This month Team Degel is partnered with another team, Fierce Pursuit and we are in a remote area in Buhleni, Swaziland (although I suppose you could argue that the vast majority of the country of Swaziland could be considered remote). We are at somewhat of a community center, but don’t think YMCA. Think more of a couple open buildings with a slab of pavement, a couple netball hoops and a basketball hoop, some rondovals and lots of grass. That is home for us this month. The rondovals are basically round mud huts with thatch roofs and concrete floors. They are actually quite nice because since they are made with mud and thatch roofs, they stay a pretty constant temperature, so during the day when it is hot outside, they don’t get too hot on the inside and then at night when the temperature drops, they stay somewhat warm so we are not freezing at night. We have two long-pit toilets, which basically means a shack built around a deep hole in the ground, one is a squatty-potty and the other is an actual American toilet seat. The man that constructed this whole place though, did a very nice job, so the surface that is on top of the hole in the ground is concrete. He is a great guy, Mike, very humble and a fabulously hard worker! He doesn’t come around much because he is quite the busy man, but we are so thankful for him and the accommodations that he has blessed us with!
We have been partnering with the local primary school to do devotions/skits with the kids every Monday and Friday, and some of the people on both teams are teachers, so they are really going to love getting plugged in there! We also have connected with a local health clinic just down the road, so in the mornings we go and we preach, basically, which was quite the surprise to us because initially they just asked us to come and join them in their staff devotions and that we didn’t need to have anything prepared, but this is Africa so we should have known better because after the first group went and shared, they decided that we were going to lead the devotions every morning at 7am. Hey, T.I.A. right? (A little phrase we have developed when something comes as a surprise, or we don’t understand we just say T.I.A.—This is Africa.) In addition to leading staff devotions, they have allowed us to go and pray for patients during open visiting hours!! What a cool opportunity right?! It is our goal to make that place known as a place of joy and happiness and of God’s presence, not a place of sickness and pain! Amen?!? (This is where you say, yeah! Amen!, just in case you were wondering.)
Due to the fact that this is a community center, many kids from all over come to play and hang out with us everyday, so we are learning Siswati vocabulary, dances and games while also teaching them how to throw a Frisbee and hang out with them. It is so cool, if you don’t have anything in your hands and they are not in your pockets, you are sure to have a child come and hold your hand, it is so precious. Just today, I had a little girl holding my hand for probably a good 20 minutes no matter where I went and she was asking me if I could take her with me. I’m not sure where she wanted to come with me to, but it was so cool to just have someone that wouldn’t let go, she just wanted to be acknowledged and known. This is what Jesus was saying when he said let the little children come to me, they have such joy and it is contagious!
The last thing our teams have going on this month is some good ‘ole manual labor. There are several projects around the community center that Mike has asked us to undertake including digging a trench (not sure what for yet), taking off the top layer of grass in a field so that he can plant a new crop for the kids of the community center, rebuilding a tin enclosure that serves as our shower and also doing some repair work on our mud huts that we sleep in. All that to say, we are going to be a very busy two teams this month! Please pray that we take initiative on our projects, that we continue to work as for the LORD and not for men, and that we would be able to accomplish GREAT things in the name of Jesus this month!
