Hello. It's me.
Today is July 10 and I rose early this morning to put together an update for you. To say that the last four days have been busy would be an understatement. Let me jump right in with the update:
Thursday July 7
We visited two new locations. First we went to a place called Nkwene where we visited the local government office. It was the headquarters of the regional "inkhundla" which translates as "constituency" but seems to perform functions similar to counties in the United State. There are 55 tinkhundla (that's the plural) covering the entire nation of Swaziland.
At the inkhundla office we distributed clothing and personal hygiene items (mainly toothbrushes and toothpaste) to about 100 people, and we also held a clinic and prayer chapel for those that wished to see the nurses or to be prayed over by the ministers.
Organizing is always something we have to do on the fly. When visiting a place one has never seen, it is difficult to prepare in advance. The clinic we held inside the inkhundla office building but the chapel was under a tree outside. The distribution we did inside a perimeter of the vans and truck that we brought. It was as if we were in the old west and had circled the wagons, although less for protection than for the sake of order.
As the day wore on we thought it less and less likely that we would make it to our second destination, furhter away from our base of operations in the town of Hlatikhulu. To be honest, I was somewhat relieved when I was told we would be skipping the final stop and just be heading home,
I am so glad we didn't!
The our second scheduled stop was described to me as "a homestead." What is really was was an orphanage. About 20 young girls were being cared for on one property. When we arrived they all came out to greet us and talk to us. They were absolutely delightful. We offloaded a large supply of food that we had brought, and then we were ushered into their dining room where we were serenaded with a worship song from them and we shared some words of comfort and encouragement with them, and said a prayer of blessing over each of them. When it was time to go, I think every girl hugged me and the others on our way to our vans. It was truly a lift to my soul to visit with those dear children.
Friday July 8
We visited the town of Mankayane, where our Swazi church partners are constructing their own building. Since we have known them, they have been meeting in a nearby school. Now their structure is complete with walls and roof. It still needs some finishing work: plaster, flooring, windows, and doors. But it was sufficient for our needs and we used the building as our clinic for the day.
About half of the team (including me) went up to the school and delivered a puppet show (on the prodigal son) a brief teaching (on the Lord's prayer) and screened all of the children for ringworm, giving those who were affected a treatment.
Things got a little chaotic (ok, a lot chaotic) when the teachers had gone for the day and our team was left with about 400 students still hanging about. When we started to give them small packs of crayons to color their Lord's prayer handouts, the press of the crowd was great.
We enlisted the aid of some of the older children and with their help we lined up the entire school by grade, first through seventh. At the brilliant suggestion of my good friend Abednego, we set up at the school yard gate and gave each child a toothbrush and either crayons (for the younger ones) or toothpaste (for the older ones) as the passed through the gate. Then we shut the gate and bid them farewell. It might seem cruel, as though we "kicked them out" of their school, but it was important that we communicated to them with great certainty that we were finished for the day so that they would not continue to hang about waiting for something else (or something more). Many of the children life a significant distance from the school and they needed to walk home while it was still light.
On Friday night Bishop Vilakati hosts a radio program called "Strong Tower" through the ministry of Trans World Radio. I went with my pastor and another pastor (the two "American bishops" as they are known) to the studio. For an hour we took turns giving short sermons and praying for listeners who called in.
Saturday July 9
We went up to Madudula, the "tent site" from 2007. My how it has changed! When we first arrived, there was nothing but an empty field where cattle grazed and wild plants grew. I was speaking to an old friend that I met that year, Sicelo Similane, and we recounted all that God has wrought in the area over the past 10 years. Today there is a school with six grades, soon to be seven and hopefully a high school as well. There is teacher housing. There is a well. There is a playground. There is a garden/farm. There is a community center. There is a thriving church. It is encouraging to see how much progress has been made. There is still much to do, but we know that God has brought us this far, and He will take us even further by His grace.
Our main activity for the day was visiting nearby homesteads and bringing food. Madudula has been hard hit by the drought in Swaziland. One of the women we visited showed us her field; it hasn't even been plowed this year. Even the weeds are dead from lack of water. When we brought out our gift of corn meal, beans, sugar, cooking oil, and bullion, she wept for joy.
Each homestead was like that. The women wept, danced, prayed, and praised, delighted to see a practical expression of the love of Christ for them. To know they are loved and not forgotten brought them great joy, matched only by our joy as we saw their response.
At the last homestead we visited, the gogo (grandmother) brought a gift for us. It was a haunch of meat from a freshly killed goat. Now I didn't want to take good food from a family to whom we had just delivered food. But to refuse the gift would have been a great offense. I asked our interpreter whether I could accept the gift and then return it, but no, that too would give offense. (Later in the van, one of my Swazi friends told me "if you don't accept it, it means you think she is a witch") So I accepted the meat on behalf of our team, and placed it in a ziploc bag that we - thankfully - had in the van. When we got back to the school, I presented it to Bishop Vilakati, who was delighted to receive it.
In the van on the way back, as I held that haunch of meat in my lap, I discussed the situation with a teammate. He said it was like the widow's offering in Luke 21. She gave more than we did, because we gave to her out of our wealth, and she gave to us out of her poverty. God will surely bless her gift.
I remarked, although I felt bad taking any food from a family in the midst of a drought and famine, that Jesus had multiplied fish and bread to feed 5000, and I prayed that He would likewise multiplty the remainder of that goat to feed the dozen people that I saw on that homestead (and the others I didn't see).
Sunday July 10
I sit here alone in a quiet conference room at the convent typing this update. In a few minutes we will have our morning prayer (I admit I have not been a regular attendee of this pre-breakfast prayer, but it won't be my first and I'm up early today).
Unlike last week when the team split up, this morning we will all travel together to the main Christian Ministries Church in Matsapha for a join worship service. The service will probably last four hours (that includes Sunday School), and afterward there will be a luncheon. It should be a fairly relaxing day for us. I'll post an update later and let you know.
Thank you for your continued prayers.
Michael
