January 17-
It’s our first day of ministry and it’s been raining for 3 days because of the cyclone that’s in Mozambique right now. The bus we hire picks us up at 1p to take us to the hospital to meet Allison, our contacts wife. She shows us to the baby ward and with our translator close by we proceed to pray for the children and parents that are living in the children’s room at the hospital. After an emotionally exhausting hour all I want to do is crawl into bed and cry the rest of the day. “What will happen to the girl with cerebral palsy whose been abandoned? Will she get to eat this week? Will her diaper be changed today? Why won’t anyone pay attention to this little girl?”
Dealing with my broken heart and trying to ignore the pain that hour caused, I’m told our day isn’t over. We have one more place to visit, the Hope House. I don’t know much but I’ve been told it’s where people with HIV and TB live. Totally not excited about this we get out of the bus and proceed to meet the director, Sister Elsa, a nun from India. We break up into teams of 3-4 and get assigned to our ‘houses’ ensuring all 27 houses get a visit from us that day.
All the instruction we’ve been told so far is to not ask if they have HIV, a very touchy subject in Swaziland, and to pray for them and possibly sing a song. We step into our first house. There is a shy woman sitting on her bed while her teenage daughter sits on the opposite bed and Gogo (grandma) sits on the sofa. I introduce myself and shake her hand while something changes inside of me.
She tells us she’s battling cancer. What started as breast cancer has moved into her lungs. We didn’t get any more specifics, trying to respect her privacy, but it’s eating me up inside to know this woman better. We pray and sing and ask her if it’s okay to come back and see her later. Enthusiastically she says of course!
The next house we go to is a fatter lady sprawled out on her bed. She’s singing when we enter the house. We wait patiently for her performance to end and the first words she says to us is “where are your shoes?” …we had left them at her door because we were drenched, we continue to introduce ourselves and comment on the song she sang. Adamantly she can’t get over the fact that we’re standing in her house with no shoes on…I instantly think of my Grammie and all her lectures on staying out of the rain and bundling up in the cold. I smile inside, I like this woman already.
After spending a short hour house hoping at the Hope House praying and singing over the people there, I know THIS is my ministry this month. It’s not going to be convenient, I could easily stay at the homestead and walk 10 minutes to the Care Point to see the kids and call that my ministry and be just fine with that. But no, I’m not going to take the easy way out this time. I’m going to intentionally strive to come see these people everyday, they’re 30 minutes away from where we’re staying and there’s no other way but to get public transportation to see them.
January 24-
It’s been a week now and 4+ visits later I wake up in the morning and can look forward to walking 30 minutes to the road to wait for a bus that may take 45minutes to show up, to ride the 30 minutes to get into Manzini, to walk the 20 minute walk from the bus rink to finally make it to the Hope House; all to spend a few hours with new friends, learning their stories, sharing music, playing games, talking about scripture and dreams and children. Yes, the Hope House is my ministry and I thank God for pushing me to not take the easy way out this time. In return, my reward is 2 new friends, 2 more sisters in Christ, 2 more people I look forward to being reunited with once we’ve made it home to Heaven.
“As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work.
We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul –
not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory strength that God gives.
It is a strength that endures the endurable and spills over into joy,
thanking the Father who makes us strong enough
to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.”
– Colossians 1:9-12 MSG
walking to the road to catch a ride into town
that dirt road on the left is our road
our adventure day, waiting 45minutes and then we ended up hitch-hiking…whatever works
Our friend Cosi, one of the tenants at the Hope House. She's leaving this week.
Playing Crazy 8's with our new friends.
Zandile and her girls. Pray for her, she's battling cancer and has
the brightest spirit I've ever seen. I love her.
This is why I love the Hope House, getting goodbye waves from Zandile.
