Hello (sanibonani in Swazi) from the southern hemisphere, friends! Our squad has officially made it to Swaziland, or Eswatini – a small, landlocked country in the south of Africa surrounded by the counties of South Africa and Mozambique. It’s a very green, mountainous land with under 2 million inhabitants, and it’s the last absolute monarchy in Africa. We’re starting ministry here on Tuesday after spending Monday learning our way around town!
How did we get all the way to this location, you may ask? Let me briefly explain to you our 3-day “travel day” schedule… 😆
WEDNESDAY
- headed to the airport in Guatemala City around 8pm
- after chilling at the airport for awhile, our flight departed at 1:30am
THURSDAY
- our flight from Guatemala landed in Houston at 5am
- we had several hours to spend in the airport – which was mostly spent getting food and sleeping on chairs and the floor 😂
- our next flight left around 12pm
- our flight from Houston landed in Newark around 5pm
- got food and wandered around until boarding for our final flight, which left at 10pm
FRIDAY
- stayed on the plane pretty much all day for a grand total of 14.25 hours!
- on the plus side: we all got sleep and two meals
- finally landed in Johannesburg around 6:30pm
- got picked up at the airport around 8pm by AIM staff and went to a guest house for the night
SATURDAY
- repacked our things, got in the van and drove for 6 hours
- we had one stop for food at a rest stop/nature park where we got to see ostriches and water buffaloes, and one stop for the border crossing into Swaziland
Thus, we finally made it to the AIM Eswatini base around 3pm on Saturday! Nearly 60 hours of travel total and some major sleep deprivation (at least for me since I do not have the gift of sleeping anywhere at any time… yet, anyway 😂), but we made it! The past couple days have been a time of transition: learning our way around, making schedules, and adjusting to the whole squad being together all the time. There are already many things that I’m noticing are different here – the next 3 months will be interesting for sure! I’m trusting that the Lord has a good plan for all that’s to come.
Salani kahle (bye) for now!
