Define Normal

A kitchen on a homestead that was damaged by a
storm.  It's normal for the family to keep cooking in
here for a couple of months while they save up money
to be able to fix it or build a new one.

The other day, Mxolisi and I were driving after a rainstorm & as we pulled into a parking lot, he said, "That's weird."  I looked around & didn't see anything too out of the norm, so I asked him what he meant.  He pointed out that a man was fetching water from a puddle.  He was using a shovel to get the water from the 3 inch deep puddle to put it into his bucket.  It was a lot closer than the hosepipe, so it made sense.  

Unfortunately, it's all too normal for young preschool
aged kids like this friend to be out on the dirt roads by
themselves walking to/from carepoints or homesteads.

There were times when I first moved to Swaziland that I would stop for a minute and try to figure out why something caught my eye, only to realize that back in Colorado, people don’t wash their clothes in the runoff from a storm drain or in the water running at the irrigation canal at the end of a field.  Yet now some of these things barely make me take a second glance, and I’m not too sure that’s a good thing!  I was driving the other day and realized that the three semis in front of me (going the same direction I was) were all side by side.  One passing one, passing another one.  On a TWO LANE ROAD.  I slowed down to make sure I wasn’t a part of any accident that was about to happen as these semis continued side by side at a high speed, and finally saw the first semi pull back over just as a car coming the opposite way flashed his lights in warning.  

It is normal for kids & adults to wear shoes & clothes
until they are completely worn through & not even
useful for rags.

A little later, I was walking out of the grocery store, when a young baby caught my eye, and I realized that I was the only one out of the many adults around who apparently thought that it wasn’t normal for an 8-9 month old baby to be sitting on the ground of the courtyard/parking lot playing with the dirty wheel of a shopping cart while his mom chatted nearby.

And I have found myself eating things out of my refrigerator after the power has been out for more than 50 hours this weekend, not really questioning the “2 hour danger zone” my 7th grade science teacher warned me about, because I smelled the food & it didn’t smell bad.  (And, just for those of you who are wondering, I didn't get sick).

It is completely normal for older kids to be taking care
of a relatives kid while the parent is at work.  Here a
high school boy answers a question during discipleship
time while holding his niece.

As weird as some of those things sound, it also makes me question how off some of our sense of normal is...maybe it’s ok for kids to play in the dirt & get dirty, without having someone bleach everything around them before they go play there.  Or maybe it is ok to eat food past its expiration date unless it’s too far gone.  But it also makes me aware of how numb we can become to some of the circumstances around us that aren't ok.  It is dangerous the way some people drive.  It's dangerous for preschoolers to walk to & from school alone on the edge of a highway.  It's dangerous for a first grader to care for an infant.  As I pray for God to continue to help me understand the cultures around me (whether Swazi, American or anywhere else), I also pray that He would give me discernment to how things should be. 

The Thing About History...

In 2009, this guy was one of the ones that I got to know
quickly as we spent time together at the center.

 When I first moved to Swaziland, one of the things I didn’t realize I would miss from my life back home is the familiar history that I shared among people in my own culture, and people who I had lived life with for many years.  My sisters and I obviously share the most history together and many times can be found thinking the same thing in a situation just because of the ways it triggers our thoughts.

As I got settled in to life in Swaziland, I sometimes became quiet because it would be too much work to explain the context behind a word or situation, something that someone from my culture or my life back home would just know. 

There were times when I wanted people to know the context of a relationship or a hobby, but it takes time to share stories and get to know each other before that could happen.  There were times when I wanted to be able to explain how something reminded me of an old song or movie or tv show, but I knew it wouldn’t make sense, so I often just laughed to myself.  

During our first home visit to Ntombi's house in 2009...
little did I know how much she would become a part of
my prayers & life over the last 5 years. 

But as it happens anywhere, we share bits and pieces of our own histories as we begin to make history together.  This happened as I eased into life in Swaziland - I was able to tell friends here about friends & family back home.  At times they were able to meet them as they came over to visit.  And they shared bits & pieces of their family history and life history with me as we went through life.  Even today at the gas station, a Swazi friend who works there asked how my sister's kids are and if my other sister had her baby yet. 

And I found myself in the middle of a history that God was building in us together...I can look back now over the last few years and see lots of times I can remember with my Swazi friends and realize that we have a lot more in common than we thought at first.

M & I share a common history as his younger sister was
one of my favorite kids out of all of the carepoints.  Here
we were in 2009, just 4 short years before his sister
would be hit & killed by a car & he & I would see each
other at her funeral on a rainy, muddy morning. 

Yet as I prepare to step away from AIM, one of the unexpected hardest parts for me is leaving the history.  As others step in and meet some of our kids & friends, I can’t help but think back to the history of that person that God has allowed me to experience.  For one, being part of throwing him a party for his 1st birthday, and then just a couple weeks later, helping his parents get his mom’s body to the morgue and then bringing the casket home for burial.  For another, older girls from her homestead would bring her to the center with them when she was just 4 months old, and I have watched her grow up over the last 5 years!  For those coming now to serve, they meet this 6 year old and 5 year old and haven’t experienced the history that has made them who they are today.

Over the next few weeks & months, I hope to share a glimpse here into some of the ways that God has been at work here in Swaziland (now that I have a bit more time to blog).  In the midst of the busy day to day ministry, we sometimes lost sight of how God was moving, but now as I slow down and reflect over the last 5 years & the ways God has worked, I am humbled by His faithfulness and it fuels my faith in His faithfulness for the ways He will lead & work in the future.  And as I prepare to spend some time back in Colorado, I will again find myself in a place where I am having to explain history of a Swazi friend, situation, or experience, as I figure out how to make new history there.

...only God who gives the growth...

Teaching all the gogos who volunteer
at our ten carepoints.

“What then is Apollos?  What is Paul?  Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.  I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.  So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” 

                                           (1 Corinthians 3:5-7)

As teams have come and gone here in Nsoko, this metaphor is one that we talk about often.  It is easy when we are talking literally about gardens - the last team harvested & cleared the land, now it’s this team’s turn to plant & weed.  But it applies so much to the spiritual work we are doing here too - one month we handed a Bible to a disabled widower, and 6 months later we went back with another group of people to hear that he had surrendered his life to Christ as he read his Bible. 
 

Helping Zola (blind teenager) blow up
soccer balls for a fun day.

It’s one thing to talk about it with short term teams coming and going, but it’s another thing to live it out.  To watch some of the seeds that we have planted grow into fruit, and be willing to entrust them to another one’s care.  To have worked a long time weeding out the weeds in someone’s heart, and be willing to trust another person to continue weeding until the seed takes root.  Yet God reminds us again...”it is God who gives the growth.”
 

And so that’s why, in this season, I can continue to be excited about what God is doing around our carepoints in Nsoko, even though I won’t be the one watering, planting, weeding, and harvesting.  After 5 years of having a front row seat to see how God is growing His church here in Nsoko, He is calling me away.  Later this year, Mxolisi and I will be transitioning away from ministry with AIM in Nsoko.  But God’s work continues.  And He has answered our prayer to bring more workers to this harvestfield.  

With the gogos who cook at one of our carepoints
at the church dedication service. 

It is more than bittersweet as we transition from a chapter with so much history & depth & familiarity to taking a step of faith into the next chapter of our life together.  It’s impossible to walk through a process of saying goodbye to individuals and communities that we have walked through life and death with (even as I type this, I think of one of the women who almost gave birth in the back of our car with me while Mxolisi was driving, or another mom who had to bury her son who died too young) and yet that is our delicate task over the next weeks & months...to try to say goodbye in a God-honoring way to hundreds of people who have said way too many goodbyes in their short lives.  People have asked what we will be doing, and the short answer is...continuing to love God & love people, no matter where we find ourselves; serving faithfully to plant, water, weed and harvest no matter what garden God puts us in!

Mxolisi and I at one of the big game parks in Swaziland.

After a busy year with too little time to write, we will be updating the blog more often as we process through this transition and into the next chapter of what God is doing in our lives!
                    “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
                                                        Corrie Ten Boom

If I Had A Million Dollars...

Our 19 year old friend who had a seizure
and passed out for over 30 minutes.

     The other day, we arrived at the carepoint to hear a few kids yelling, "he fell!"  We turned around the corner to see our 19 year old friend, laying in the dirt, having a seizure.  After we got the kids into the classroom for discipleship, we asked the gogos more about his situation.  We found out that he had been having seizures occasionally for years, causing him to drop out of school but had never had treatment for them...until today.

     Last year, I was stopping by a carepoint to deliver vegetables, when the gogos asked us to see if we could help a little boy who had a serious infection.  We saw that he needed immediate treatment & went to ask his parents for permission to take him to the hospital and to find out why they hadn't gotten him help.  When we asked his mother, she ashamedly told us that they were waiting until month end to go to the doctor because that's when they got paid.  His total hospital bill was less than 5 American dollars.

 

Ntombi and her mom on the
way home from the hospital.

     Two months ago, I got a call that one of our dear friends was needing to go to the hospital.  I was already at the hospital, having driven an emergency case an hour earlier, when our friend, Ntombi, arrived.  I held her head in my hands, walking awkwardly between the arms of the one who pushed the wheelchair.  She was totally unresponsive and had been for hours.  A half hour later, as we were walking to the car to leave after getting her admitted, the nurse came running out after us to tell us we should just stay because she probably wasn't going to live another 5 minutes and we needed to be able to take her mother home.  After an hour, we told the nurses that we would call and check on her in the morning.  The next afternoon, she was still alive.  And the next afternoon, we stopped by after church and she rolled part way over as we were praying for her.  Less than 3 weeks after they told us she only would live 5 minutes, she was going home from the hospital, and talking enough to tell me that my water bottle fell off of the car seat.  Over and over her family thanked us, saying that they wouldn't have been able to do anything if it wasn't for help from our medical fund.

The daughter and nieces and nephews
of one of the women we helped through
the medical fund.  Here we were bringing her
home from the hospital, but she died a
few weeks later from HIV.

     As we talk about changes in health insurance and medical needs in America, the people of Swaziland have no options.  Many people are desperate for medical treatment, but can't afford the treatment or can't afford the transportation to get there.  Some weeks it's overwhelming - driving to the hospital for emergency cases, having to turn people down from our weekly hospital trip because our car is too full.  Some weeks it brings me to tears - praying with a woman who just lost her husband, praying with a man who just lost his wife and newly born baby, praying with people in the delicate hours before death.  Yet it is a privilege to have the opportunity & the means to help people in these fragile hours because of your donations.  

     As we drive to & from the hospital, it is our chance to have extra time to talk to people, hearing their stories, praying with them, and pointing them to the ultimate Healer.  As we sit with them & their families in those hard times, it's a privilege to be able to read Scripture to them and remind them of the unshakeable truths of the Gospel in the times when their whole lives are shaking.  

An unwed older woman who relies completely on her
church and our ministry for everything.  We have been
helping her get her medications each month
for high blood pressure.

     So...if I had a million dollars, I would help to continue to care for the people of Nsoko through our medical fund.  So far in 2014, we are taking an average of 10 people to the hospital per month, spending approximately $350 on their medical costs and fuel.  This ministry is continuing to grow - as of today, we have helped 55 people in 2014...more than the whole year in 2013!  As the needs of the people grow, we are praying for God's continual provision.  Please join me in praying for God's provision, for His hand of protection as we drive to & from the hospitals (the closest one is an hour away, with the better ones being an hour & a half away), for His Spirit to lead our conversations as we minister to people in these hard circumstances, for our staff who often have no time to prepare their hearts to lead & serve in these situations. 

Week 6 2014

Nombali & passport girls teaching on The Word Of God;
carepoint kids discussing their verse about the Bible in small groups;
bananas growing in my back yard

The most persevering 18 year old...starting grade 5 after a hard life;
T in her new school uniform;
Mxolisi reading the Bible to a soul-hungry Joseph.

Week 5 2014

Thandi testing her tippy-tap for washing hands,
the one gogo who wrote a thank you letter for her Christmas food,
the team working on digging the new pit toilet,
my afternoon break coloring with the kids after school.

 

Week 4 2014

One of the boys that Mxolisi & I walk alongside paying for his school fees;
a couple of the boys that I met before they turned 1...walking into the center after their first day of school;
it finally got below 85 in my house so I decided to experiment with a chicken pot pie.

Praying with the new team as they begin their time of serving here in Nsoko;
the only way to keep a team of 16, a full time staff of 7, and 10 carepoints organized;
school calendars sent all over the country mixed up November & December for 2014.