Returning to Swaziland was a bit like coming home as it's been the most stable thing we've returned to as we've moved around the last 7 months. We were excited to be back in community but also struggling as we only had 5 full days in the area to fit in so many meetings with new friends and service things that we wanted to make happen before we left. We knew the time remaining in this country was going to be full and fly by quickly and we weren't sure we were ready to move on quite yet.
We attended church at the Swaziland campus for our final
time this trip.
It was the celebration
of their 3
rd year as a church, so that was exciting!
Afterwards we took all of the kids out to
lunch at Malendelas while Krista and Stephen helped a woman and her seizing
daughter get situated at the local hospital.
The kids had a blast running around the open fields, in the sugar cane
and coming up with games to play.
Krista
and Stephen joined us later and dropped mom and all the boys and SJ off at the
guesthouse.
Dad returned to church and
lead a small group on some basic entrepreneur thoughts and skills which was an open forum on starting and running small businesses. It was a great reminder just how much we take basic education for granted.
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| This is what boy fun looks like! |
That evening two couples arrived to check out Children’s Cup
and RVC for a few days. The one couple
was from MN and their friends were from CA.
We weren’t exactly sure how the week was going to play out, but we
really enjoyed having these couples to hang out with and get to laugh,
interact, and serve with.
Monday we all went to the monthly Leadership Training program,
which is a training day that Children’s Cup hosts monthly for the care point
teachers. We’ve been really impressed
with the way Children’s Cup equips the adults involved with the carepoints! We introduced ourselves and Mom and the kids
helped the cooks make breakfast for everyone while Dad gave a word of
encouragement to the attendees.
Afterwards we took a break to make some much needed travel
plans for our upcoming weeks and then we had lunch at Nandos.
We met up with the other couples at Zinty and
Lue’s community center and got to work cleaning the place out for their first
meeting that night.
The place was really
dirty, so it was easy to see big progress with everyone chipping in to help.
There is wonderful potential for this building
and its location, so it was a treat to be part of the beginning stages of this
new opportunity.
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| We love Nando's peri peri! |
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| G sweeping away debris |
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| Cleaning out inside the community center |
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| Oldest mopping the old kitchen floor |
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| SJ doing her part to beautify things! |
Monday night we went out to dinner with the other couples,
referred to as the Browman 4 – and of course the place we took them to was
closed on Mondays only!
So we ended up
back at Malendelas for a great night of conversation.
Tuesday was our family day and we’d been looking forward to
doing some hiking in the local area, so we headed to the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary to hike Execution
Mountain. The story goes that years ago
it would be decided if someone was guilty or not based on if the person could survive being thrown off Execution Mountain – if they die they were
guilty and if they lived they were innocent. None of the locals we met believe the legend though. Anyway, it was supposed to be a basic hike amongst some African
wildlife, so we were excited.
Unfortunately we somehow parked in the wrong area and instead of taking
the trail, took a road up. We realized
when we summitted that we were not on Execution Mountain so after studying the
map awhile Dad figured out what had happened.
We took the ridge trail over to Execution Mountain and then hiked up to
the top. We figured this allowed us to
now take the trail back to our van, but little did we know “trail” meant bush and weeds
taller than us basically covering the entire trail! This way was not any faster and by now the
hike had taken double what we’d planned for and we were pretty much out of
water and Mom’s shoulders were fried. Another awesome excursion, but needless to say we
were so relieved when we finally spotted the van!
Wednesday we did school in the morning, met with Mduduzi for
awhile and then headed to the nearby carepoint for kid’s club and feeding.
Wednesday night Krista and Stephen had our
family and the Browman 4 over for dinner and we had great fun sharing stories
and experiences.
The boys had a
sleepover at our guesthouse and unfortunately left the window open in their
room so didn’t sleep much as they were joined by many mosquitos!
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| Our Swaziland Crew |
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| SJ and her new friends! |
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| Playing more Monopoly Deal! |
On Thursday morning Dad met with Mduduzi one last time and
we said goodbye to the Browman group.
Then our family headed to meet Krista, Stephen and family at KFC.
We are not fast food people and wouldn’t
typically eat KFC back in the States but had been told to save it and keep an
open mind.
Unfortunately on the way
there Dad was pulled over for not stopping at a stop sign that was not clearly
marked and that none of the cars after us stopped at either.
The ticket was about $5 and makes for a good story at least. We made it to KFC and were pleasantly
surprised at our delicious lunch!
Then
we headed to a couple of the care points that their family oversees.
It was fun to visit the care points as
families and to get some of the background of these sites and kids.
We were able to do a home visit to a family
and bring them some basic food supplies.
This mom had worked at a carepoint until her child got sick and
eventually passed away.
It was the
youngest of her 6 children and her husband had just recently found some
promising employment opportunities and she tried to make a living selling
fruit, vegetables, and goats.
We visited
with her and prayed for her and then drove her son back to the care point.
We also were able to meet our sponsor
children and were so blessed with the way that God lined them up with each of
our children just perfectly.
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| Dad waiting for a ticket |
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