Richard's Bay, South Africa

Today we greet you from Richard's Bay, on the east coast South Africa, also known as Kwazulu/Natal. We are here for a few days with the VanderWal family of The Luke Comission, and their team of nurses from Cedarville University. For the first time we saw and were in (Brent more than Michaele) the Indian Ocean. It is a beautiful beach, as you can tell -- and the water was a bit cold, so it really did take my breath away!

We return to Swaziland Tuesday evening in time to greet Barbi Moore and her assistant Pat Burton on their arrival Wednesday morning. The rest of this week and the next will be full of pre-team meetings and preparations. The GO Team from Bethany First Church, along with some from the Central Canada District, will arrive on August 8 in Swaziland. This group of 60 people is comprised of a medical team, an educational team, a compassion team, and a construction team. We will share with you the details of their plans and activities -- there will be much going on while they are here!

This week please continue to pray with us for:

• Health and safety of Barbi and Pat as they travel


• Health and safety for all of us as we travel back to Swaziland (about a 4 hour drive)


• The pre-team meetings and plans that need to be finalized


• That God would accomplish amazing things in and through the GO Team while they are here!

GiGi's Kitchen

GiGi’s kitchen is a small school and “Soup Kitchen,” for lack of a better term, which feeds those children in this particular area of Manzini who are termed orphans or vulnerable. Although these kids have a place to live and sleep, and some even have people to pay their school fees, most do not have families of their own anymore. One woman helping the children explained that the kids who do have a parent left are fending for themselves anyway, because that parent is often very sick and/or extremely poor. Brent and I visited this place for the first time a week ago, and we hope to return many times. I had wanted to write about this earlier, but truthfully I have been struggling with it ever since we left.

We went with a wonderful woman, Evelyn, who is the District Superintendant’s wife and the co-leader of the HIV/AIDS Task Force. She goes once a week to bring the kids a Bible lesson before they eat at about 3pm. Brent brought his guitar, so we sang with them a little bit and then served them their food. I served out of a huge pot of mealie meal (a corn porridge, like thick grits), and Brent ladled out the gravy, which had beans but no meat or vegetables in it. Someone had donated a huge bag of oranges, so each child also received an orange.

As we were serving I did not have an opportunity to think about each child and their struggle ut when we left the tears didn’t stop for over an hour. A day and half later the enormity of the truth finally set it: each of those beautiful, precious children has such a difficult challenge ahead of them, just to grow up! An abundance of questions sprang out of my tears and frustration: Will their lives be any better or different than their parents’? Will their children be orphans? Will they even live long enough to have children? If they do, what kind of life will they have without education? Will they have jobs? Is anyone at home fighting for them? And the worst question of all: what on earth can I do about it!? What was the point of me being here if I couldn’t do anything to help??

In the middle of my anger and tears, God spoke very clearly: compassion is not about fixing things. Compassion is about suffering with. Yet I was still not satisfied to think that God’s solution to suffering was just more suffering. How are my tears and pain going to help their hunger, their poverty, their sickness and their lack of education? I fought with God again for a few more minutes, but then he gently turned me around again.

In Genesis 16 when Hagar names God “the God who sees me,” she didn’t just mean a God who stands far off watching a situation. In the Hebrew understanding, to see meant to "act" upon something, just as God acted upon Hagar’s own situation as she was homeless, pregnant, and running away from Sarah and Abraham. Therefore our God does indeed suffer with… but He is also a God of action. And he calls His Church to suffer to the point of action as well!

I am reminded of the strong, generous women who ran GiGi’s kitchen in the first place – their compassion, their relationship with the children, the way they provide for them. We rejoice with our Lord that our God is not dead nor is he too busy for any circumstance. Even as he asks us to suffer with others in their pain.. praise be to God that he does not stop calling and his people still answer him.

Please join us in prayer this week:
· That God would call His Church to action here in Swaziland and all over the world
· That Brent and I would hear clearly the actions God is calling us to while we are here
· For the many orphans and vulnerable children here in Swaziland (about 150,000)
· For the strength and encouragement of many volunteers whose compassion leads them to action

Water

As we mentioned last week, the Coca-Cola Foundation has awarded a grant to supply water in Swaziland through Nazarene Compassion Ministries, Inc (NCMI). This is definitely a gift from God and here is why…

During last July’s GO Team from Bethany First Church, one of the team members became very passionate about the need for clean running water in Swazi communities. Since that time he and BFC worked with a local pumping company to purchase and install a solar water pump in the community of Sisatsaweni, where there is a Nazarene school, church, and clinic. With the success of this first installation BFC made a commitment to do the same for other Nazarene clinics that needed water. Though BFC made an aggressive commitment of funds it was going to take a number of years to even begin to reach their goal...

BUT…

God has another timeline in mind. As the sites were being surveyed for the BFC plan Coca-Cola approached NCMI and asked them if they had any interest in working on getting water for Swaziland. The answer was definitely YES!!! Coca-Cola has decided to fund the entire vision of bringing water to all Nazarene clinics and several other communities in need! The goal is for the clinic to receive water and also have a good enough supply system for the surrounding community to use as well. The contract was signed this week in Washington, DC, and so there are now many things we are working on in order to get the project going. The same kind of solar system used at Sisatsaweni will be supplied in each of these areas and implemented by the same water pump professional, Jimmy, who has become a good friend.

Two days this week were spent with Jimmy and his 11-year-old son Josh, scoping out the various sites that are on the first priority list to receive water. It was quite a wake-up call to realize each person we saw on these visits did not have adequate access to water, and often were left to drink, wash clothes, and cook with very dirty water. There was one community which was especially difficult to see. The road to this very rural area was in some places hardly a road at all. Several times we had to get out of the car to move rocks out of the way! Right now is the driest season of the year, and I could only imagine how impassable this road would be when the rains began! Jimmy explained that this area was just about as close as you could get to Mozambique without crossing the border, and that the people here were often out of reach for even the Swaziland government. I was astonished to see the traditional mud and stick homes I had read about the Schmelzenbachs seeing when they first arrived here over 100 years ago. The children were dressed, but their clothes were obviously very old and dirty, and some quite ragged.

The community members have no school to which they can send their children, and could not afford school fees if they had one. There are no clinics, no stores, no churches. There is no opportunity for work out there, and we did not see one vehicle which would allow transport into a town that had work. We saw a few homes that had gardens, but without good water supply they were not large or prosperous. We saw two women getting water, and Jimmy asked each about the water supplies. One supply was a small river or creek down in a valley and a long walk from the homes at the top of the mountain. Another supply was a little spring that produced what looked like a puddle. It was protected by a home-made fence of sticks, and we were told it supplied each family in the area at least one bucket of water a day, and sometimes two. The buckets she was using were about one gallon each. The families she was speaking of would consist of up to 18 people. So that means two gallons of water a day, at most, for all the drinking, washing, cooking, and gardening for an 18-person family!

As we drove away I groped at my feet for my water bottle, filled with clean drinking water brought from our flat. With my eyes still glued on the terrain, I brought the water to my lips and drank. Then I realized, for the first time ever, what an amazing gift I had just enjoyed. Instantly I almost felt guilty for drinking my good, clean water, in the presence of my brothers and sisters who had none.

I am overjoyed and grateful that we will be able to see the transformation of this community, first hand. Yet at the same time we are both left feeling a little stunned to be face to face with such great need. I know water will change this community completely in a few short weeks… but how many more communities throughout the world will still be in need? Let us continue to respond to our Lord in faith and see what he can do..

This week, please join us in prayer:
· for the many people here in Swaziland, in Africa, and all over the world who have no water.
· that we may hear all that God wants to tell us as we see places of such need.
· for Gods wisdom as we work alongside our Swazi brothers and sisters to bring water access to communities
· for meetings to be had with various local and government leaders regarding plans for the water installation projects.
· Remebering to praise God for the gifts he provides for us (water, shelter, food, clothing…)

What do we do?

This is a question we have been asked often. "So, as on-site coordinators... what do you actually do day to day?" We thought this week would be a good snap shot of what we do, so here is a small summary of these week's activities.

• Brent spent a good amount of time on several financial reports regarding some previous and upcoming projects.


• Although neither of us are architects, we worked to draw a floor plan of a clinic (future project site) with measurements and dimensions to send back to Bethany First Church. You should have seen us doing the whole thing with the "insert shapes" feature in Microsoft Word!!


• We met with Matron Anna, who oversees the community clinics to get feedback from two previous events/ projects and hear her priorities for moving forward


• Brent visited the Shewula and Ndwvabageni clinics with Michael Mabuza, who is the maintenance supervisor for the hospital and clinics. He met the nurses and staff and assessed what work was needed there.


• This week we received word that a grant had been awared from the Coca-Cola foundation to fund water projects in the Nazarne clinics in Swaziland through Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, Inc.! Therefore we facilitated communication between several people in the US and here in order to move forward quickly with that project.


• We were honored to host four volunteers from the New Hope Centre for dinner and Bible study. It was a wonderful time and we hope to do it once a week!


• We were also able to host Dr. Raymond Bitchong (the chief medical officer at the hospital and our next-door neighbor) and his family for dinner. His wife Beatrice plays the guitar and sings, so we had a great time singing together after dinner.


• We spent one day scouting out accommodations for the next team coming in August. The construction team will be working in Bhalekane, which is in the north-central part of the country. Our friend Sizwe, who has been a driver for all of the teams, joined us. We had a great time and were successful in finding several suitable places.

As you can tell, no two days are alike, but all were good. We are thanking God for allowing us to be here, and to be working with so many amazing and passionate people. We are especially excited about this Coca-Cola grant, and will keep you updated on what is happening there.

This coming week, please pray for us along these lines:

1. Sunday morning services with pastor Nomvula Dlamini at Mphondla Church of the Nazarene. We will be speaking in the NYI and regular worship services.


2. Wisdom! For decisions, for understanding, and communicating in a different culture


3. Important meetings this week regarding upcoming projects


4. Continued health and safety -- no sicknesses yet! Praise God!
   

   Thank you for your continued prayers and encouraging notes through the blog, facebook, and email. We even received another piece of mail this week! God is good and you are too!