I am sitting in the Mountain Inn in Mbabane just hanging out for the day enjoying some internet access. Last night was the youth overnight at Potter’s Wheel, so I got very little sleep but had fun. Today, I get to experience a very important cultural event here in southern Africa – the Bulls (South Africa) vs. the Chiefs (New Zealand) in a rugby championship. In the meantime, I decided to finally download my first month’s worth of photos from my memory card to my computer. As I am moving photos over, I keep catching glimpses of different children…smiling, laughing, making funny faces…and I find that my eyes are beginning to water. Each of the people I have met on my stay here thus far are so unique and they can light up a room in an instant with their smiles, hugs, and love. I still have two months left in Swaziland, but already my heart dreads having to leave and misses this place. I have to wonder, if this is how I feel now after only one month, how will I ever have the strength to come home?
This week I was reading in 2 Corinthians, and Paul’s words to the Corinthians rang so loudly in my heart. He said to them “you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together” (2 Corinthians 7:3). When I came to Swaziland, I really had only two desires: to be used by God however He could use me here, and to connect my heart with a people being devastated by HIV as I go forward to do HIV research. I am trying to be available to God, that the first may be true. The second one has already come to pass. A piece of this nation, these people, has been woven into my heart, and a piece of my heart will remain when I leave, so that as we both go forward we will be knit together, to live and to die.
Who has God knit into your heart? Who is He calling you to live with and die with? God has an amazing blessing for each of us to be a part of the joys and tribulations of others and they with us, so that together we can move forward in Him. It may be a people in a far off nation or they could be right there in your home town; they could be the young or the old, of a certain ethnicity or a certain gender; you may see them daily or only hold them in your heart and your prayers. Whoever they are, your life will be richer for having them in it, and won’t be complete without them!
Julie Mitchell
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
What Do You Do?
What do you do when you meet a grandmother who is taking care of 16 children?
What do you do if they have no garden, half their houses don’t have roofs, the water coming in the pipes from the mountain stops during the dry season, they can’t pay for school fees, and they don’t have the clothes they need?
What do you do when a woman says that demons attack her, giving her hallucinations of people she knows, so that her friends have to spend the day with her and help her care for her children?
What do you do when a mother asks for help with her oldest children because her current husband is not their father and he will not help provide for them as his own?
What do you do when the only thing a family has to eat is a corn meal porridge and leaves they pick out of the field?
What do you do when nobody has food, and none of them have the money to start a garden and put up fences?
What do you do when it is 40 degrees at night and you know that up on the mountain are children, parents, and grandparents sleeping in mud and stick homes without the clothes and blankets they need to keep warm?
What do you do when you know these are just the beginning of the problems, when you know that just up the road and around the corner are people who are abused, neglected, hurting, and dying?
What do you do? PRAY!
Lord, give me wisdom. Let me be Your light and Your love to the hurting and hopeless. May my smile, my handshake, my hug, my touch bring life and comfort. Bring Your Word, Your Truth, Your Wisdom, Your Love to the people of Hawane. In You they will not only have life, they will have it more abundantly. In You they will have hope and love. As they love You, they will learn to love the people around them, helping one another and working together. Show them what a blessing it is to give, and as they begin to give bless them abundantly. Renew their minds, through Your Spirit, that they may see the world through eyes that know victory and richness in You. May You be their God, and they Your people. Let them shout from the mountain tops “Jesus is Lord!” Thank You that You desire to know the people here more than I desire for them to know You. You hear their cries and their prayers, and Your ear turns towards them. You see them, You know them, and You love them. Christ, You died for them and You are worthy to receive the reward of Your sacrifice…their lives. Be glorified in me, in these people, and in this place!!
What do you do if they have no garden, half their houses don’t have roofs, the water coming in the pipes from the mountain stops during the dry season, they can’t pay for school fees, and they don’t have the clothes they need?
What do you do when a woman says that demons attack her, giving her hallucinations of people she knows, so that her friends have to spend the day with her and help her care for her children?
What do you do when a mother asks for help with her oldest children because her current husband is not their father and he will not help provide for them as his own?
What do you do when the only thing a family has to eat is a corn meal porridge and leaves they pick out of the field?
What do you do when nobody has food, and none of them have the money to start a garden and put up fences?
What do you do when it is 40 degrees at night and you know that up on the mountain are children, parents, and grandparents sleeping in mud and stick homes without the clothes and blankets they need to keep warm?
What do you do when you know these are just the beginning of the problems, when you know that just up the road and around the corner are people who are abused, neglected, hurting, and dying?
What do you do? PRAY!
Lord, give me wisdom. Let me be Your light and Your love to the hurting and hopeless. May my smile, my handshake, my hug, my touch bring life and comfort. Bring Your Word, Your Truth, Your Wisdom, Your Love to the people of Hawane. In You they will not only have life, they will have it more abundantly. In You they will have hope and love. As they love You, they will learn to love the people around them, helping one another and working together. Show them what a blessing it is to give, and as they begin to give bless them abundantly. Renew their minds, through Your Spirit, that they may see the world through eyes that know victory and richness in You. May You be their God, and they Your people. Let them shout from the mountain tops “Jesus is Lord!” Thank You that You desire to know the people here more than I desire for them to know You. You hear their cries and their prayers, and Your ear turns towards them. You see them, You know them, and You love them. Christ, You died for them and You are worthy to receive the reward of Your sacrifice…their lives. Be glorified in me, in these people, and in this place!!
Monday, May 18, 2009
Foxes and Birds
One of my main responsibilities here in Swaziland is to go into the community around Hawane CLC to meet the people and map out the land. I am so excited about the prospect of what this work can do to bring spiritual and physical hope to the people of Hawane. It is hard to help people when you do not know their needs, but as we go from homestead to homestead we will be able to see the specific needs of the people. We can meet their physical needs and help them focus on their spiritual needs and the One who can fulfill all their needs. What an honor that God chooses us to be a part of His work!!
One day, just over a week ago, we were visiting an old sick gogo. This gogo was too weak to get out of bed in order to come outside to visit with us, so we entered into her home. As I sat there, I looked around me at the inside of the simple mud and stick home. Through the door to my left, in the only other room in the home, was her grandson doing his school work in the kitchen. There was a wood burning stove that was warming the house and filling it with smoke, a sink with dirty dishes, and some small cabinets. In the room in which we were sitting, there were three beds, one for the gogo and one each for two of her grandsons that stayed in that home with her. In the corner were bags of clothes and blankets. There was one shelf unit, no dressers, no closet. The only window to the room was boarded up, and the walls, ceilings, and even mattresses were black from a previous fire. There was no electricity, no running water, no toilet. I couldn’t help but feel compassion for the gogo and her family; they were living a hard life.
As I looked around though, I could see the simple beauty in the home structure. I looked at the walls around me and the ceiling above me and thought “I could live in a mud and stick hut.” Throughout the past week, I have dwelt on that thought. I would want to have the kitchen in a separate structure like many Swazis do, and I would probably have to construct myself some sort of storage unit for the blankets and winter clothes. I have thought about having to fetch water and boil it to make sure it was clean, growing my own vegetable garden, having to kill and clean a chicken, digging a toilet, and how I would rig a bit of a shower for myself to feel clean. To be honest, the more I think about it, the more appealing it is to me. Not to say that it would be easy by any means and it would definitely have to be a calling from God, but I know that if He called me to it, I could do it.
Living in the US, we have access to almost anything we could want. Most of us have a source of income, running water, electricity, heat, either a fan or air conditioning, and enough food. We sometimes forget what a blessing the simple things that we take for granted are. Worst yet, sometimes we worry too much about the things that we “need” that we don’t have. Often these are the snares that keep us from following God with our everything.
Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Matthew 8:19-20) God may never ask you to move to Africa to live in a mud and stick hut, He may never even ask you to leave the US, but He is asking you to follow Him with everything in you, leaving all else behind. Don’t let the things of this world get in your way, keeping you from experiencing the great blessings that God has ready to pour out over you. This is my goal.
One day, just over a week ago, we were visiting an old sick gogo. This gogo was too weak to get out of bed in order to come outside to visit with us, so we entered into her home. As I sat there, I looked around me at the inside of the simple mud and stick home. Through the door to my left, in the only other room in the home, was her grandson doing his school work in the kitchen. There was a wood burning stove that was warming the house and filling it with smoke, a sink with dirty dishes, and some small cabinets. In the room in which we were sitting, there were three beds, one for the gogo and one each for two of her grandsons that stayed in that home with her. In the corner were bags of clothes and blankets. There was one shelf unit, no dressers, no closet. The only window to the room was boarded up, and the walls, ceilings, and even mattresses were black from a previous fire. There was no electricity, no running water, no toilet. I couldn’t help but feel compassion for the gogo and her family; they were living a hard life.
As I looked around though, I could see the simple beauty in the home structure. I looked at the walls around me and the ceiling above me and thought “I could live in a mud and stick hut.” Throughout the past week, I have dwelt on that thought. I would want to have the kitchen in a separate structure like many Swazis do, and I would probably have to construct myself some sort of storage unit for the blankets and winter clothes. I have thought about having to fetch water and boil it to make sure it was clean, growing my own vegetable garden, having to kill and clean a chicken, digging a toilet, and how I would rig a bit of a shower for myself to feel clean. To be honest, the more I think about it, the more appealing it is to me. Not to say that it would be easy by any means and it would definitely have to be a calling from God, but I know that if He called me to it, I could do it.
Living in the US, we have access to almost anything we could want. Most of us have a source of income, running water, electricity, heat, either a fan or air conditioning, and enough food. We sometimes forget what a blessing the simple things that we take for granted are. Worst yet, sometimes we worry too much about the things that we “need” that we don’t have. Often these are the snares that keep us from following God with our everything.
Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Matthew 8:19-20) God may never ask you to move to Africa to live in a mud and stick hut, He may never even ask you to leave the US, but He is asking you to follow Him with everything in you, leaving all else behind. Don’t let the things of this world get in your way, keeping you from experiencing the great blessings that God has ready to pour out over you. This is my goal.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Celebrating Swazi Moms
Happy Mother’s Day! Yesterday I was blessed to celebrate Mother’s Day at Hawane Farm. It was such a wonderful day as we honored the moms. The moms had come together last week to plan a celebration after church with a big meal and some games. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned and instead of eating at 1:00pm, we were all cooking until after 3:00pm. Nobody was fussed about the extra work and it was so fun to stand around a table with the moms pulling the cooked chicken off the bone. I also learned more SiSwati - "ngelankile", which means “I am hungry”.
When the food was ready, all of the families from Hawane Farm and Hawane CLC enjoyed the meal on the grass together. The moms were then honored as a child from each house told why they appreciate their mom and then gave them a rose. The best part of the day though was when the children gathered around their moms and prayed for them.
The moms here at Hawane are absolutely amazing and deserve all of the recognition that they got yesterday. They are taking care of precious children who need all of the love and caring they can get. The moms work hard and do not often get thanks Please remember to pray for the mothers of Hawane, that God would bless them with strength, wisdom, peace, and love.
Serving in Swaziland,
Julie
When the food was ready, all of the families from Hawane Farm and Hawane CLC enjoyed the meal on the grass together. The moms were then honored as a child from each house told why they appreciate their mom and then gave them a rose. The best part of the day though was when the children gathered around their moms and prayed for them.
The moms here at Hawane are absolutely amazing and deserve all of the recognition that they got yesterday. They are taking care of precious children who need all of the love and caring they can get. The moms work hard and do not often get thanks Please remember to pray for the mothers of Hawane, that God would bless them with strength, wisdom, peace, and love.
Serving in Swaziland,
Julie
Monday, May 4, 2009
Getting to Know You
Greetings from Swaziland! I have only been in the country for a week, and already I feel like home. The people here at Hawane Farm and Hawane CLC are absolutely beautiful and I have enjoyed starting to meet them all. I attended church at Hawane CLC for the first time this Sunday and the people were blessed for me to bring greetings from Ohio. Please know that they send their greetings and prayers back to you all.
As my first week ends, I think that my greatest accomplishment is that I can put a name to all but about 5 faces here. With so many children and names so different from what I am used to, this has actually been a task. Some of the younger children do not speak much English, so I have also learned some basic Siswati words that I can use while playing such as sit, stand, run, and stop. Hopefully my grasp of the language will increase as I continue to build relationships with the children and mothers, and as I begin to go out into the community to do outreach.
One thing that God has spoken to me while I have been here is through Moses birth in Exodus chapter 2. Moses had a great purpose for his life, and God protected him by bringing him into Pharaoh’s house to grow. God reminded me that the children here at Hawane each have a great purpose for their lives also, and He has brought them here to protect them and let them grow into the men and women of God He has planned. What a blessing it is to be a part of the destiny of each of these children!
Thank you for your continued prayers for me and the people of Swaziland!
Blessings,
Julie
As my first week ends, I think that my greatest accomplishment is that I can put a name to all but about 5 faces here. With so many children and names so different from what I am used to, this has actually been a task. Some of the younger children do not speak much English, so I have also learned some basic Siswati words that I can use while playing such as sit, stand, run, and stop. Hopefully my grasp of the language will increase as I continue to build relationships with the children and mothers, and as I begin to go out into the community to do outreach.
One thing that God has spoken to me while I have been here is through Moses birth in Exodus chapter 2. Moses had a great purpose for his life, and God protected him by bringing him into Pharaoh’s house to grow. God reminded me that the children here at Hawane each have a great purpose for their lives also, and He has brought them here to protect them and let them grow into the men and women of God He has planned. What a blessing it is to be a part of the destiny of each of these children!
Thank you for your continued prayers for me and the people of Swaziland!
Blessings,
Julie
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