A Day In The Life...

Many people have told me that they are living vicariously through me...well, if that's the case, here's what today was like!

6:19am - phone rings with property guy outside ready to look at the water issue in my shower

6:22am - open the door to let him in to see the shower

6:23am - turn off my alarm that was set to go off at 6:25am

6:45am - turn on the hot water pot to heat water for coffee

6:48am - other guys come to repair my water pressure pump & tell me that they need to turn off the power 

6:49am - say a prayer of thanksgiving that the only thing I can do the next couple of hours is sit with my coffee & my Bible & my journal

7:03am - repair guy asks if I have a knife (which I realize they are going to use as a screwdriver so I give them my multi-tool)

7:04am - laugh to myself as they say "Thanks madam" for letting them use my multi-tool

7:25am - hear water gushing out as they change the pump really fast...and Swazi men giggling the whole time they are repairing my water pump

7:45am - turn on the electricity to discover the pump is working as we check all of the faucets

7:52am - hear "Madam?! Madam?! can we turn off the power again?" after one of the Swazi repair men who was standing in water wash shocked

8:15am - get so sick of hearing birds fly into my windows that I videotape it to show my nieces & nephews

8:40am - hear something in the bathroom, realize that one of the birds actually got in the bathroom so now I have to get it out (which I did successfully)

9:00am - head to the Anchor Center to begin my day (dodging cows, goats, pigs, chickens & people along the way)

9:50am - chase a chicken & goat away from the teamhouse door so they don't enter

10:16am - get a call from a ministry partner in Zimbabwe just calling to say hi

10:30am - pick onions from the garden to take to the carepoints

10:45am - water the watermelon plants in the small garden and wonder if they will actually make it through the heat, sun, goats, chickens & kids to produce fruit

11:08am - watch a truck pull in full of bananas to give out to the kids (they stopped by a couple of our carepoints & each kid & adult got to take home at least 6 bananas)

11:51am - head home to pick up a few things & have a moment where I remember I live in Africa & wonder if I am driving on the correct side of the road (and then breathe a sigh of relief when I realize I'm ok)

1:06pm - get a call that the 1:00 meeting has been postponed (that was actually postponed from 10am)

2:50pm - watch a farmer drive his tractor to the clinic on our property

3:57pm - drive up to Nsoko to drop off a ministry partner & switching between having the windows up so we can talk & rolling them down so that we don't overheat (no AC, no fan)

4:37pm - skype with my niece & nephews & sister

5:50pm - start making banana bread to thank the workers who fixed my water & a couple of other people who are helping me out the next few days with things

6:14pm - try to upload a 21 second video to facebook 

6:17pm - give up on uploading the video & return some emails

8:07pm - have another moment where I realize I live in Africa & need to go sweep up all of the dead insects & layer of dust off of my floor before there are 10 more tomorrow

8:35pm - am blessed to get a call from a friend in the US only to have skype drop the call 10 minutes in to it

8:57pm - enjoy a nice shower with water pressure before relaxing, reading, journaling & calling it a day

Back To The Blogging World

Wow, it's been a while since I've actually blogged.  There is so much to process each day that many days I feel like I could write a book (if I had enough energy at the end of the day)!  It's hard to know what to share & how much & when because so many life situations here are so delicate & I try to think through how I would feel about someone sharing about my family & friends with people I won't ever meet.  But with that said, I am going to continue blogging & will be making more time for it now that the busy couple of months are over!

From the beginning of May to the middle of August, 103 people came through Nsoko to serve in one way or another!  It was a blessing to get to serve alongside these teams & lead them as they blessed the people of Nsoko.  The teams were from all across the US, and from 10 years old to 67 years old, but came ready to allow God to use them to continue the work He has begun here in Nsoko!  Here are a few of my favorite moments from those times with teams:

~ watching high school kids from Colorado pray over every one of the 100 kids as they left the carepoint one day

~ hearing from a nurse about her friend just got diagnosed with a rare cancer in the US only to have her go on a home visit to follow up on one of our people & find out it was the same type of cancer

~ seeing a older woman read the Bible with her sponsored child & then go play ball with a young boy

~ watching the teams help people in the community carry water back to their homesteads

~ seeing a couple who had left their 3 children back in the US meet their sponsored child with tears in their eyes

~ laying on the top of the shipping container with a few people from California while looking at the stars & talking about how big God is (and how little we know about astronomy)

~ watching Swazis & Americans work alongside of each other to build a carepoint, a house, a couple of playgrounds, and a church

~ seeing adult team members go sit on the floor with the kids at church

~ hearing the ministry partners share about how much they have grown serving alongside people who know the Bible & aren't afraid to quote it while on home visits

~ seeing a compassionate mother cry as she hears about the loss of a child in the community

~ watching a high school girl play the guitar & teach English worship songs to a 14 year old blind Swazi boy 

~ seeing people get Bibles for the first time & God awaken their hearts to His Word

~ watching teams pray over the ministry partners

~ seeing God build church partnerships & be glorified as people come together to worship Him

~ seeing a pastor's wife with tears in her eyes as a team gives her a study Bible for her husband (who works full time an hour and a half away from the church he pastors)

~ hiking off trail through the African bush early one morning with a team

~ watching people step out of their comfort zones to serve in ways that they wouldn't normally serve to reach the people God has called them to serve

There are so many more, but I praise God for the people He brought through Nsoko this summer & am praying that they each continue to pray for the people that God placed on their heart & in their lives while they were here!

Week 18 In Two Pictures

Cross in a waiting room at the hospital where I spent Tuesday with two of our community members;
the finished plastering of the front wall of the earth bag house;
the church at Mahlabaneni with the walls up to the roof;
the carrots from the garden.

Hanging out with Dumsile & Fesiwe;
with Spunky at her Lobola;
Pastor Bheki & Mxolisi leading our first communion at the church at the center;
Sphekile at one week old.

Week 17 In A Picture

New Hope Team & Ministry Partners at my house for dinner;
standing in line at the grocery store when the computers were out & everything was written down by hand;
the team on the last day of construction on the earth bag house;
a man in traditional clothes working on his laptop at Hlane.

Week 16 In Two Pictures

Cabbages, Candles & Chicken Wire in the back of the car for home visits & house building this week;
purlins being put up on the roof of the earth bag house;
Thandi & Nombalin cooking a Swazi meal in my kitchen;
golf ball size hail that bounced under my metal roof.

Mbutfu building with the skirting painting finished;
team showing Alvina a video from her prayer partner in Pennsylvania;
beautiful & hardworking Khanysile;
James & Sanele in the church at Mahlabaneni as the walls continue to go up.

Week 15 In A Picture

The spinach leaf bigger than my water bottle; James & Sabelo in front of the
walls going up at the church at Mahlabaneni; Zola (blind 14 year old boy) exploring the
buttons of the car as I drove him back to school since the teacher
strike isn't as bad now; the sign to Johannesburg at a gas station on the
way to pick up a team at the airport.

O-bla-dee, O-bla-dah, Life Goes On...

As with most any day here in Swaziland, the skies are blue and the breeze is steady.  I gaze out the doorway of the hut, looking past our sandals to the tall trees at the edge of the yard.  The "Africa Tree" is what everyone calls these tall, skinny trees sticking up out of what looks like the Agave plant.  Goats meander by the door, stopping to look in & sniff, but then chase after each other on their way.  I can hear the kids talking as they walk home from school & the cars going by.  Life goes on in Nsoko. 
Yet as I sit inside this hut on an unfamiliar homestead, life is all but going on.  I am sitting with a young single mother who has hardly any family left, who is HIV+, who has never been to school, who lives in a mud & stick house that she built herself.  She is wearing the outfit she wears most days - a blue t-shirt, black skirt & striped soccer socks.  Yet she has an accessory on today that reminds me that while life goes on outside the hut, today is different.  She is wearing a piece of black fabric around her neck & around her waist because she is in mourning.  Life for her (and for all who know her) is different today because her 10 month old baby has passed away all too soon. 
His short & sweet life brought us together as she almost gave birth in my car last September.  The next week, as I picked her up while she was walking home from the clinic in a lightning storm, she asked me to give her son, Lindane, an English name.  I had just been reading in Genesis 35 about Rachel & Jacob - how she called their son Ben-oni (meaning "son of my sorrow") and he called him Benjamin (meaning "son of my right hand").  I have always loved the name Benjamin, and thought it was fitting that this woman whose life had been full of sorrow so far have a son named as a helper in her life. 
Yet here we are a short 10 months later, and her baby boy is already buried in the ground.  As we sit in the hut, talking, crying, praying, laughing & just sitting, I am frustrated that life went on as normal outside.  That she had been sitting alone in mourning all day until we came to see her.  But I remember that in this culture, death happens more often than new life & birth. And as we talk about what gives us hope in these hard circumstances, I began to remind her of a hymn that we sang as I was growing up.  As soon as I said the first line, my bilingual friend with me smiled & said "we have that song in Siswati too."  So as life for her changed, and as life for Benjamin ended on this earth, we reminded ourselves of the truth that "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.  Because He lives, all fear is gone.  Because I know He holds the future.  And life is worth the living just because He lives."  And while life goes on...in Swaziland and around the world...my life is forever changed because of the 10 months that I knew Benjamin.