Sanibonani (hello) everybody!
I hope you are all doing well. My group left training camp and after two 11 hour flights, a 9 hour layover in Turkey, and 6 hour bus ride we arrived in Eswatini! The country is sooooo beautiful. It is so green, full of wildlife, and the people that live here are so joyful and friendly. After the long travel days, we had a day to unpack and get settled. After the day of rest, our lovely ministry hosts gave us an orientation and prepared us for ministry.
This week of ministry consisted of one ATL (Ask The Lord) day on Monday and Care Point Ministry Tuesday through Friday. The Ask The Lord Day was in Manzini on Monday. An ATL day is a dedicated day where we let prayer guide us to where we feel the Holy Spirit was leading us to. It was a new experience for me, but complete reliance on the Holy Spirit and the ability to discern what it is saying is something I now strive to work on more actively. We were able to pray for people in need and were able to have many fruitful conversations this Monday.
Tuesday through Friday we go to care points at either 8:30 am or 9:30 am to play with, feed, take care of, and teach kids until the evening. They are all so loving, sweet, and awesome! We have babies up until 18 years old so there are lots of kids. The magays (mothers) are the caregivers at the care points. They taught us how to teach the kids, feed them, and more. They are amazing hosts. It was very cool getting to know their stories better.
This week was amazingly eye opening, and I’m so incredibly grateful for the chance to serve these people and be apart of their community! My team and squad mates are great, and even though it is hard to embrace different cultural norms and expectations from America it has been so rewarding and completely worth it! Eswatini is amazing.
I can’t wait to see what God has in store for me, for my squad, and for the kiddos! Thank you again for all your support. Next week is another very hot week, so prayer for health for my whole squad would be very appreciated. We have a sickness going around so prayer for protection and healing would be amazing too!
Have a wonderful week ! Let me know if you have any prayer requests.
Kate Bowdoin <3
