My team and another one were chosen this week, the first week of October, to go and live on a farm! I was super excited to go and experience a new way of living a step out of routine and that is exactly what has happened here. When we first arrived we got a tour of the entire place by our wonderful hosts, Jesse and Macaira, who are filling in for the original hosts Ryan and Anna who started “One Heart Africa” which is an amazing ministry and everyone should look more into it. The farm is just like one back at home, we have chickens and goats and a lot o crops here, (we also got geese but I will get to that in a second). Us on team Joy are tenting this week and I am paired up with he wonderful Julie Rogers, every night before bed we listen to country music or watch a movie. But one of my favorite things that I have been doing is going to the top of the “water tower” (a building with two water tanks on it) and either spending time with God there, watching the sunset or trying to find a cooler place to relax from the heat.
On the first day Julie, Colleen, another girl named Lexi who is not on our team and myself got to help out with a man named Lucky (he was the thirteenth and final child so “Lucky 13”. He also is graduating from the University of Swaziland Saturday, October six!). We were helping make a goose enclosure so, he showed us how to break up the ground here and then dig a big enough hole for a post to go in. So we did that all day, we dug a hole, made concrete out of rocks, water, mix and we stirred it all ourselves with a shovel, then we put in a post and poured in the concrete. The next day we all helped Lucky again and this time we got to put up fencing between the poles and other enclosures and we even got to brainstorm and come up with a way to make a small pond for them (which we did and I think you would be very impressed Dad). Now Mom, I need you to sit down for a second, the Saturday before this week, Monday and Tuesday, I have cooked dinner for 15-50 people. I made stir-fry twice and then an ‘upscale breakfast” of eggs, potatoes and sautéed onions and bell peppers, which we got to pick start from the garden here. And it turns out, I didn’t do half bad. On Wednesday Julie and I decided we wanted to try something else so we went to another friend that I am had made the day before, Safiso, who was in charge of taking care of the spinach. We helped him plant two plots of crops and prune between 3 to 5. All the while all of us were having great conversations about the differences between Swaziland and America, our dislikes and interests and most importantly about God and the church. On Thursday we woke up to a torrential downpour, which was amazing for the locals and the farm because they are in a drought, but that meant that we got to have a rainy day. Most of us stayed in bed till 8 or 9 in the morning, which is super late for us, and just relaxed all day. We got to watch movies and eat food and just have great conversation with one another. My favorite part about that day though was the fact that at the end of the day Jesse and Macaira wanted to have a movie night. So all of us went to their house in our comfy clothes, got to eat an amazing dinner provided by Madeline and Sophie and then got brownies and popcorn. There wasn’t one moment of that night that I felt like I was in the bush of Africa. Unfortunately, Friday rolled around and we had to start packing up to leave, but before we did that we got to physically see how our work this past week helped the community. After all of the pruning and planting of spinach we all got to harvest some and bring it to a local care point to give away to the children there.
These past few days here really have been so incredible. Getting to know another team better and be in fellowship with one another every night has been such a blessing. I have enjoyed getting to serve people in a new way, wether that is by serving the dinner team by making meals for them or by planting spinach for someone to save them some work. Most of all, I enjoy that I got to bless a new ministry and grow in my relationship with the Lord through them. Also, I liked walking around barefoot and the sick chaco lines have been great.
Please continue to pray for our team as we have some traveling coming up for debrief and that we would continue to bless the community that we are in for the next two months.
Thank you for all of the support everyone!
Liz
