Week 3 In A Picture

Lettuce & Spinach from the garden; Gogos cutting fabric for Timbali purses; Ponado & Tembelihle running to the carepoint for breakfast; Sponghile & Lindane/Benjamin (who was almost born in my car in September)

1996

I think I was still wearing flannel shirts in 1996 & listening to Nirvana at high school basketball camp.  I probably still had bangs that I curled up every day before school.  I had just gotten my driver's license & was working at a coffee shop.  I remember seeing "Forrest Gump" and "Independence Day" at the drive in movie theater that summer.  It was before cell phones & internet were big, before long distance was free, before dvds, before ipods, before Chipotle burritos!  

But half way around the world that year, a woman named Ntombi had a life changing experience by stumbling into a fire.  I have heard a couple of versions of her story, but don't know really what happened to her to make her body appear like she has CP or had a stroke.  What her father told me when I met him back in 2009 was that something happened to her to make her body more disabled, and shortly after that she stumbled into the fire & burned her foot.  They live more than 5 miles from a paved road, with no transportation themselves, so it was up to their primitive living to try to keep her wound clean so it would heal.

So much has happened in my life since 1996 - graduations from high school, college, seminary.  Serving in ministry in a few different places, watching both of my sisters get married & having 5 nieces & nephews.  Moving to Denver & buying a condo.  Watching our world change as 9/11 happened & technology continued to grow so quickly.  In some ways it seems like 1996 was just yesterday & I was just 16...but it was 16 years ago...half of my life so far.

And while the world was changing & growing & experiencing so much, Ntombi's life didn't change much at all.  Her family continued to live on their homestead at the base of the mountain, her father farming, raising animals & providing for her family.  Ntombi sitting in the dirt, unable to move much & crippled by whatever happened to her & the burn on her foot.  Day after day went by, year after year went by & nothing much changed.  

In 2009, when I met Ntombi for the first time, I thought she was a 12 year old boy.  I saw her wound treated by a traveling doctor that fall, but then didn't know what happened to her until I came back to visit her this fall...two years later.  Unfortunately, her wound hadn't been cared for & had grown from the size of a large coin to the size of a baseball, caving in the side of her foot & causing her toes to be distorted.  We brought her down to the clinic, but there wasn't much more that the nurse could do besides clean it to prevent infection.  The wound was so deep & broad that it would take much more than any of us could provide to help it heal.

Cleaning the wound & changing the dressing last week.

Our ministry partners have gone back at least once a week since then to change the dressing on her wound & there have been nurses on teams that have cared for her wound...but it's all changing TODAY!  We have made the decision to take Ntombi to the hospital today & are praying that the doctors can somehow help her wound to close.

As I sat at her homestead the other day, amidst the pigs, goats, chickens, & donkeys, overlooking the vast valley, we made a plan with her father on how we would get her to the hospital.  He said, up to us it is not going to happen, but we know that God is in this & we pray for the wound to heal so that she can have her joy & her smile back. 

Something happened in 1996 to Ntombi that changed her life.  I will never know the details to that story (unless maybe she & I can sit & have coffee in heaven, with her able to speak & both of us understanding one another), but God willing, something will happen in 2012 that will change her life & she will be free of pain & suffering in her foot & able to live joyfully again. 

You Have Made Your People See Hard Things...

I would be the first to confess that I have a sensitive mind & somewhat of a photographic memory.  I would glance at the tv guide once & have the programs memorized for the week.  Even today I got a text asking for the code for the church voicemail & could still remember it from seeing it on the sticker on my desk.  Many times this was a great way to be wired (for school especially!) but it also has had its drawbacks.  I couldn't watch movies that other people did because the images (especially violent ones) would stay in my head so long afterwards.  I would be intentional about guarding my mind just so that those images wouldn't be continually in my brain.  

But I haven't been able to guard my mind as well in Swaziland, and there are many images that still come to mind, even though they happened years ago and as I continue to hear stories & get to know people, the images continue to stay on my mind & I won't soon forget - 

- seeing a ministry partner standing in the rain in the beam of my headlights, holding a child he found hiding under a bush from the rain

- seeing a one year old boy minutes after his mother died, leaving him an orphan

- seeing a woman grieve & prepare to bury her 27 year old daughter

His face will always stay in my mind as the first boy I saw orphaned
as his mother passed away at 27 years old, just after his first birthday

- seeing a 26 year old handicapped man live every day in the dirt in the shade behind his house

- seeing a 3 year old throw rocks at fully grown cows to keep them away from her as she walked home

- seeing a 9 year old caring for a 4 month old

- seeing a 2 year old walk to & from the carepoint on her own

- seeing a single mother sitting in her tiny mud hut telling me about how she stands & holds the baby in the one dry spot when it rains so that she doesn't get dripped on

- seeing people save any scrap of food & put it in a plastic bag in their purse to take home to share with family members

- seeing a grandmother in tears as she tells how she had to send her grandchildren into less than desirable homes to live because she couldn't afford to feed them & care for them

- seeing people pass a bowl of water around to drink out of

- seeing wounds on a child's feet from where mice nibbled at them while he slept

Not all of life is that difficult, but there are definitely moments in Swaziland where I swallow back the tears welling up in my eyes & almost wish I didn't have to see what I see or hear what I hear.  But I was struck today by what David wrote in Psalm 60:3:

"You have made your people see hard things" 

 David was writing this in the midst of a battle where Joab struck down 12,000 men.  I can't imagine the sight of all of that death in that valley, but it is in seeing the hardest parts of life & death that I am reminded that God's grace goes deeper than the depth of human need & suffering.  Sometimes we just see hard things in life, and it's ok not to gloss over them & try to run ahead to something more joyful.  And just as water soaks into the cracks, God's grace pours down deep into the cracks of humanity & He is sovereign over it all.  Every part of creation groans for the final day of restoration....and sometimes it's just hard to see the pain & suffering caused by sin in a world that isn't there yet. 

Swazi Definitions

So I've realized that there are several words I write about a lot when talking about Swaziland, so here are a few quick definitions to help:

~ gogo's - grandmothers/older ladies/widows - These are the women who hold this society together & many times care for several grandchildren & neighborhood kids while parents are working or have died or have abandoned their children.  We have several gogos who volunteer to cook at our carepoints for the children of those areas.

~ carepoints - feeding centers - These are the 10 places around this part of the country where the women volunteer to cook & meals are served 5 or 6 days a week.  Many kids walk long distances to these carepoints for food, and for many people this is the only meal they get each day.  We have 1 gogo at each care point who is the "teacher" and voluteers to teach a Bible lesson each day.  Each carepoint cooks for anywhere from 15 to 60 kids each day.

~ ministry partners - these are the 8 full time Swazis that I work alongside of & have the privilege to lead.  They range in age from 20 to 32 & 4 are men & 4 are women.  Half of them are the D(discipleship) Team & prepare lessons & go to carepoints & teach the teachers so that they can teach the kids.  These 4 also help coordinate a lot of our home visits to people in the community.  The other half are our facilities/operations team & they do everything from logistics, vehicles, medical clinic aid, garden, building projects, getting food to the 10 carepoints, and much more.

~ the anchor center - our main carepoint - This is the piece of property given to AIM, where our team house is located, there is a pastor's house, a preschool, a church & a medical clinic.

~ orphans - child who has lost one or both parents - There are different designations based on how many parents a child has lost (double orphan=both parents gone).  Many children are cared for by extended family after parents pass away or when they get work somewhere.  Statistically, close to 20% of Swaziland's population are orphans.

~ OVC - orphaned or vulnerable children - Just because a child has a living parent or two doesn't mean that life is easy.  Many children care for themselves all day while parents are working & older siblings frequently care for younger siblings (today I saw a 2 & 3 year old walking to the carepoint together for food - no adult in sight, but this is a normal thing)

Not Just Culture Shock...Life Shock

As I moved over to Swaziland, I had talked to several current & former missionaries about culture shock & knew a little bit about what to expect.  But what I wasn't thinking enough about was what I've lived out the past two weeks & can only describe it as "life shock":

~ going from a community where I know & am known at a fairly deep level to going to a place where the longest I've known anyone is 3 years (off & on at that)

~ going from a city of 3 million people to a very rural part of a country who's total population is 1 million people

~ going from driving on the right side of the road (and the turn signal being on the left side of the steering wheel) to driving on the left side of the road

~ going from stopping for any pedestrian to having the right away for any person (which is harder to remember when I'm walking & have to know that no one is going to stop & let me cross)

~ going from fences to keep animals in to where fences keep animals out

~ going from leadership in church to attending a church where I am the one who doesn't speak the language or know what's going on in the service

~ going from a warm winter in Colorado to a warm winter in Swaziland (our "cool" day today was still over 80)

~ going from meeting with 10+ people a week to serving alongside all Swazis in ministry

~ going from being part of a team on a church staff to leading a team of ministry partners

~ going from living in community with a family to living alone

~ going from immediate accessibility to anything I needed to having to drive 45 minutes to the grocery store

~ going from spring where it's staying light later & later to winter where it's dark by 6pm each night

These first couple of weeks in the country have been great to get back into the swing of things here, but it's also been very challenging as I adjust every aspect of my life to redefine normal for me.  The one constant in it all is the Lord...and I'm living out the statement "Home is where the heart is"...and I am constantly praying that God would continue to direct my heart back to Him, no matter what my circumstances around me might be.

Week 2 In A Picture

Sanele dancing             Tembelihle                    Nelly          

into his birthday party                                                             

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