Greetings! We all made it!

Day 1 - Thursday, April 24 9:30 p

Just got back from having coffee and sharing stories at Kevin and Helen’s. The flight from Johannesburg to Manzini was short. David, Ben, Steve, Pastor Augustine and Seswe were there to greet me. All of my luggage arrived safely and the remainder of the men’s bags arrived also. It was really interesting at the airport because at the exact time we landed, a private jet was waiting to take off with the President of South Africa who had come to visit with the king of Swaziland. There was quite a procession with color guard and African dancers and the whole works.

The drive from the airport was beautiful with the red sun setting over the mountains and the silhouette of a few trees here and there. It was dark when we arrived at the farm, but we stopped by the house where I would be staying first to drop off my bags. I was greeted there by Kevin who introduced me to my housemate, Emma. I was then whisked off by the men up to their house where Alberto had prepared an incredible dinner of beef stew and rice, bread and fruit salad. The men shared a bit about their day and their experiences at the cultural center as we ate and they seemed very comfortable. When we finished up, we walked down to Kevin and Helen’s where Kevin shared some very interesting information about the culture.

I then walked back to the house where Emma showed me up to my room. Large room with nothing but a small twin bed in the center of it and a homemade nightstand with a small cup of fresh flowers on it. It is only 9:30 and everyone is going to bed, getting up at 6 am. That’s a lot of sleep to me, but maybe we’ll need it.

Day 2 – Friday, April 25 10:30 p

Today was a great day. I awoke pretty early to realize I had not yet unpacked however, Donna had done such an excellent job wrapping my bags with shrink wrap that I could not get it off. I eventually went downstairs and found a knife and proceeded to assess what I had actually packed, still half-wondering how much of it was really relevant or needed.

The men had invited me to their house for breakfast at 7:00, so after unpacking and checking out the spectacular sunrise views from the house, I decided to brave it and jump in the shower (about 40 degrees in the house). To my pleasant surprise there was plenty of hot water to warm up and then I threw on a sweater and headed out. Breakfast was magnificent- eggs, ham and oats. And coffee, yes, praise God for coffee! The men were scheduled to be picked up at 8 to go to the site and Kevin ask if I would go with them the first day to document the site. By the time we got the tools unpacked around 8:30 it was already warm enough to shed the jackets. Beautiful blue sky and the sun was very warm.

Theo, our construction manager here, apologized for being a little behind on the project. There had apparently been some unforeseen circumstances with having to remove several large trees from the site and deal with some pretty substantial roots while digging the footers. They had also had some rain earlier in the week, so when we arrived about half of the footers had been poured and the steel had arrived on site. Theo had several young local men on his crew, maybe 12 or 15. He had asked Dave and our team to set the pace to keep them working steady, but our guys couldn’t keep up with them…. J They were very energetic, singing about their love for Jesus as they worked. They were all very proud to be working to construct their own church where they could bring their family and friends to know the Lord. Unfortunately, Kevin informed us later after dinner, that most of these young men will probably not be alive in two years time.

The altitude was quite different which made for heavy breathing. The guys got quite the workout their first day just digging the trenches for the remaining footers. We had most of the digging done by lunch. The plan was to visit a homestead for the afternoon and do some minor repairs there, but everyone was anxious to try to get some of the steel structure erected and secured. After some discussion we decided to drive to the homestead, assess the need in detail, go back to the site and put up the steel and then return to the homestead the following day to make the necessary repairs.

Pastor Augustine drove us through the country and we arrived at a home where a Gogo was caring for 18 boys and girls ranging in age from two infants to a boy who was eighteen and a very sick girl who I believe she said to be about twenty five. She was lying under a blanket. The homestead there consisted of about four or five very small buildings with corrugated metal roofs. The roofs had become somewhat detached with the winds and were weighted down with large rocks and old tires. One of the small buildings where many of the boys slept had almost completely collapsed. The building where the girls were sleeping was very small and was also being used as the kitchen, but was constantly filled with smoke which made it very hard to sleep there not to mention very dangerous. The windows were all broken out, and with winter coming they needed repaired quickly to keep as much of the cold out as possible. We assessed what it would take to possibly build another small detached structure which could be used for cooking the meals, or possibly putting a large woodburning stove in the main room, suitable for cooking but vented for safety. They were very, very grateful for us stopping by and are very excited that we are coming back tomorrow to work on the house. The social department had apparently asked Kevin to take them all in at Hawane farm, but he would rather try to keep them where they are and help them there. So our goal the next few days is to dedicate a few afternoons to see what we can do to make their home more comfortable for the winter. It is too risky to wait to weatherproof these buildings, because not knowing how many of these children are HIV positive, we do not know if a simple cold or infection could kill them. We did find out from Emma (Emma is my roommate who is a nurse here and who also works with social services to get the orphans placed) that about half of the children at this homestead have been tested and so far all of them have tested negative! Praise God!

After dinner we met up with Kevin and his family at their house for coffee again to fellowship and to give Kevin the opportunity to get to know us each a little better. We shared stories back and forth for a couple of hours. Simply delightful people to say the least.

Our team has not only grown together in the Lord in amazing ways already, but they have bonded so quickly with Kevin, Theo, Pastor Augutine and the local boys who are helping us. It has been so much fun to follow them around today, documenting their work, but even more importantly witnessing how God is using each and every one of them as his hands and feet!

Please continue to pray for these relationships and that God will continue day-by-day to complete this project and bless this country according to His plan.

Many blessings,
Heidi

P.S. Please feel free to post comments on here to encourage the team and I will try to check for them regularly and pass them on. I unforntunately am not able to post pictures from where I am today, But David has taken some amazing photos that I’ll try to post the first of the week.