In Nsoko, eSwatini there are 13 care points spread throughout the area. Many of these have been painted a recognizable lime green and black.
They stand out as bright spots in the community.
At each of these care points, a leader is assigned to be with the children every day, encourage, teach lessons to, and disciple them. These leaders get to deeply know their community’s victories, struggles, and needs. They call these leaders shepherds.
Half of our team was placed at Mbutu, a care point close to our team home. Our shepherd was a 19 year old woman named Gabsile. Gabsile grew up in the community where the Mbutu care point is located – her family’s homestead is a short walk away from the place she now spends every day pouring into kids. Last year, Gabsile went through a leadership program that walked her through training, growth, and discipleship called Ambassadors of Hope. After this program, Gabsile decided that she wanted to serve her community by using her love for children and her love for the Lord.
Our team had the privilege of being the first missionary team to work with Gabsile. It was truly an honor to serve alongside her every day. The women on my team are ages 19-22, so working with Gabsile was like having another team mate.
When I think of the qualities of a good leader, I think of someone who is willing to lead by doing, someone who knows others’ needs and is willing to help meet them. Gabsile embodied natural leadership in such an incredible way. She knew not only the names of the many children at the care point, she knew knew their families and their stories. If a kid wasn’t at the care point that day, she often knew why. We had the opportunity to walk around her community and Gabsile knew every one of her neighbors. She would take us to homesteads to pray with her community members who had a sick child or who had family working in South Africa that they hadn’t seen in years. She knew who needed encouragement, who needed healing, who needed provision, and who just needed a good laugh.
We, unfortunately, have no way of staying in touch with Gabsile. As crazy as it sounds, wifi access at every street corner and unlimited data plans don’t exist everywhere. So we said goodbye to Gabsile a few days before we left the country and met her family and her sisters. We got to pray with Gabsile every day after ministry and each day we realized more and more that she really was a member of our team and honestly felt like our sister.
The greatest encouragement leaving Nsoko was knowing that Gabsile feels called exactly where she is. She loves it. She talked about how much fun it is living at her homestead with her mother, sisters, and nieces. She lives a short walk away from her brothers too. Gabsile is so good with kids and is gifted at loving them each individually. She makes the Mbutu care point a safe, freeing place for kids every single day. Around 50-70 kids and teenagers come through Mbutu 4 days a week to have a meal, learn a life skills lesson rooted in scripture, and spend time just being kids together.
There are leaders like this in every corner of the globe. Some are 6 year olds that encourage their friends on the playground, some are 19 year olds reinvesting in their communities, some are 65 year old GoGos (Swazi grandmothers) that spend their time caring for 8 grandchildren and cooking for the rest of the children in their neighborhoods. Praise God that we got a short glimpse into this beautiful reality of women and men making valuable, lasting deposits into the kingdom.
