This is a blog I wrote a few months ago in Africa and I am just getting to post It!
April 2015
After 60 days in central America and a whopping 150 days living in Asia, I am now in Swaziland on the continent of Africa. I never thought I would come to Africa and I still have to do a double take that I am actually here. The other day someone was taking pictures and they handed me the camera to hold. I picked it up and as I started looking at the pictures that were just taken I exclaimed out loud in surprise, “That looks like Africa!” Because you forget sometimes with all the traveling we do, just to look around and really take in where you are. Isn’t that how life is? We get so used to seeing things in motion that we forget what it looks like in stillness.
Africa is a mysterious land. You can look at a million pictures and still not understand the wonder of it without being here yourself. In India the people were quiet and reserved, especially the women. In public you didn’t speak above a whisper. Here there is endless laughter; loud, robust laughter and joy. There is a freedom of spirit here that I have never seen or experienced before. The people have a culture all their own. The thought that in several decades this country might be vanished from the Earth astounds me. I read somewhere that by 2050 the Kingdom of Swaziland will be gone, because this is the country with the most AIDS in the world.
From 10 AM to 4:30 in the afternoon I am with kids. From preschoolers to high schoolers there are roughly around 75 kids that come to the care point we live at for food, games, Bible lessons and help with their studies. I kiss booboos, wipe noses, stop fights and ect… But most of all what I do is just love on them. Something fun we did was to play The Lion King on a laptop for them. They were in awe of it.
I am sleeping in my tent again this month, inside a large storage building with 7 other people. Herds of cows graze through our little homesteads front yard daily and at least once we have caught a cow licking our water spicket where we fill up our water bottles. Once even I heard a squeal from down the hill and I saw a cow with its head in the main hall and Courtney went running at it, afraid that the gentle giant would actually enter the building.
ggh
Goats, chickens and dogs are also constant visitors. Last night as we were sitting outside having dinner a black, silvery snake about a foot long decided to sneak up on us.
The night before that I was walking out of the kitchen and I felt something fly into my hair. All the way to my little tent I was playing with it trying to figure out if something was still there and finally my fingers found something the size of a ping pong ball at the base of my pony tail. It was a giant BEETLE. I plucked it out with a squeal and chucked it out the window.
Adam went to the doctor and has what the doctor said was probably Typhoid Fever. It has an incubation period of 3 and a half weeks so I heard so we are praying that no one else comes down with what apparently was picked up in India. Everyone pretty much has been having stomach issues since we got here. Except for a couple of upset stomachs I have been fine though.
It is so hard to believe that I am in month 8 on this 11 month journey. The Lord is teaching me, molding me, transforming me as I reach out to others and minister to them. In my devotion the other day I read something that stood out to me, it said, “Nothing is wasted when you walk close to Me.” I can say that is true. It is never, ever too late to say to the Lord, “Here is my messy life. Make something beautiful out of it.” As long as you have breath, you have purpose.
I am now in month 11 of the race and I am living in Ukraine!!!! New blog to come soon!!!!!
