A 9 year old...actually she's 16

The other day we had a little medical clinic at one of our new sites in the Madonsa area of Manzini. It is a more rural than most of our other sites as it is outside the city limits and thus is under the control of traditional leadership…the chief, indvuna & bacupho. It is situated in a beautiful area and there are a bunch of children there. Daran & Teresa Rehmeyer as well as Kristen Young were treating the children medically. Charles Young and I were busy outside playing with the children & trying our best to build relationships with the people. There was one girl that I saw that just looked frail, looked sick…she didn’t look like a Swazi with their round beautiful faces but rather she looked like she was from Kenya except she looked like those faces you see in Niger that are starving…so frail, so not right…hard to explain but I guess to sum it up she looked like a skeleton. I find out later that she told Teresa that she was 16 years old…I can’t say I’m surprised because her eyes told the story of a hard 16 years even though her physical characteristics looked more like a 8 or 9 year old. She hadn’t really developed, she was tiny, it was hard to look at her in such a state. She’s had diarrhea for as long as she can remember which usually a sign of full blown AIDS is. Can we help this girl; will she live for another year, another month?? If I go with percentages, its most likely she won’t make it another year…I can’t go with percentages, I can’t go with what logic tells me, we Children’s Cup can’t turn a blind eye, we can’t turn from her because we want to protect our hearts from pain…from what seems like a certainty for her, death…we can’t turn and do nothing. I don’t know how this story plays out, but I know we will pray for this girl, love this girl, and help this girl as much as we can. I also know that when Charles & I were playing with the children she was in there with the rest of them. God allowed us to see her smile, to see her laugh and play without the weight of life on her shoulders. What a privilege it was to give this girl a day of good memories, of joy, of hope. Please pray that we can get the assistance this girl needs and that if we can get her started on ARVs that she’ll be able to handle the shock they are to one’s system at first. HIV is horrible, I hate it…but I gotta stay in this fight, I got to keep on loving, I got to show people hope & love…I got to help train a new generation how to live the right way, a way that leads to abundant life, a way that avoids HIV/AIDS. I’ll try to get a picture of this girl to show y’all.

Parent's Rocking out @ the Carepoints

 

Parents trip...continued...sorry took so long

Long time gone…it is getting harder and harder to blog these days because I have my hand in so many different baskets as opportunities have really opened up and exploded for me to get involved in different projects, initiatives and the like. Like right now I am involved in setting up a Candlelight memorial, a children’s prayer day for the city of Manzini & a 7 aside soccer tournament for the youth of Mbabane. This is in addition to all of the other stuff going on with Children’s Cup. It is quite crazy and thus I don’t have much time to sit down & write. This is not for lack of topics or stories but truly a time crunch.

So to finish up on my parent’s story that I started awhile ago. They came and we had a good time going around Swaziland and Mozambique. They got to see where our new church/Carepoint project is going on in Mozambique. It was a great time for them to see the beginnings of a project and hopefully I can keep them and y’all the huge audience that reads my blogs (not really) updated on it. When they saw it consisted of just a piece of land (mostly sand) with a container and two trees on it. I’ll update next week at what is there now. We then were able to visit some of the Carepoints in Swaziland where my mom did some arts & crafts with the children at two of our pre-schools. Those children will remember that day very fondly and it has encouraged our teachers to really explore the use of art in their classrooms. It is cool to see the creativity my mom initiated in the teachers.

Another morning my parents and I went up to one of the government hospitals in Manzini. We had a small ceremony where my mom donated the curtains she has been working on to the hospital administrator, head matron and the head nurse of the children’s ward. It was cool to see…in a couple of weeks I’ll show you more of a before and after of the children’s ward…still working on getting all those curtains up. My parents got to see my life over here which was important to me. I don’t know but somehow I was struggling a bit or in a funk before they came but now I’m on fire again for what God has me doing over here. I think it involves getting back to that place where I’m at Jesus’ feet.

My parents are cool, they are what I consider home, they have blessed me immensely in my 22 years. Shout out to Dad & Mom for raising me right and loving me lots. Love you guys!

My parents came and we toured around Swaziland and went into Mozambique. It rained a lot the first couple of days they were here but we still managed to enjoy our time. We then went into Mozambique for 3 days to go up the coast and then come back down to the Carepoint we’re building outside of Maputo (the capital city). I’m going to do a couple updates but first I’ll start with the road chronicles of Mozambique. The road is pretty good once you are out of Maputo up until you are in Xai-Xai a coastal town about 200ks to the north. Once one is north of Xai-Xai the road is treacherous with pot holes spanning ¾ of the road. It really felt like a video game trying to avoid the many potholes.














As you can see the roads are a bit sketchy. I don’t have pics of the huge potholes but any of you who doubt me can come over and we’ll take an interesting trip up the coast of Mozambique.

Heavy Heart

I have a heavy heart. One of our volunteers, Dudu, passed away the other day. This is a lady I worked with at camp and christmas parties. She had a huge heart for children and serving God. A victim in this crazy AIDS pandemic...I thought she was getting better...I was wrong. I was really shocked to hear the news of a person I had seen and helped so often ultimately pass from this life. We had found her when she was sick, brought her strength building foods, taken her to the clinic, taken her to the hospital, arranged a room for her once she got out of the hospital, taken her books to keep her occupied, prayed with her and for her.....and she passed away. I can't say I understand, but I know God's purposes will prevail. She seemed to be getting better, taking ARVs and moving forward and then all of a sudden she left us. I thought she still had work to do for the kingdom...somehow through this God is building his kingdom...somehow God has a plan. Pray for her family, friends, the Cup staff & volunteers as we are in a time of grief. I trust God, I know his perspective is bigger than mine, I feel his strength and comfort but I'm still searching for answers on what the way forward is.

I'm Back

What can I say…I’ve been kind of busy and kind of forgotten about the whole blogging thing. Well I’m back, back like retro jerseys, back like the economic powerhouse China, back like tech stocks, back like Mission Impossible. So, what’s been going on here in Swaziland you ask? A lot and a little but mostly a reminder that my place is at the feet of Jesus. Some of you reading this completely understand this statement and are nodding your head right now while there are others of you who are baffled by this. God is our source and he can only truly work through us when we walk in daily awe of him. To do this you need to get up each day and spend time with God. So what does this look like, how do you spend time with God? God wants to have a relationship with us right? So it is like any other relationship, it involves communication, trust and love. A lot of us just talk at God and never wait for his reply or ask to know what he thinks. I challenge you all to sit and ask God to speak to you. We are going through a book right now called “The Art of Listening Prayer” and it has been a good reminder that my first desire should be God and hearing his voice. Imagine the creator, all powerful, all loving God speaking to you…its earth shattering and it is an experience like no other. Go ahead, try coming before God…kneeling at his feet and asking him to come through that door and spend time with you.