We have been in Swaziland for a month now and we just arrived to Mozambique! If you watched the video at the bottom of this blog you can get an idea of what Swaziland looks like. Swaziland constantly takes your breath away with her beauty. She has the bluest skies I’ve ever seen (which is saying something because I live in Colorado), beautiful landscapes, exotic flowers, and most importantly wonderful people. However, looking past Swaziland’s beauty you begin to see brokenness, sickness, and corruption.
Swaziland is under the rule of a king. The king has complete control over everything including the health system, police, schools, and outside of the king there is nothing keeping these areas in check. The police can be corrupt, Bheki, a friend I met who is a contract builder, built a whole school months ago and he is still waiting to be paid, and I can’t even begin to start with the problems of the local health care agencies.
On top of the corruption that having a king can bring Swaziland has a huge HIV and AIDS epidemic. Going into the country I knew this was a problem but when you look down a line of children and start putting faces to the statistic that 1 out of every 2 people has AIDS… It’s absolutely heart breaking. Worse yet over 90% of the people of Swaziland are already infected with HIV and it is only a matter of time until it turns into AIDS.
Thandolwenkosi, a child we met at the kitchen we were building, has a chronic ear infection so some of our team took him to the hospital to get him checked out. When we got to the doctors he wanted to see the boys mother to get a medical history because chronic ear infections are normally a sure fire sign of at least HIV. His mother does happen to have HIV but we tested Thandolwenkosi anyway. Melanee and Lauren prayed for the boy before he got tested and by Gods grace and for Gods glory Thandolwenkosi is HIV negative!
This is just a glimpse into our amazing month at Fontoje, Swaziland. We will continue to pray for Hope Rises and for Corine. If you would like to support Corine and her efforts in Hope Rises you can check out this website- hoperisesafrica.com.
There is one God. He made the heavens and the earth. He loves me, He loves you, He loves the people of Swaziland. These are the things that will be imprinted in my head and on my heart after this amazing month in Fontotje, Swaziland.
