Hello from Swaziland! S Squad is currently in the midst of PVT (Parent Vision Trip), so the 27 of us without parents visiting have been sharing an AIM house in Manzini (Swaziland’s capital). So far, we’ve spent time exploring Manzini, meeting some locals, doing ATL, and enjoying late-night chats on our porch here at the house. In a few days, the visiting parents will depart, S Squad will meet up again briefly, and the squad will then split into two groups. One group will stay here in Manzini, and one group (my group) will be going to stay at an AIM Carepoint in Nsoko, Swaziland. We are officially down to 50 days until departure for America!
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Adventures in Missions Swaziland has a 10-year (and counting) partnership with Children’s HopeChest, and we will be working at one of their carepoints during our time in Nsoko. Children’s Hope Chest is an organization started in Colorado Springs, CO, which is where I was born and grew up (shoutout to C Springs for being a BOSS!). I can’t tell you how awesome it is to see this partnership between AIM and HopeChest thriving; I knew of HopeChest long before I knew of AIM, and I have friends back home who have been supporting HopeChest, and specifically HopeChest’s work here in Swaziland, for years. Another incredible part of being here in Swaziland is that my sister, Melissa, came to Swaziland a while back with my parents’ church in Colorado Springs, and it’s been really precious to be in a town that I know Melissa has been in and meet people that she used to tell me about. I’m sure we’ve walked some of the same streets and sat in some of the same buildings! I’m not too sure of what we’ll be doing in Nsoko, but I know that we’ll be spending lots of time with the children who live and go to school there and pouring into the Shepherds (caregivers) who live and work at the carepoints.
If you look at Swaziland by the statistics, you’ll find that Swaziland is a nation of intense poverty and pain. About “69% of Swaziland’s people live below the poverty line, unemployment stands at more than 40%, and 27% of Swazis are undernourished. One-in-five Swazi children do not attend school, and 18% of children have lost a parent to HIV/AIDS. With 1.4 million people, this tiny nation—slightly smaller than the state of New Jersey—has lost an entire generation of parents, leaders, and workers as HIV/AIDS has destroyed much of Swaziland’s economic and societal fabric. Swaziland suffers from the world’s highest adult HIV prevalence rate of 28.8%. Many children are orphaned due to losing parents from HIV/AIDS, lending Swaziland the nickname, ‘Nation of Orphans’” (1).
Swaziland’s statistics can be heartbreaking, but the work that HopeChest and AIM are doing within the country is beyond encouraging. The organizations are working with children at their carepoints through education, sports ministry, and music ministry, doing outreach with the special needs population, training women in life skills classes and craft training, providing for families through access to community gardens and tractor programs, and multiple other outreach programs and classes. HopeChest and AIM are two of the biggest organizations in Swaziland, and are continually bringing the hope of Jesus to the Swazi people.
For more information about what’s going on in Swaziland, please see the articles I quoted from below:
(1) http://www.hopechest.org/where-we-work/swaziland/
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Wi-Fi is very limited here in Africa, so I haven’t been able to blog or post to social media as much as I’ve been able to do in the past. Thank you all for caring so much about staying updated and reaching out knowing I may not be able to get back to you quickly. I really appreciate you and your grace!
