Catching Up - Esikhaleni

Five years ago, in September of 2009, I drove for the first time up a bumpy, rocky road, through the military barracks to a stick structure on the side of the road where there were a few kids who were eating & playing...and crying because of the new white faces that were there.  Those first few weeks they would cry every time we went to do ministry there because the only white people they had ever met had given them shots for immunizations.  It has been a humbling experience to see God connect this carepoint & community with people who have invested physically, spiritually, emotionally, prayerfully, and financially in the community.  So that now when you drive up there, you see the large fenced in area, a building where the church meets twice a week, the cooking structure and small classroom that have become a refuge for the children of the community and a light of Christ's light to the watching community!  Here's a video that the visiting team made from this year's trip, and below are a few pictures from over the last 5 years of God's work in this community!

The carepoint in 2009 consisted of this wooden building
(notice the gaps between the sticks in the back!)

The carepoint in 2009.

Pastor Todd & Mxolisi serving the first communion
for the church in 2013.

The carepoint as seen from Tholiwe's homestead.

Everyone pitched in to help get the building
finished before rainy season in 2012!

Gogo Alexinah brought & planted these flowers around
the community building where the church meets. 

The small classroom a the carepoint.

The dedicated gogos (& Bhekabantu).

A Swazi Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving in Swaziland is never a dull holiday, but I have a feeling that in several years, I will forget the odd things that have happened over the years as I have celebrated this American holiday in a different country.  The count now is that 2 years I have celebrated with chicken and 2 years I have celebrated with turkey.  But this year, I cooked the turkey myself, and so am writing this for your entertainment but also because I don't want to forget the uniqueness of this Thanksgiving!  Though many parts of this are normal for life here, I know that it is so different from what a lot of you have experienced this holiday, so I thought I would share. 

How To Have Thanksgiving In Swaziland...

1.  At the beginning of November, start asking about pumpkins and turkeys.  You can't assume that either will be sold in a grocery store, so it's time to start asking around the community & keeping your eyes open for homesteads that have both.  I remember last year seeing a friend pushing pumpkins in a wheelbarrow, so she was the first person I asked where I could get one.  Unfortunately, people aren't growing them this time of year, but lucky for me, there were 2 pumpkins at the grocery store the next week!

2.  Once you find a homestead to buy a turkey from, negotiate the price and make a plan to go buy one.  I found out this year that you shouldn't tell people you are going to butcher a turkey, because then they will give you the sick or old one.  But you also shouldn't tell them you want to raise turkeys because then they will sell you one with small chicks. 

3.  The week of Thanksgiving, go buy the turkey.  We had made a plan to pick up the turkeys on a Monday, but when we called the homestead to tell them what time we would be there, they said no one would be home until Friday.  So...starting from scratch again, we called anyone we knew who had turkeys for sale.

Mxolisi making sure that he is understanding the
directions from our 10 year old guide down this
driveway/road/hiking trail.

4.  Find another turkey to buy.  On Tuesday afternoon, we found another homestead with turkeys for sale, so began the 35 minute drive to the homestead to get the (live) turkey.  We followed dirt roads, hidden driveways, and still couldn't find the homestead (though at one point we saw it from a distance), and so stopped to ask a 10 year old boy if he knew where the homestead was.  It just so happened that he lived there & was on his way home from the store, so we gave him a ride & he led us to the driveway (more of a hiking trail) to his home.  

5.  Pick up the turkey.  Once at the homestead, one of the young girls helped her older sister carry the turkey to us & tie it up, while another kid looked for another turkey to show us as well.  We explained again that we didn't want to buy a turkey with young chicks, so bought the one turkey, put it in the back of the car and left.

6.  Take the turkey home.  We drove the 35 minutes home with no incidents (and no turkey poop!), so much so that we forgot we had a turkey in the car and when it jumped as we turned, it scared both of us!

 
7.  Butcher the turkey.  Neither Mxolisi or I wanted to kill & clean the bird, so we asked Phindile if we could pay her to do it for us & she gladly agreed (knowing that her family would get the turkey feet, head, and all of the insides - which they fry up & enjoy!). 

8.  Pick up the turkey & put it in the fridge.  On Wednesday, we got the call that the turkey was finished, and so Mxolisi went (with a cookie sheet & trash bag) to pick up our Thanksgiving bird.  When he brought it home, we realized that it still had a lot of the neck on it, so we worked together to cut it down to a normal place.

9.  Give away the turkey neck.  I could muster up the strength to cook a turkey for the first time, but I wasn't about to attempt to boil the neck & do giblets, so we called our friend next door and offered him the turkey neck.  He was more than happy to take it & add it to the beans he was cooking for dinner that night!

10.  Stuff the turkey & put it in the oven.  On Thanksgiving morning, I got up at 5 with the hopes that the turkey would be stuffed & in the oven by 6am.  I had (wrongly) assumed that because the turkey fit on the cookie sheet that I use in the oven & had fit in the refrigerator, that it would fit in the oven.  But after I got it stuffed & the legs tied together & covered it in foil (no roasting bags here!), I tried to put it in the oven to find that it wouldn't fit at all.  I angled it & smashed it, but it just wouldn't work. *note to self, I should have made coffee first thing in the morning to make all of this more bearable*

11.  Try to make the turkey smaller.  So then I pulled it back out of the oven, uncovered it, retied the legs and tried again.  But it still didn't fit in the oven.

12.  Cut off parts of the turkey to make it smaller.  At this point, I was frustrated because Mxolisi was gone doing morning chores at his homestead, which meant that I would have to be the one to cut off the legs of the turkey!  I mustered up my courage & worked to get the legs cut off while wondering if the turkey would now fit in the oven & also how I would cook the legs.  

Phindile is the real hero of the day for
butchering & cleaning the turkey
but she also enjoyed the finished product!

13.  Call mom.  Thankfully it wasn't too late in Colorado, so I was able to call my mom & ask her advice.  I felt under pressure since there would be so many people at our Thanksgiving dinner & I was cooking one of the two turkeys to feed everyone!  I finally got the turkey wrapped in foil & once it was tilted at an angle so it wasn't too tall for the oven, I closed the door & started the timer.  The only option for the legs was to cook them in the crock pot, which actually worked well & had my house smelling great in no time!

Our Thanksgiving was a success & a memorable one - with 42 of us at one of the new families' houses down here.  And if I am asked to cook a turkey in the US, it can only get easier from here, right?

Random Ramblings- December 1

How in the world is it December 1 already?  I know I say this every month, but it seems like time is just flying by.  I have so many different thoughts & emotions that I am processing through in this season, but here are a few of them (that hopefully answer some of your questions too!)

~ Leaving AIM...Yes, it is true that after several years serving through AIM here in Nsoko, I will not be working with them anymore.  It has been a bittersweet decision and transition because the people I have served are like friends & family.  I can truly echo what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2:8, where he tells the church that he loved them so much that He was delighted to not only share the Gospel, but his life as well because they had become so dear to him.  These words mean so much more to me now as I say goodbye to the children who have become a part of my life & my days here in Nsoko!  I am finished in day to day ministry, and wrapping up some admin work over the next couple of weeks. 

~ Nsoko Ministry...Many of you have asked what will be happening with the Nsoko ministry, and in the Lord's provision, the Swazi staff are equipped (those of you who have been here know that already!) and there are two new families whom God has called to move to Nsoko!  Our full time staff now consists of Smanga, Phindile, Velaphi, Sanele, Celimpilo, Thandi, Nelly, and Nombali.  The Lord has called and equipped them to serve their people in difficult situations, but it's amazing to see the different ways He has gifted them uniquely and how they work together as a team!  Pray for them, and the Malloy & Spragg families as they all transition into serving together!

~ Processing...It's impossible to begin to process all the different emotions that I have felt over the last weeks & months, especially as life continues to unfold here.  In the midst of preparing my heart to say goodbye, I have been confronted once again with the reality of life (and death) here as we lost a little one year old this weekend to pneumonia.  There is a sense of relief & release as I pass the baton of shepherding this ministry to the new families, but also a continued burden as I am accountable for the difficult things I have seen, the stories I have heard, the physical and spiritual poverty that I have encountered. 

~ Heading To Colorado...We are still in the process of getting things in order to come to Colorado (packing our house, selling belongings, etc. as well as finishing the visa process).  We still don't have plane tickets or a date for when we will be coming across the ocean, but we will keep you updated as we know!  We believe that it will be best for the new families, the AIM Nsoko staff, and the Nsoko community if we aren't down here when the ministry year opens in January, so we will be staying elsewhere in Swaziland until we head to Colorado.

~ What Next...we don't know.  We are excited to take a break from the intensity of ministry here in Nsoko, to spend time with family and friends (many of whom Mxolisi has never met), to be a part of a thriving church, to meet my newest niece, to enjoy some snow...and so much more!  We are in the process of beginning to figure out what life in Colorado looks like (housing, jobs, etc.) and we will keep you updated!

~ World AIDS Day...I never know what to think on December 1 because my mind flashes with so many faces of people who have been wrecked by this horrible disease.  My heart goes out to those who were born with it, receiving it as their parents made poor decisions; my heart goes out to girls who didn't have a chance to pursue purity because it wasn't a choice they got to make for themselves, and now they find themselves with AIDS; my heart goes out to the women whose husbands brought it home and infected them; my heart goes out to those who have been misled by their churches and culture into thinking that sexual promiscuity is ok; my heart goes out to the 15 year old girl, that is the backbone of her family, that I bought lunch for last month so she could take her medicines, and the life that she is living completely based on the results of other people's decisions and behavior; my heart goes out to those who have graduated from high school without a basic biology class to understand how germs (and diseases!!) are spread; my heart goes out to the older generation who are burdened with caring for and providing for grandchildren and neighbor children; my heart goes out to the kids who have seen their parents pass away from this horrible disease; my heart goes out to people in this country who don't get the best treatment or have access to quality care.

~ Holidays in Swaziland...It's still hard to wrap my brain around Thanksgiving and Christmas being the hottest time of the year!  It's now tradition that mango picking begins around Thanksgiving, and the papayas are growing like weeds!  This year for Thanksgiving, we bought a turkey from a homestead and had a friend butcher & clean it, and I cooked a turkey for the first time!  We joined the other two American AIM families here in Nsoko, with a world race team, and all of our Swazi staff (42 people in all!).  Mxolisi and I will be spending Christmas here in Swaziland once again, with no official plans yet.

 

~ How Can We Pray For You...Pray how the Lord leads!  You can be praying through all of the areas I mentioned above, pray for our hearts as we pass the ministry on to the new families, pray for us as we prepare to say see you later to Mxolisi's family, pray for us as we prepare to step into life in Colorado (in the last 2 years I have spent less than 2 months in America!), pray for us to be able to process through heavy things on our hearts from this season of ministry, pray for our marriage, pray for the Lord to continue to draw us deeper into knowing Him, pray for the Lord to go ahead of us in the details He has planned for our life in Colorado. 

~ God is faithful...The more I reflect on how the Lord has worked to prepare me for this season of serving here in Swaziland, how He called me to this country I had never heard of, and how He allowed me to have a front row seat in watching how He is at work in the lives of people in these communities, the more humbled I am at His faithfulness and how He is fulfilling His promise of drawing people to Himself from every nation!  I could talk for hours about stories of His faithfulness day after day over the last several years.  And I ask that you join me in praising Him for the ways He is at work to make Himself known in this community and worshiped above all else!  He has been (and will be) faithful in my life and I am humbled to be living through this testimony that the Lord is alive and active and has redeemed me to be an ambassador of His grace!