Ah, Swaziland. I’ve never even heard of this country until the race. We weren’t even supposed to be here. It was not on our original route. It’s a tiny country inside of South Africa. AIDS/HIV runs rampant here due to their culture of polygamy and rape. We were told we would be bringing hope to this small nation of the love of Jesus to people dying at the expectancy age of 35 and younger! I expected it to be a desert-type country with sickness and death all around me. What I found was a beautiful country with friendly people, rolling hills with valleys tucked inside, and very westernized…where are we??
Our team was picked up and taken a little more into the bush (what Americans call “the country”). We are working with a local church that helps with a local “care point”. A care point is a place that kids can come after school for bible lessons, game days, and most importantly a good, hot meal. In the mornings half of our team helps with manual labor at the place and the other half helps at the preschool on site. (I’m with the preschool—shocker, haha) In the afternoon, older school kids come to the site and we spend time building relationships with them. They even have grief counseling set up for some of the kids who have been through hard times in their lives…
I didn’t know this when I first arrived at the country. We were told AIDS was big here, but our contact said it was from polygamy. Well, a small part of it is. I learned later from another team’s contact the bigger issue: Rape. Apparently it’s not uncommon for a girl, of any age, to be taken advantage of at any time, any place. A girl could be going to fetch water for her family, and if a man is nearby and feels like it, he can rape her on the spot. It’s not illegal or looked down upon here. WHAT???!!! I heard a story of a girl who was kidnapped from her home in the middle of the night by a local taxi driver, taken for the night, and returned in the morning. Now this innocent 16-year-old girl is pregnant and the parents don’t really mind. For a girl, in some places here, it’s considered an honor that a man would want to be with you. If they don’t, it’s an insult and there must be a problem with them. Such lies!! What kind of messed up emotions/thoughts will these poor girls have about themselves??
Places more in the bush villages are witch doctors assigned to families. If a person has AIDS, the witch doctor will tell them that the cure is to sleep with a virgin. Again—WHAT??!! The problem is, having this disease is not talked about here. People wait and wait to get tested or maybe never do until it’s too late. And because it’s not talked about, they are harboring damaging emotional problems too. Culture or not, criminal acts like that touch a person’s soul, therefore creating a deep scar in their hearts.
My thought was, why am I at this preschool? What about all the lied to, dying people around me? But God showed me my ministry here. Some of these kids come from some hard homes. For example, one kid I’m close to never leaves my side. He’s always holding my hand, wanting to sit on my lap, and runs out to the road to greet me. Very sweet. Until one day, he looked at me and started pinching the back of my arm so hard! Weird. Outside he still followed me but was acting so different. We were all tripping out. I wanted to avoid him at recess, but I heard God tell me “Love him”. I decided to hold him on my lap. I could feel him relax in my arms for a few minutes until he sat up and started punching my arms! I just gently put them down and held him closer and he just relaxed again. Later I asked the teacher his story and she told me that no one really loves him at home. He has a step mom that just yells, hits him, or flat out neglects him and that’s why he’s jumpy and timid a lot. Just in that one story I knew why I was here. God wants me to love His precious, little ones. This is a country of hurt in many ways. God is calling me to treasure the ones who are still so innocent wanting and needing love in a pure way from our little preschoolers up to the older ones who come in the afternoon.
