Pictures I Did Take...Part 2

Here are a few more...

What's In A Name?

One of my favorite things about the Siswati language is the depth of meaning in their words. Each person knows the meaning of their name, and often there are words that are so unique and specific in meaning that they carry a special significance. In church, our pastor used “basatwani”(I have no idea how to spell it, but this is what it sounds like) at the end of almost every sentence...and it is a word specifically for the people of God/family of God. It is more that just saying my brothers and sisters in Christ, but implies a deeper community and a sanctified people, set apart for the Lord. Last year when I was in Swaziland, we met a young woman who was unexpectedly pregnant and gave birth while we were still in the country. As I visited with her when her baby was a couple of weeks old, I asked her what her new daughter’s name meant...and wasn’t surprised when she said “God knew her in the womb”.
It is amazing to me how someone’s name isn’t merely their present identity, but is many times prophetic over their lives...the teacher who works endlessly to cook for the kids, teach the kids, make Timbali purses, as well as care for her own family is named Gcobile...meaning “one who does good works.” So I was excited and convicted as I met my special friend, a little 3 year old boy who my nephew and I will support, write to, and pray for over the next 15 years...and found out his name is Kuhlakani, which means “he prays.”
Praise God that He knows how He will wire us, gift us, burden us, and use us for His glory...and how He can move the hearts of parents to name their children in a way that declares this!

“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Psalm 139:16

Pictures I Did Take...

A lot of these are up on Facebook already, but I thought I would post a few of my favorites here too...it may take a couple of days' posts to do it!

Pictures I Didn't Take...

One of my traditions I have started doing on the plane ride home from anywhere is making a list of "Pictures I Didn't Take" on each trip. Most of the times, these are moments when it would just be impersonal and awkward to pull out a camera to take a picture during these special times; others I simply didn't have my camera with me...but for most of them, a camera wouldn't begin to capture the moment! Here are just a few from this trip:

• getting out of the van our last morning at the care point to have a little boy that I had been building relationship with all week walk over to me to pick him up
• knocking that same little boy over later that same day...I was standing at our van talking to our driver, and didn't realize this little boy had walked around the van to follow me, and was about to grab onto my leg, but I didn't see him and turned to walk away from the van and walked right into him.
  
• seeing the red sun set every afternoon over the hills as we drove on the bumpy, dusty, dirt road back to our hotel
• having random strangers and children wave to us as we drove past
  
• talking to myself, to remind myself I was driving in Africa on the left side of the road, as I drove one of the missionary's car to run an errand
• watching the women of the church give gifts to the pastor & his wife (for pastor appreciation Sunday) and pray for a long time over he & his wife
• seeing elementary aged kids caring for their younger brothers & sisters as if they were their parents
• watching a high school girl's eyes light up over the dress she was given
• having the kids allow us as complete strangers wash their faces and give them new & clean clothes to wear
• watching my teammates gently & tenderly wash children's feet
• hearing about the children laying hands on one of the missionaries to pray for her headache to go away
• talking with a hotel employee as I sat outside drinking coffee & reading my Bible one morning
• going on a home-visit where all of the logs holding up the corners of the house were completely missing the bottom 2 feet of the log, and wondering to myself how the house was staying up
• seeing random flowers & signs of life in fields that looked full of dead grass & weeds
• seeing kids play soccer barefoot, stopping every so often to pull a 2 inch long thorn out of their foot
  

Priceless...

As I have had a few days to begin processing our trip, there are so many images & moments that stand out in my mind. I keep thinking of the MasterCard commercials, and this is my version: new outfits for 135 kids: $1350; new shoes for 135 kids: $1350; new school supplies & backpacks for 135 kids: $1350; hearing 135 kids pray & sing about the hope they have in the Lord: PRICELESS!
Don't get me wrong, it was great to be able to bless them physically and lavish gifts upon them, but it was moments of hearing them pray the Lord's prayer that brought tears to my eyes. In a world that is so quickly passing away because of AIDS and poverty, the material gifts that we can give them only go so far. But to know that these children are hearing about the eternal hope and salvation that Christ came to give us is priceless...because no matter what happens to their parents, to them, to their country...they can have eternal hope in Jesus Christ! Please continue to pray with me that their hearts would be open to the Gospel, and that the Holy Spirit would be at work in their hearts, enabling them to respond to the offer of eternal life & hope! Please continue to pray with me for the missionaries, Swazi discipleship-team, and the gogo's who pour into these kids regularly.

What sticks?

For many of us, going to church and listening to teachings, podcasts, sermons is a regular part of our lives. But how much do you remember? Can you remember even the main passage or point of the message from last Sunday? How about one from last month or even last year? For many of us we are so inundated by so much information that we don't have time to process it all, let alone hope that it sticks to our memory, or that we might have time to meditate on it! But the Lord reminded me last week that this is not the case in Swaziland...or in most places of the world. In many places people are lucky if they can read and have a copy of the Bible. Some are lucky enough to have pastors who faithfully preach the Word or lead Bible studies. But many are longing for Christian fellowship and Biblical teaching, and when they get it, it sticks in their minds and in their hearts and God uses it to transform them.
Last year, one of the things I did as a team leader in Swaziland was to lead teachings several evenings a week. One of our Swazi ministry partners always loved to come to those times - he was so hungry for the Bible, for worship, and for fellowship that it didn't bother him that he would be hanging out with a bunch of American girls - he just wanted to grow. I never thought much about it at the time, but last week I had a conversation with this old friend that made me think twice.
One afternoon, we were finishing up at the carepoint and saying goodbye to those on the D-team that we wouldn't see again on our trip when he asked if he could ask me a question. I said sure, not having a clue what direction he would go with the question. But he asked if I remembered a quote I used in a teaching last November about being satisfied in the Lord. He said he has been thinking about it for a year and that it has changed his relationship with the Lord, and he was just wondering if I could write it down for him.
I don't remember the exact quote, but I know it was from a sermon that John Piper preached, where he talked about being satisfied in the Lord. He said that for him personally, he must get in the Bible each morning and be satisfied in the Lord before anything else...because if he isn't satisfied in the Lord, he is going to look to everything and everyone else in his day to satisfy him. And here is this young Swazi man, who knows through the poverty in his life that satisfaction can't come from material possessions (because they have so little) and satisfaction can't come from relationships (because life in Swaziland is so fleeting) and is now beginning to experience the reality that true satisfaction comes only from the Lord.
I praise God that He used that one quote from one teaching to draw one Swazi closer to his heart this year! And that He used that conversation last week to remind me to meditate on the many things He is trying to teach me...that they might bear fruit in my life and my relationship with Him for His glory and my joy.

"You open your hand; You satisfy the desire of every living thing."
- Psalm 145:16

A Hard Walk Down A Dusty Road

I write this hesitantly because one of the things I hate about blogs, blogging, bloggers, etc. is that they/we often put things out there that are not our stories to tell. But I am going to go ahead and post this story of one of our home visits in Swaziland for 3 reasons: 1. It is one example of what I've seen now in so many situations...it could be one of many kids in Swaziland or around the world, there's nothing unique about this story, just that it's fresh on my mind. 2. It is a story that needs to be told to a numb, apathetic, affluent, American Christian - to bring reality to life. 3. It is a story that I (as a numb, apathetic, affluent, American Christian) am apt to forget as I leave this culture where poverty is all around me and I head back to my comfortable life...and I don't want to forget it or be numb!

We walked with the boy for several minutes before he pointed and said his homestead was right there. The road we were on was so dusty, and the air so still, that we would all turn away for several minutes until the dust settled when a truck went by. We walked through the opening in the stick and thornbush fence as several cattle lay near by and chickens ran about. The boy ran and got a grass-woven mat and a chair, and brought them over to spread out under the tree several yards from the house. The homestead consisted of a few buildings - a loose stick hut that served as a kitchen, two concrete buildings (about 8 x 10 feet) that were where the adults slept, and a mud & stick hut with a thatched roof where several children slept. The thatched roof had several places where it had fallen apart, leaving it with several holes that were over 6 inches in diameter.
As we women maneuvered to take our shoes off before stepping on the mat to sit down on the ground, the men sat on the chairs, and the boy ran to the field to get his gogo (grandmother). She quickly and quietly came back, followed closely by a 4 year old girl wearing only a sun bleached piece of fabric wrapped around her like a skirt.
When we shared with the woman and talked, she told about how we could pray for her. She shared her health struggles - mostly common ailments of a hard life of a poverty-stricken, hungry, water deprived person in a third world country - sore feet, legs, headache, backache. She couldn't have been over 60, yet her eyes looked much older because of her experiences, and she was still taking care of so many others!
Before we laid hands on her to pray, she had her grandson fetch a coat so she could cover herself as we prayed. I held her hand - weathered by years of hard work outside & caked with dirt in every possible crack. After we prayed with her, we blessed her with a gift of a bag of food and supplies. She sat quietly as we laid out the corn meal, sardines, soap, candles, sugar, tea, matches, beans, and oil. What would cost about $30, and last us Americans less than a week would last this woman and her entire family from two weeks to a month...and she wiped away tears at this gift from strangers.
As we walked along the road back toward where we had come from, "Siyabonga kakuhlu" was what she repeated - "Thank you so much!" And we told her the same thing we had been teaching the children all day...we love because He first loved us.