11 Days In

In many ways, I can't believe that I've been back here for 11 days!  In some ways it feels like I just got here, but other ways it feels like I've been here a while!  I feel like I have definitely jumped into the deep end instead of wading into the shallow end of full time ministry here, but the last couple of weeks have been great with many busy days but an overall slower pace of life.  I'm getting settled into my house (newly remodeled with a few quirks to still be worked out) and hope to start buying furnishings for it this weekend!  Here's a bullet point list to a few things I've been up to while here:
- visiting people & reconnecting in relationships
- home visits to an ailing Gogo (grandma) & Ntombi (woman with bad wound on her foot from a burn in 1996)
- serving alongside & leading our 8 Swazi ministry partners
- meeting with the other missionary family here to get all of the information I needed before they left for a 2 month trip last weekend
- working with another non-profit & the community to get construction started for a new carepoint building
- coordinating hospital visits for several people (including accompanying a woman with cancer to a hospital in South Africa)
- planning & preparing for the 6 teams that we will host to come serve this summer
- attending a 5 hour Swazi birthday/anniversary party at a homestead (if I didn't stand out enough for being the only white person, I was also the only person eating with a spoon instead of my hands!)
- attending church

There have been many other things as well, I'm sure, but this is what I can remember at this point.  We are getting ready to harvest some of the crops from the garden for the kids at the carepoint at the center, so praise God for the gifts that have come in to help make that possible!
Through it all, God continues to remind me that He doesn't need me here & I'm not anyone's savior...but He is choosing to work through me & in doing so drawing me deeper into relationship with Him.

"Only fear the Lord and serve Him faithfully with all your heart.  For consider what great things he has done for you."

1 Samuel 12:24