Perspective

I am a few days past wrapping up some of the busiest 6 months of my life, with teams coming and going, many special medical needs cases in our children, the normal day to day ministry of overseeing 10 carepoints, hosting 6 interns, overseeing a building project, harvesting our normal gardens, overseeing our community garden, and I have to admit I am tired!  Physically I am tired from getting up at 5am to drive construction workers to the sites, or staying out past 9pm having dinners with teams.  I am tired from unloading hundreds of concrete blocks and 50kg bags of cement (yes, I did lift with my legs).  It sounds trivial, but I am tired of restaurant food with teams, of peanut butter & jelly, and of people getting so excited over a grapetizer.  Honestly, I am tired of people (yep, once an introvert, always an introvert!)

But I have nothing to complain about.  

Spiritually, God has been refreshing me and sustaining me in ways I couldn’t have imagined possible 4 months ago.  I have lived the verse from Isaiah 58 which says, “If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.  And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail."

Physically, God has more than sustained me - I have been around hundreds of Swazi people and over 150 Americans, and God has protected me from getting even a cold or sinus infection.  He has given me energy to go every day, and that energy can only come from Him because if it was my own strength, it would have run out in May!

Still I have nothing to complain about.

I have missed my family a ton this year, watching my newest niece grow from 2 days when I left to over 6 months now, all through pictures instead of in person.  I have missed weddings & funerals, graduations, baby showers & birthdays.

  

Yet I have nothing to complain about.

God has sustained me & given me perspective through an amazing verse since my time away from Colorado in 2011..."Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory."  

EVERYTHING. 

Therefore I endure EVERYTHING... 

Therefore I endure                                ...

Therefore I endure early mornings with construction workers & late nights with teams...

Therefore I endure busy days full of people, when I am an introvert...

Therefore I endure endless peanut butter & jelly sandwiches...

Therefore I endure being away from family & friends during monumental stages in their lives and mine...

Therefore I endure no Mexican food...

Therefore I endure wearing a skirt every day...

Therefore I endure living in a community where I don't understand most of the language...

Therefore I endure standing out like a sore thumb because of my skin color...

Therefore I endure temporary community as more than 150 Americans travel through Nsoko in 6 months to serve, making friends & having them leave...

Therefore I endure no fresh peaches, raspberries, sweet corn, summer barbeques with family, backpacking trips...

Still I can't complain.

Last week, as I was reflecting on the last few months, a friend of mine had coffee with a man who was heading back to an Asian country to face a prison sentence and most likely torture.  TORTURE.  For sharing the Gospel.  This man had already been tortured beyond what I can imagine in various ways, including having his fingernails pulled off...because he shared the Gospel.  It makes my missing Mexican food & family parties seem a little trivial.  There are difficult days when I have to remind myself of the end goal of why God has called me to Swaziland, and I pray that I would have the strength to say that yes, even I would endure having my fingernails pulled out "for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory."  It definitely puts things into perspective.  A perspective that I need!

So while it has been a busy few months, I have absolutely nothing to complain about.  I praise God for spiritual refreshment & sustenance, safety & health, freedom to share the Gospel, access to financial resources & Bibles, mobility to get to those who have yet to hear the Gospel.  I praise God that He has allowed me & called me to see from the front row what He is doing in people's lives here in Nsoko.

And I praise God that "Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory" isn't just a trite statement from a man who doesn't know suffering or a God who sits above suffering.  Paul wrote it after many times in prison and enduring many beatings.  And he did so with his eyes on the cross & the God who "endured everything (even death on a cross) for the sake of the elect, that they (we) also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory."

2013 Week 3 In A Picture

The list of days at Mbutfu carepoint;
Swaziland Leadership Academy students  in church;
the preschoolers at Mabantaneni 2;
cooking & serving with a baby on your back at Mabantaneni 2.

My tagalong at Mahangeni that wouldn't let go all afternoon;
washing dishes in a basin at Mahlabaneni right next to a sink donated by a community member;
my HUGE/FULL plate of food for the Swaziland Leadership Academy celebration dinner;
Sabelo with his improvised shoes - one croc that's too small & one bag/wrapper.

260,000 faces

It's a bit easier to read the statistics that say that Swaziland has the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world (at 26%) than to think of the 260,000 beautiful Swazi faces that have been given this death sentence.  But today, I looked right into three of those faces and as I made eye contact, it brought reality closer to home.

• A woman in her 80's whose husband brought home AIDS from an affair before he died.  She now has more than 6 grandchildren that she cares for on her homestead, relying on the help of others when her garden isn't enough to feed their family.  She was going today to get her ARV's and also hoping to buy some multi-vitamins that help her feel better as she takes the ARV's.
  
• A woman in her 20's who has had HIV/AIDS for several years.  She has other health problems that complicate her condition (see more of her story here).  She lives on a homestead where her brother and his wife care for her, along with all of their children.  Today we were taking her to the clinic to get pain pills because she hasn't been able to sleep at night because she was in so much pain.  She can't walk so her brother picks her up & carries her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. 
  
• A teenage boy who has HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.  He has been sick for weeks & is severely malnutritioned.  His mother was there as we brought him home from the hospital, lifting him from wheelchair to the car & watching him eat slowly...when a boy his age should be running around playing soccer after school.  While many people said the acceptable "he's going to be ok", I can't help but wonder in my mind if he is going to make it to 16.

Dudu...the first woman who I met who passed away
from AIDS.  Here she is celebrating her son's first
birthday days beforeshe passed away from
AIDS in 2009.  He is now 4 years old and in preschool.

As we walk through this suffering world, it's hard to understand how people could think there's no such thing as sin & the fall in this world.  Take 30 seconds in a suffering place & you have to admit that it was meant to be more than this & something has gone wrong.  God describes it like this in Romans 8 "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now."

For those who know Christ, this suffering is only momentary in light of eternity... "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).  

But today the weight feels heavy...there are 260,000 that God is calling us to love to death & another generation that is seeking change so that they don't become a statistics.

Let Us Go...

     I love Sundays in Nsoko...I love waking up to the sound of the birds, knowing that I can have a long quiet morning with the Lord before heading to church.  It's amazing how different worship is after you take plenty of time to prepare your heart.  Today was a typical Sunday in Swaziland, but because it was only my second one back over here, I continued to see it with fresh eyes.  
     After checking the oil & water in the car, I drove to the center so that we could make a plan as to who was going where to pick up people for church.  I drove up to the team house, and could hear the leadership academy students preparing their song to sing in church.  As I waited for our other driver to come so I could give him keys, I checked the oil & water in the other car as the singing washed over me.  One of the students came out to greet me, singing "I was glad, very glad, when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the Lord.' "
     We split up, with the other car going to pick up a family a ways away, with a young woman who is HIV+ and has had a stroke.  I went the other direction, passing a 6 or 7 year old girl in a beautiful white dress, carrying a one year old on her back.  We stopped first to pick up a wheelchair bound woman who is a double amputee.  I pulled outside the gate on the dirt road, and walked through the open fence onto the homestead.  The dirt was soft on the ground as I walked in between two of the cement huts to the one hidden behind.  The laundry was hanging on the fence & as I greeted the woman I was coming to pick up, she started talking in Siswati.  Her granddaughter smiled at me & motioned to come in their hut.  The woman pointed to her bowl of water & made it clear that she wasn't finished bathing yet, so I stepped back outside to wait for her.  The young granddaughter then pushed the wheelchair outside of the hut & turned it around so that the grandma could crawl on the floor of the hut & push herself up into the chair.  After we got her into the car & the wheelchair in the back, I started to pull away from the gate, to continue down the dusty road.  A young woman from the homestead across the way motioned for me to slow down & brought her preschool aged son to the car & asked if he could go to church.  As he only saw white people in the car, he had a terrified look on his face that quickly turned to relief as he saw the other Swazis in the back.
   Our next stop required me to pull the car through a narrow drive, with a fence on one side & plants on the other.  As we pulled up close to the house, a young girl was outside with a brand new baby on her back, trying to put it to sleep.  The grandmother that we had come to pick up lost her sight within the last month due to glaucoma, so her daughter was walking her out to the car.  It happened fairly quickly, and through it God has opened her heart & she talks about the eyes of her heart & spiritual sight.  She fumbled her way into the car & sat down and we headed back to church.  
   We pulled up to the church in time to see the other car unloading.  A young man in his early twenties carrying his older sister (the one with HIV & a stroke) over his shoulder into the church building; a woman with polio & a crutch walking in; an old gogo with a wooden stick for a cane; a teenage mom with a brand new baby who lives too far away to walk.  We unloaded our van, pushing the wheelchair into the church, guiding the blind woman into her seat, keeping the young boy with us who was experiencing church by himself for the first time.  
    The singing was already started, so I took an open chair in the back of the sanctuary as they sang in Siswati about heaven.  As I thought of each of the people we brought & the freedom they would one day experience in heaven, I can imagine them worshiping there...unhindered by disease & disability; able to see, to dance, to sing.  As my thoughts continued down this road, I saw a glimmer in the sun & looked over the shoulders of the people in front of me to see the double amputee grandmother wheeling her chair around to dance to the music.  It's times like these when the lines between earth and heaven get blurry & I am once again reminded of the privilege it is to be able to walk to worship, stand for the songs, read the Bible & worship in freedom.  

"I was glad, very glad, when they said to me,

'Let us go to the house of the Lord.' "

   

Life Is Short, Eternity Is Long...

 ...so don't get too focused on your circumstances. 

God began to teach me that lesson as I was steeped in Greek vocabulary & grammar, translating the book of James in seminary.  I remember standing in a small classroom preaching a sermon to my peers based on that text from James 5.  James is admonishing the wealthy & warning them not to put their hope in their riches & good life...and then immediately turns to the suffering believers to encourage them to hold on & not become to discouraged by their circumstances. 

As I have transitioned back and forth between a developing country and the US many times over the past few years, this passage has been etched deeper into my heart.  I have wanted to shout in the middle of a shopping mall in the US during Christmas time "Don't you get it?  Life is about more than this!  Don't let your good life make you numb to things that really matter for the rest of eternity."

And as I walk alongside people here in Swaziland, I find myself saying "Remember, this life will pass faster than the blink of an eye in the midst of all eternity.  So hold on during this tough time & trust God because He is still worthy of our praise & adoration, even as you endure these difficult circumstances.  What seems like long suffering is really going to pale in comparison to the length of eternity, so persevere."

The reminder that life is short & eternity is long is constantly before me as I walk through life & ministry here.  It took less than a week of being back on the ground in Swaziland before I was sitting with a young mother mourning the loss of her teenage daughter to HIV/AIDS & Tuberculosis.  She shared with me how diligent her daughter was to do things that needed to be done around the homestead & at school.  We talked about the many high school students that would be at the funeral that night, and how we prayed that this unnecessary death would be a wake up call to them to make different choices & to not waste the life they have been given.

As I sit tonight in the comfort of my home, with a full stomach & a bed to sleep on, I must remember to keep my eyes on the Lord and not my circumstances...because life is short & eternity is long.  And as I walk alongside my suffering friends this week, God has given me the encouragement to pass on to them to endure & hold on in these hard times...because life is short & eternity is long.

2013 Week 2 In A Picture

A grasshopper to take home to eat later;
shoes of the preschoolers lined up outside the classroom;
measuring for the fence at Mabantaneni 1 while Nelly finishes teaching & attendance.

Celimpilo's picture for leadership academy training camp;
peri peri peppers, green peppers & corn from harvesting at the gardens;
acha - my new favorite Swazi food (the Swazi equivalent to salsa!!);
one of 10 giraffes at sunset next to Nisela as I walked to dinner.

Fresh Eyes

One of the blessings of having been away from a place for a while is to see it with fresh eyes as we re-enter what had once been so familiar that we became numb to it.  As I have started to re-enter life in Swaziland this past week, here are some of the things that I am noticing again with fresh eyes.

...people greeting EVERYONE they come into contact with throughout the day.

...sickness and death around every corner.

...a man pushing 100 lbs of sugar in a wheelbarrow across the border.

...it being common knowledge that many people go to bed hungry or with only one meal a day.

...people trusting God for every little thing in life.

...preschool aged children walking alone on a 2 lane highway.

...women carrying everything on their heads (bag of oranges, potatoes, firewood, box, cooler) and being able to balance it perfectly.

...Swazis are very modest, South Africans are not.

...people being thankful to be alive.

...men peeing everywhere.

...people laughing & being joyful all day long.

...children caring for other children while no adults are around.

...people talking openly about God & seeing Him in names of everything from bus services to grocery stores to hair salons.