Swaziland Coming to a Close

The last few weeks in Swaziland were so bittersweet. I was excited to be there, but also sad knowing we were leaving and would have to say goodbye.

One of the last things my team did was a home visit. The woman we met was so, so sweet. She had an accident 10 years ago that left her unable to walk fully. She’s around fifty years old and cares for the kids in her area, so there were babies everywhere. The parents pay her for childcare during the day, and that’s how she provides for herself and her family. She loves those kids so much, and she was honestly one of the sweetest women I’ve met. Later that week my team got to bring her Mana Packs, and we got to pray healing over her.

We also went to a different care point to experience a Christmas party, even though we were sad we couldn’t be at our usual one. The drive was long and totally off the beaten path, windy, full of cows, and super bumpy. But we had such a blast. We helped the Gogos (the cooks/grandmas) prepare the meal, and it was such a fun day.

What You Can Pray For

• The Government and how it is run
• Complacent Christianity
• Over the care points and Kids there 
• For Care points to grow in their resources
• Shepards and endurance as they are there everyday for the Kids
• That every kid will be sponsored! if you feel led to sponsor you can sponsor kids from my care point who need the funds and new uniforms. It’s so simple to give 15 dollars a month!
• Please pray against violence. Kids see violence all the time, so it becomes the only thing they know to do to each other.

• Pray against sexual perversion.

Girls and boys are sexualized every day. We hear heartbreaking stories almost daily from the girls at our care point about how they’ve been violated. The most recent one was from a girl who came up to Ella and told her how boys will put broken pieces of mirror up her skirt to look and laugh. She said that when she turns thirteen, she’ll finally be old enough to stand up for herself and tell them to stop, and how it will never happen again.

Ella and I cried after hearing that. Later that week, the Lord spoke to me and gave me an idea: to have a class time with the girls at our care point where we teach them the song “Gold” by Britt Nicole. My dad used to play that song for my sister and me when we were little, and it talks about how God says you’re worth more than gold, no matter what people do or say.

It was really on my heart to speak life over them and share what God says about who they are: His treasure.

I realized we can’t change how people treat them, but we can help change the way they see themselves and how they respond to it.

And we did it. We had the best time with them. When the song came on, we danced all around the room, calling each other beautiful. We even played it twice.

My heart also breaks for the boys and how they’re taught to “be a man,” and how they repeat what they see at home or in their culture.

Last Day of Ministry

On our last day, we walked to the care point expecting to do something different, firewood pickup, which they do twice a year. But then all the kids got out of school early and started showing up. It was so sweet because they were so excited to see us. We played on the monkey bars and played touch (tag). It was also really nice because we got to wear pants, which we’re usually not allowed to wear, but it made it way easier to run around.

Then Lia, Skylar, Baylee, and I went for the wood run. We got on the back of a flatbed truck with a bunch of Swazis holding machetes and drove pretty far until we reached an area where they were clearing land for sugarcane fields. We drove around to where all the trees had been cut, and everyone got out to start grabbing branches for firewood and piling them in the truck. After a while, half the truck was stacked so high with wood. Then we all piled in—super squished—and drove back.

We spent the rest of the day at the care point saying our goodbyes. We were all bawling, and the kids were crying too. One of the kids, named Coffee, who is 13, laid in Ella’s lap and cried all day because he was so sad we were leaving.

All the sweet girls who wrote me letters wanted a photo together. (I will miss them so much)

Luke Commission Visit

On Saturday, I got to visit the Luke Commission in Manzini with Kynsie, whose family friends run it. The TLC is the biggest medical mission in Swaziland, and it has helped so many people. The tour was so interesting and encouraging. Seeing everything they do there was incredible. But if you know me, you know I don’t do blood or medical things well, so even though it was cool, I was basically fighting not to pass out or throw up the whole time.

Last Sabbath

Our last Sabbath in Swaziland started with church. We walked in our skirts and rain jackets for the full 30-minute walk in pouring rain.

We made it and had a sweet service, then said our final goodbye to our shepherd.

After church, Jaydin and I ran the 30 minutes back home and started packing for our South Africa debrief.