Arriving in Swaziland was amazing.
For some reason, in my head, I pictured red dirt roads like Uganda and flat nothingness for miles.
Swaziland is the exact opposite of everything I expected.
It is full of rolling hills covered with beautiful green trees and vivid colors everywhere you look. Sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking, and at night…the stars are like nothing I've ever seen before. When I walk from my hut (it gets dark here by 6pm) I get to look up and marvel at the incredible sky, filled with bright stars and the stinkin’ Milky Way. Crazy right?! God's beauty is all over this country. We are living in grass/mud huts just off of the main road. Yes, there is even a road…a real paved road, that we get to run on every morning!!
Life is incredible here yet it is also so incredibly heart breaking.
Since we have arrived, we have experienced eight deaths. Three family members of our contact and five patients from the hospital that we go to each morning to pray over the patients.
Each time I got news that one of the patients had died…my heart sank. IN most cases I had just been to pray the day before. I had laid hands on each precious, sick body and prayed that God, The Healer, would heal their bodies. I looked in their eyes and tried to give them hope. One was a grandmother, or "coco" and one, was a four year old baby girl. My heart aches remembering the hope of the four year olds mom. She squeezed my hand after I prayed over her weak body the day before she died. I did not get to meet all of the others but it is still so heavy on my heart as each day I am reminded how much death is here in this country.
Have you ever experienced death?
I have, but not like this. I haven't seen or felt so much death before. There is sadness. There is pain. There is heartache.
In these moments of pain…I immediately turn to God and ask why. I am reminded of my own life, and question why my life was spared when there is so much death around me. I question why He healed me, yet precious babies and grandmothers are dying in hospital beds at any moment here.
Eight deaths…in nineteen days. How do you handle that? How do the Swazi people handle it?
In these moments, my faith is tested…it is stretched. I have to surrender my broken heart and my questioning mind and trust in The Constant Creator.
I needed air.
I walked through the beautiful land around our home. I spoke out loud, cried out and asked why. And then I thanked Him. I thanked Him for each moment I should have died and didn't. For each time He saved my life when I didn’t deserve it. I laid down my sadness and chose to praise him for His goodness despite the despair and pain surrounding me here.
Swaziland is a beautiful country. One of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is also one of the saddest and poorest countries I have ever been in. There is beauty and death all around. How could such a beautiful place be filled with so much despair.
It is a pretty accurate picture of life. We can choose to see the beauty and continue to spread hope and light to others, or we can be brought down by the overwhelming sadness, brokenness, and poverty of life. This is why we NEED a Savior. We need His spirit of peace, joy, and hope inside of us despite the circumstances and trials of this broken and hurt-filled world.
I have been reading a Psalms a day and it has helped restore my joy. Who better to learn about steadfast praise from than David, a man who was described as having a heart after God's own heart. Some psalms, He cries out in despair, yet He is always praising and thanking Him. I have a lot to learn from David. But each day, I have decided to be thankful for where I am, for all He has done in my life, and for each moment I get to love on a beautiful Swazi woman or pray over a sweet baby who is malnourished and whimpering in pain in a hospital bed. I will choose to cherish each moment I have here instead of being overcome with sadness for this country.
I will be thankful as I run miles over rolling hills with some of my best friends and sisters. I will pray for the families here in Swaziland and trust that God is good no matter how much sadness and pain is around me. I will choose to run to my new friends here with smiles and joy and big hugs. I will look at the stars each night and marvel at how delicately He created this earth for you and for me.
I may never understand death or why there is so much poverty, disease, and brokenness in Swaziland. But I will choose to spread light and live a life following Him with hope that someday He will restore the brokenness and death of Swaziland, just a He has in my own life.
