Hello from Eswatini!

Since my last post, we completed our final week of training camp, racked up ~46 hours of travel time, arrived at our homestead for the month in Eswatini, experienced a couple days of ministry, and attended our first church service in Eswatini.

Thursday our host set up a scavenger hunt for us in Manzini to help us get familiar with the city. It was super special walking through the streets for the first time; the people of Eswatini are extremely friendly. It is a very people-oriented culture. We got to talk to lots of the local people and pray over some of them as the Holy Spirit led us.

Our team was talking to a couple, when another woman came up to Gina (my teammate) and I. In our conversation with her, she let us know that she couldn’t see very well. She allowed us to pray for her, so we laid hands on her and asked God to heal her eyes, that she may see clearly, in Jesus’ name. I’ve known and believed that our God is a God of healing, but it was cool to be given an experience to see this reality. When we got done praying, we asked how her eyes were, and she (very nonchalantly) said a couple times, “I can see clearly.” Praise God.

On Friday, we had our first care point ministry day. Each team in our squad went to a separate care point. Care points are focused on children, and their school is on the property of the care point. Once they ate lunch, we just got to play with them for the remainder of the morning and throughout the afternoon. This was an extremely heartwarming day. The children loved that we were there and were so excited to play with us, but it was even more special for us. Wrapping up the children in a warm hug brought so much joy to my heart. Joy just absolutely exuded through the children, and they loved to run up and give us high fives and hugs. Seeing the smiles of the children and seeing how they continued to run up to us again and again just reminded me of what it’s like to be a child of God. They weren’t concerned about things they didn’t have and weren’t worried about whether we would accept them or not; they fully soaked in the things that God gave them in the moment and received the love that we were pouring out on them. May we enjoy the things that God has put right in front of us and receive in abundance the love that God is so graciously and generously pouring out on us. Just as we wanted to love these sweet children, God wants to lavish His love upon us.

1 John 3:1

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”

We had a special morning on Sunday, as we were welcomed into one of the local churches. It was an incredible experience because even when we couldn’t understand the language, we could so clearly sense the Presence of God. They sang songs both in English and in Swati. The beginning speakers and the pastor also had translators, so we received everything both in Swati and English. The pastor preached in English and had a Swati translator. As we entered the Presence of God with those across the world under one name, the name of Jesus, I could just sense the Father smiling down on us, extremely proud of each of His children. When the children came in from the family hour before the main service, everyone sang Jesus Loves the Little Children over and over. And as the song goes: Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.