating in. She said yes, but she wasn’t sure how long they would be because they were across the street at the dump. At first I thought I misheard her, but sure enough, when I looked out the window accross the street, I saw two box trucks with men tossing out bags of other people’s rubbish which would soon become these kids’ new wardrobes.
It was certainly a humbling sight. But these same kids who may have once found their meals at the city dump are now able to get daily meals prepared for them through organizations such as Kids Against Hunger & Childrens Hope Chest. Sad as it was to see, the good news is that something is being done about it and it’s cool to get to be a part of it, even for only a little while.
