Check Up
So, this trip’s just a tad over half way through now. Let’s take inventory on how we’re all doing…
Family: Clearly they miss us. Mothers emailing children, children ignoring those emails, worry ensuing.
Friends: Most of them probably have forgotten that we’ve gone anywhere, wondering why we aren’t returning their texts, continuation of said friendships to be put up for review.
Potential Employers, Biola Registrar’s Office: I’m sure that our lack of response has indicated that we are no longer interested and will be glad to settle for low-level, junior employment for the remainder of our lives. Oh gosh, we should buy more Dongle time.
Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games Trilogy: Rollin’ in the Benjamins, as almost 100% of our team has read one or more of the books in the series since our first day here. You’re welcome, Suze.
Significant Others: Ha, we wish.
Yesterday, Sunday, we got to rest, and that was glorious. Church went well, and aside from one slight hiccup with the Golf (the little VW to accompany our Caravelle on expeditions), which included a detour to AutoZone Manzini, it was a quiet day—sunny, quaint, and full of good laughs and good books.
Again, mostly ones about Katniss Everdeen.
Today, in spite of the rain, we visited the first of several care points that we will be dropping in on this week. In addition to the dirt lot upon which we met up with the kids, they had a tin shack with a fire cooking some food, and then one of those cargo trailers that’s in the “harbor” scene of every thief movie.
People just hang out in it, there isn’t a harbor for quite a few kilometers.
It’s weird to think that in Africa you can take a resource for granted, but it came as a bit of a surprise that they didn’t even have a proper room to fit these kids in under the rain. We just kind of ran into an open building/hall with a leaky roof and no real doors. It did just fine, and Amy brought the heat with the story of Jesus calming the sea.
Well played.
Bongani said something interesting yesterday about foreign aid. I asked him if he thought of Swaziland, if most Swazi’s thought of Swaziland, as a country in need. They aren’t walking around talking about the devastation of AIDS, or the fact that their King isn’t a very nice guy—most people like him. So on the surface, you could think that they might just not know.
That’s silly, though.
In response, Bongani said yes, but ultimately he thinks that foreign aid as it is stifles the ultimate recovery of this nation. “Look around,” he said, “ you could put any seed in this dirt and it would grow, but would you believe that we import most of our goods? We are a nation of lazy people, and that is what needs to be corrected.”
That, and more points, to say that Swaziland doesn’t just need handouts, it needs to be taught the value of hard work and how to be more self-sufficient.
Thinking about that in the context of missions has been invaluable. We shouldn’t be going here to be the resource, to be the great news-bearers who have all the answers. We should be taking the resources and answers that we have been so blessed to have been given, and we should do our best to equip our Swazi brothers and sisters with them, so that they may perpetrate the great commission in this beautiful nation.
Your continued prayers are a treasure.
Talk soon,
Swaz-tacular.
