I hope you guys
are prepared for this story. There
may not be a dry eye in the house because I know I’m still tearing up just
writing this. Great intro right?
So we’ve been in
Swazi almost a week and the children are so beautiful here. We’re staying at an AIM house that is
one of nine carepoints for the children in Nsoko. We get to go each morning to one of the other eight, but we
live at this one so we see these kids all the time. I have to admit, I’ve been nervous about asking God to break
my heart for these kids because I know it will be crazy hard to deal with. Once I finally got over myself and
opened up to God’s plan, it didn’t take long for my heart to break.
Manta, Sibusiso,
and Musa are three brothers that live not too far off of our property. They come to our carepoint and spend
pretty much the entire day here. I
think everyone here has connected with one of these three because they are some
amazing boys. These brothers are
staying with a family as a project foster care house because both of their
parents are out of the picture.
Manta is 11, Sibusiso is 9, and Musa is 5. It’s hard to imagine that being your only family, but when I
see the joy they have, it looks as though it doesn’t even faze them.
Yesterday, the
group that I have been going to carepoints with stayed at the base to help out
with this group. It has been fun
to travel to different areas, but I was excited to spend the whole day with
these boys. At one point during
the morning when we were doing our craft, Sibusiso was sitting between my legs,
Manta was hugging my right leg, and Musa was 
on my left one. As I looked at them I just began to
tear up for no reason. They would
just look back and smile at me and show me there paper from time to time and I
just couldn’t control how quickly my heart was breaking for them.
Luckily, there
weren’t many kids there yesterday and since these boys were older than most of
the kids, I just took them for a walk.
They wanted to show me there room which ended up being a mud and stick
hut that couldn’t be bigger than the average kitchen in a college student’s
apartment. When I walked in, they
made me stay outside for a second because they wanted their room to be perfect
before I came in. There are 6
people staying in this hut with one twin bed. The boys sleep on a blanket on a dirt floor. There’s not really a lot of tidying up
to do. I couldn’t feel sorry for
these boys because they definitely don’t feel sorry for themselves. They’re so excited to have a home. So we had a wrestling match on the
floor and then I took them out to get some sodas and Cheetos. The $3 I spent made them happier than I
imagined.
We came back home
for dinner and as we were eating, I knew the day wasn’t over. I couldn’t shake their room out of my
vision, so I asked the pastor if it would be ok if I invited the boys to stay
with me for a campout. The pastor
didn’t even hesitate to tell me yes and the second I told the boys, they didn’t
stop screaming with excitement. So
they helped me set the tent up and we even crammed a few mattresses in there
since they hadn’t really slept on one before. Even though it was pitch black when we finished set up, it
wasn’t near time to go to bed. So
Kimi gave me a bag of popcorn and I set up my computer for a movie night. The boys had never eaten popcorn and we
watched the first movie they had ever seen, Ice Age 3. They didn’t even care the movie was in
English because they had never seen one before and the animation was enough to
entertain them. They even hollered
at me for trying to stop the movie before the credits were over because they
wanted to see every second.
I knew it was
coming, but the second the movie was over, the boys were wired. So we decided to have a little late
night workout and a ninja wrestling competition. Once they were good and worn out, we climbed in the tent,
said our prayers and it didn’t take long for them to crash. I can’t say that it was my most restful
night of sleep with that many boys in one tent, but it was definitely one of
the best.
We woke up at
sunrise this morning and the boys were wired yet again. They helped me pack up the tent and
then they ran home to check in with their foster mom. I don’t want to leave these boys here…Maybe I’ll just stay…
Sorry for the lack of photos
in the next couple of blogs, the internet seems to be having a little trouble…
