Sawubona from ESwatini!
I have spent the past 5 weeks in ESwatini, also known as Swaziland, Africa! It has been such a sweet season filled with worship, good community, and days playing with kids on the playgrounds!
Our ministry while here was working at Care Points! These have a playground, and outdoor kitchen, and a small concrete room. They have several cooks who are usually grandmas from the surrounding village, and a Shepherd who is like a mentor. They used to be a care point kids and then are raised up and can go to training to takeover a Care Point.
Care Points are a place for kids to come during the day and get food while their parents are gone at work. Most parents leave early in the morning for work before their children are awake, and don’t return until late when the kids are already ready for bed. If the kids aren’t in school then they will just stay home by themselves. The Care Points give them a place to come to hangout with other kids, the cook and shepherd, and Racers like us when we are here!
The goal of being at the care points is to love the children like Jesus does since at home they don’t always get a lot. The littles just loved being held and hugged! We spent lots of time doing the monkey bars, or playing “Tosh!” (Tag), or being used as a pillow for nap time.
Another cool thing about the Care Points is that the kids get food there! Every day the cook would cook the exact same food boxes many of us have gone to church events to package before! The rice mixture would boil over a huge pot on a fire every day. For lots of kids this was probably their only meal of the day. They would bring bowls and plates to get filled to the brim. You would see lots of kids taking extra home for their siblings too.
My team and 4 guys from our squad were paired up as a “mega team” for this country and all worked at the same Care Point! We got to hangout with our shepherd, Nosipho, and learned how much fun she is!! And how awesome she is for the kids!
We usually started our mornings with a little worship session or Bible study before kids got there. Then we would help out around the Care Point until the kids started showing up. There was usually a couple kids not in school who came in the morning, a handful who came after preschool at 2, another group from the elementary school at 2:30, and all the middle school and high school kids who started coming around 3:30.
It was so fun to become friends with the kids and get to see them every day!
Another fun part of ESwatini was living together with the whole squad of 50 people for the first time since November! With quite literally no where to go outside of base and nothing to do we spent plenty of quality time together! We spent HOURS playing card games, spike ball, wiffle ball, soccer, you name it! A highlight of this country for me was getting watch my friendships on the squad blossom over this month!
I also have a fun little story to share! Back in Guatemala, on our last day of ministry, I was helping our ministry host clean out some shelves. We found a small stuffed animal lamb and she gave it to me and told me to find a baby on our last activation day evangelizing in Parramos. I did not end up finding a baby that day, but kept the lamb in my back pack. I have prayed for the lamb and asked the Lord to show me the baby He wanted me to give it to. So for the past several months this lamb has lived in my backpack waiting for its little child.
During our time in ESwatini I made a little buddy who we call Nugget! He’s too little to understand English and tell us his real name, but he pretty quickly learned to respond to the name Nugget. He and I were usually nap time buddies. But when he wasn’t sleeping that little dude was so funny!
So on our last day of ministry here I decided to give Nugget the special lamb! I knew I wanted my little friend to have a reminder of how much the good shepherd Jesus loves him! As I walked away to leave the Care Point for the final time I saw him swinging around and hugging his new lamb. And as I sat third row in the van on the way home I was reminded of the time I sat third row of the on the way home in Guatemala praying for the little lamb in my lap and the child I would give it to. Saying goodbye to all the kids is so hard, but we know we’re leaving them covered in prayer!
Now we head on to our final country of the world race!!!! What!!! Jeffery’s Bay, South Africa!!! So excited for all the Lord has planned for us there. 48 more days left and I’m expectant that they will continue to be even better than the last!
The rice pot!
Nugget with his lamb!
