This trip has been a little crazy so far… but amazing at the same time. After a long 30 hours of travel and no sleep we got into Johannesburg only to find out that Nick Bearman was the only one whose bag took the trip with us. After a worthless fight to try and get the bags delivered to Nsoko we drug our very tired selves to the rental car company.
Long story short, the SUV we were supposed to rent had broken down and they wanted to upgrade us to an Audi, which would have been great, but with 4 people and hopefully some large bags coming, the upgrade was not a good choice. So we were stuck waiting in Johannesburg for 4 hours till the SUV was fixed. At this point we were TIRED! The good news is that we had a chance to visit JET my favorite store in Africa and I at least got one change of clothing.
Finally we got the rental car and were set to leave when I realized that we had booked a GPS and we didn’t have it. I went back into the rental office where they informed me that the online rental car company would deliver the GPS to my hotel, which wasn’t exactly going to work for us. At that point I hadn’t slept for two nights and did I mention I was TIRED, AND everything about our travel had been a struggle.
A few tears might have leaked out while I was trying to explain why delivering our GPS to a hotel in Nsoko, Swaziland was not going to work. The sweet ladies behind the counter were incredibly concerned and told me to just take the GPS that the rental car company wanted to charge $100 for. Later when we got crazy lost trying to find the border to Swaziland I was so grateful for the GPS!
We finally made it to Nsoko about 10 hours later than I had planned… but we got there safe, just in time to sleep through the night.
The next morning I was reminded again how beautiful Swaziland is. I woke up to preschoolers playing at the Carepoint, kids getting good meals, and sweet Gogo’s (Grandma’s) excited to shake my hand. Plus I got to see so many friends who I’ve missed over the last year.
The highlight of the day was going out and doing home visits with some of the Gogo’s who take care of their Grandchildren near the Carepoint. Seeing these women who I’ve gotten to visit almost every year since 2007 was such a gift. When we got onto Gogo Elizabeth’s homestead she said, “wow, I am so thankful that you have not forgotten me, it reminds me that God has not forgotten me either.”
When we asked Elizabeth if could pray for her she said that she only had a praise, then she explained, “last year when you came to visit you prayed for my arthritis, remember I could not move my hands.” She paused demonstrating how her fingers couldn’t come close to making a fist. “When you prayed, God healed me,” then she proceeded to open and close her fingers with no hesitation.
I was blown away. Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised, but I was. It was beautiful to see such a tangible expression that God had not forgotten this faithful woman in her little corner of Swaziland.
We tried last night to get our bags back, but the airport was closed. It looks like we might have to wait until Saturday, but despite how much I love clothing and mascara going without some of my American conveniences is completely worth it to see how God is working in this place. Anyway, I was able to get a pretty sweet pair of leopard print leggings from the store here, so I’m looking pretty good =)!
