“You have an Ariel face and Anna hair,” Hannah told me. It was my favorite kind of ministry day (babysitting) and my favorite form of flattery (princess compliments). In my experience, missionary kids are more polite, more innocent, more imaginative, more courageous, and full of life than their counterparts. The Spragg children proved to be no exception.
The Spragg family moved to Swaziland 18 months ago and committed their lives to ministering to the people of a nation whose HIV/AIDS rate is 40% with an average life expectancy of 49. They are my superheroes. Not only did they pack up and move across the world with their three small children, but moved to the middle of nowhere–literally, dried up sugar cane fields and dirt as far as the eye can see with the occasional poverty ridden shack. Their family is here as evidence of Living Water during the drought that has taken Swaziland captive.
Working through Adventures in Missions in partnership with Children’s Hope Chest, there are numerous care points in the communities surrounding our Anchor Center in Nsoko providing a warm meal, discipleship, and infomal preschools to children. Despite language barriers, smiles, laughter, tickling, running, clapping, and dancing can go far. We show the love of Jesus to these dirt smudged faces with their big brown eyes.
The Swazis are a rough people–thick skinned and tough minded. Our first day at the care point, the kids welcomed us by killing a frog with a stick. They play a game slapping hands in a circle saying “How many cigarettes does your father smoke in one day?” The preschoolers carry their little brothers and sisters around. Women lift the lids off hot cast iron pots with bare hands. A few women volunteered to hand wash 35 World Racer’s laundry and it only took a few hours.
I am constantly in awe of their strength. The lifestyle that has chosen them is not one for soft hands. The way the women worship during their three-hour Sunday morning service despite the constant hardship in their lives is mind blowing. Somehow the callouses got everything but their hearts.
Two days a week my team walks to a care point five kilometers away to play and sing and love the children who are waiting for their meal. Twice I have helped at the Anchor Center preschool, singing songs and saying the alphabet with 4 and 5 year olds. And one day, I babysat.
The Spraggs have taken a little Swazi girl into their family. Monday through Friday they watch a baby whose mom is attending university. So when “the two Ariels” (my ginger friend Amber and me) arrived to their house we had 9 year old Hannah, 6 year old Luke, 5 year old Titus, 5 year old Busanda, and Baby B eagerly awaiting us.
We played babies, ponies, ninja turtles, jump rope, and watched movies. They said yes ma’am and no ma’am, please and thank you. The boys almost fought over who could pray for lunch until I told them they both could. It was the visible power of the Lord seeing how well Busanda, who has only been a part of their family for 5 months, fit right in. It was easy to love them.
The rough Swazi children take a little more effort and a lot of God’s grace. These kids pull our hair and fight for whose turn it is to be picked up. They throw rocks and abuse animals. They bully one another, and they are terrible listeners. But you look at the holes in their pants and their dirt caked feet and realize they are doing the best they can with what they have. They are children of God—ferocious little princes and princesses. They will never know any different unless we show them what gentleness looks like. Kindness. Patience.
It does not matter whether children think I am a Disney princess or just another back to climb on. Whether loving them is easy or quite a task. I want to be their superhero.
When the 4 year old walks 4 miles to school and falls asleep in class, I will give him a lap to sit in and kisses on the cheek. When the missionary kids ask to have tea time, I can make that happen too. When ministry requires walking 10K in the middle of a drought with temperatures in the upper 90s, I think of the kids who need to see kindness.
Swaziland has revealed that this Ariel faced, Anna haired princess is far from glamorous. I wake up already sweating and have my own dirt smudged face by the end of each day. I have my very own set of African brown feet. I have hitchhiked 6 times in the back of random pick up trucks in this first week alone. But when God is your boss, sometimes the job requirement isn’t glamor. Its superhero.
Superheroes don’t have it easy.
Sometimes superheroes pick up their lives in obedience to the Lord and move their family to a land of drought and disease. Sometime superheroes implant themselves in a land where the language has no Rosetta Stone and trust that God will supersede in using them to share the Good News. Sometimes they adopt a sweet little chocolate nugget whose mother can’t care for her.
And sometimes they live under a roof with 35 others in bunk beds with bugs and dust storms and chickens in the house and goats fighting out front. Sometimes superheroes have to sweat buckets and keep smiling. Sometimes superhero fuel is rice and beans every day. But sometimes, the boss assigns their favorite kind of mission. Sometimes superheroes babysit.
