David Churchill's Journal Entry: Saturday 9/6/08

Last evening Pastor Augustin and his wife Elizabeth met us at the airport in Swaziland. Our luggage filled up the entire backend of one van and filled two more vehicles with people and some more bags. We then drove to Hawane Farm. Kevin, Helen, Ashar and Joshua Ward met us in our residence quarters which is truly nicer then I even imagined. Helen brought a big pot of pasta and some pizzas. We ate dinner and discussed our trip with them, we split off into 3 man and 2 man rooms and hit the racks as most of us were exhausted!

This morning we got up around 7am and made breakfast. We then met with Kevin and walked up to the church area and looked over the Pastors house and the church and the orphans home that we would be working on. We started measuring out different areas for the floor plan and started cleaning up the areas that we would be working on.

We arrived at the Swazi Cultural Village around noon. We walked around an old homestead to learn how the traditional Swazis live. They showed us the boy’s huts, girl’s huts, huts for each wife, grandmother’s hut, etc. We walked up a distance and were shown a beautiful set of water falls off in the distance. Our guide also showed us the large mountain off in the distance, which was used for executions years ago. After our walk back down, we attended a cultural dance and singing exhibition by the folks that live in the village. They were very good. I was amazed at the power of the dance and their voices were so good.

We had lunch at the Mountain Inn, which is owned by Kevin’s parents. The view was absolutely beautiful and the food was good.

After we returned to Hawane Farm, we all ventured over to the kids area and started playing with the kids. This one little girl came right over and attached herself to my leg. She is simply adorable and made me think of my children right then and there. I gave her my sun glasses and picked her up. She clung to me with a death grip and wouldn’t let go. She just made my heart melt and made me miss my kids. I remembered what Heidi and some others had said, “just hold on and love them as your own.”