Hello Swazi

So I've said my goodbyes to many loved ones both in ministry and to many dear friends and leaders in our team and have moved on into Swaziland, the last kingdom.  We've been here for little over a three weeks now and we are starting to settle into our different ministry sites.  The country is beautiful! It's very mountainous and very green! Our house is beautiful and rather large. Plus,  we have four mango trees in our front yard! Its really fun to climb up and pick a mango whenever I want to J This last week we checked out the different ministry sights. The biggest ministry opportunity here is the care points which are preschools and after school programs for children both in the city and in the rural areas.  Its very difficult to make an orphanage in Swazi because if the children are taken off of their property in Swazi  and relocated to a different building then they loose the family property and when they turn 18 or so and can't stay in the orphanage any longer then they have nothing. So they formed these care points to make sure they are taken care of and fed and hear about Jesus.  We've been going to one specific care point this last week quite often (partially because its really close to our house) . This care point takes care of children in a squatter camp that is close to the dumb.  The children have been really sweet and it already seems that each member in our team has a buddy there.  We were also able to do two different bible studies with the kids and we went to a night service to the church that is close to the care point.

    Another ministry opportunity is the hospital, there we would go around to the different wards, which include: HIV ward, TB Ward, children's ward, and so on. We would just go and council people  and just love on them the way Jesus would and pray for them.  We first went to go to the children's ward almost two week and it was hard to see some children have malnutrition and others suffering from fevers and probably HIV. One of our team mates came across a girl that was walking with her mother one day and they were struck by lightning and her mother was killed and she has serious burns all over her body. The girl is now  orphaned along with her sister but still she was smiling and so happy to see us.  I was also able to go into the woman's ward and I visited with a sweet gogo (grandma) that had a minor stroke and you couldn't really understand anything she was saying but still she smiled when I looked her way and it was such a pleasure to just sit with her and pretend I knew what she was talking about so she didn't feel too out of the loop. I have a feeling though that the children's ward and the somewhat the womens ward are the easier places to be and the TB ward and the HIV ward is way more intense. I can't imagine going in there and trying to give hope to adults who feel like they are in a hopeless situation, how do you even go about that?  But its still something that really interests me.

    Yet another opportunity is the hope house. This is where the old and terminally ill go to.  Each patient has their own little house where there are two beds a bathroom and a little kitchen and someone from their family member is suppose to take care of them, hence the other bed. Unfortunately a lot of the patients don't have anyone to take care of them and end up having to hire someone or someone gets to live with them for free if they take care of them at least I think that's how it works, please don't quote me on that one.  We also visited this center last week and it was a good experience and I visited an old German man that had been living and teaching in swazi for thirty years.  It was really sad to visit him because one he didn't believe in God and believed that He was unnecessary and two he felt his life was over that all he can do is sit in bed and watch the day go by.  I suppose that's how you feel when you get old and don't believe in God; there is no purpose and no hope in life  if you don't believe in our savior.