Season of Peace

Hey everyone! I hope you’ve all been so wonderful and had an amazing Easter! Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, life has been so peaceful and slow recently. (:

The last couple weeks in Cambodia were amazing! The Lord continued to work and show up in this school full of Buddhist believers. Students continued to ask questions, and it was a beautiful opportunity my team and I had to plant those seeds in so many students.

February 27th – April 5th we lived, and did ministry in Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland)!

Lodging!

We stayed in a small community in the middle of nowheresville essentially, called Nsoko. There were cows in our backyard, 10 minute walks from house to house, and the nearest grocery store was a 15 minute kumbi ride. (A kumbi is a 18 passenger van which is a local form of transportation. There are “kumbi” stops and when you see one, you wave down the driver and they pick you up. They are sometimes hard to come across and you might end up waiting an hour for a kumbi to come.)

We stayed in the AIM (Adventures in Missions) team house in Nsoko. It’s a beautiful base with lots of grass and walking paths. The front side of the base, it’s a beautiful view of the country with flat ground, lots of grass, and then the rolling mountains in the background. You walk through a little “field” (but there’s a path) and then you are by the team house where we sleep and eat! There are three big bedrooms in which two teams stayed in each room. There were three toilets and three showers in each room as well, and as always, full of lots of spiders! Yay!

PPC (Party Planning Committee)!

This whole year, I have been on this committee. There are a few different groups that are on the squad including logistics, treasurers, storytellers, and beauty for ashes. Normally our role consists of celebrating and organizing holidays, celebrating birthdays, but also communicating to the whole squad feedback. We showed up to Swazi and little did we know that meal preparing and grocery shopping for 50 people for a whole month was on the job description! Me, and the three other people I worked with had this opportunity to serve the squad in this way this month. The group I worked with and I went shopping probably about 6 or 7 times while we were there, along with picking up groceries at the store on the way home from ministry a couple times a week. It was a beautiful opportunity to be able to serve the squad in this way but also very exhausting and tiring. Every day PPC was on because we had to feed our fellow squad mates! It was a beautiful season of learning patience and communication, even though Swazi communication is much harder and different than American communication.

Community!

If you haven’t picked up on it already, this month we got to live full squad! Our team has not been able to really see or even talk to people since Guatemala so this was beautiful. Vietnam we were in the same city as others, but unable to talk to them for the sake of compromising their ministry because of Vietnam’s very strict government. Cambodia, our team was by ourselves two hours from the majority of our squad. Swazi, all six teams were all together!  Every breakfast and every dinner you could look around the yard and see people having “one-on-ones” which is a term we use here on the world race to call intentional time with another person. One-on-ones are an amazing time to connect with fellow squad mates, and share how the Lord has been working in your heart and your life. The Lord really revealed to me during this month how special and loving this community is. We all have so much wisdom to pour out onto others, and just want to better each other to become more like Christ. Hearing about testimonies from Vietnam and Cambodia from other squad mates was really encouraging. Each and every person on this squad has grown tremendously since Guatemala and it’s so evident!

Ministry!

We left the base at 9:30am, dropped a team off at their ministry and then headed to our care point. Care points are a place for kids to come after school or during the day to play and be kids. Lots of the time, kids as young as 6 years old are putting their younger siblings to bed because their parents are still at work. Carepoints also provide a meal for the kids, and for many of them it’s their one meal a day. They play, eat, and hang out at these carepoints that are around many different communities. When my team and I got to our care point, we started the day with some worship and quiet time with the Lord to prepare our hearts and minds for what the Lord had in store for us that day. After that, we either went and did some housevisits to those in the community or we would stay at the carepoint and help clean up, or pour into the Shepard and gogo’s. The Shepard is the head person at the carepoint who leads Bible lessons, knows all the kids and loves them. The gogo’s are grandmas whose kids come to the carepoint, and they make the food for the kids. They are such precious souls who want to serve their community and love them so well! Around 1pm, a couple kids showed up who were our “regulars”. Around 2pm, a group of about six preschoolers would show up since they get out earlier than primary school. Around 3:15 the primary school students would show up, and those kids are about 7-14. We would have about 30 kids there when we would get picked up at 4pm. With all these kids we would talk with them, play “tach” (their version of tag), or go up and down the slide over and over and over. All of these kids had giggles and laughs that would never end. The most precious, innocent sounding laughs I have heard and that was just a glimpse of what Heaven will sound like! After we would leave is when the high schoolers would arrive because they get out later than both primary and preschool. All these kids, preschoolers to high schoolers, walk over an hour from school to get to the carepoint every day. It was a wonderful time of loving these kids ages 2-18 at their carepoints. Showing them the love of Jesus, and also encouraging the older ones with the truth that Jesus has to share with us!

What the Lord has Taught me this Country!

• Peace and stillness. Swazi is a country where slowness is apart of all their lives. America is go, go, going, but Swazi is the absolute opposite and the Lord showed me that this pace of life, slow, is possible in America if you make the intentional time to slow down. It was an amazing month to rest in the goodness of the Lord!
• Relying on the Lord for my strength. There were a few times throughout my time in Swazi when the enemy was present and stealing my energy and my heart to serve His kingdom. I cannot run this race on my own, only on the Lords strength! The Lord is so much greater than anything the enemy does to attack us.
• There’s always a reason to praise! No matter what season of life we are in whether we are in the highest of highs, or lowest of lows, there is always a reason to praise! God is a never changing god who is always constant. He’s always good, always faithful, always forgiving, always gracious.
• The power of the Holy Spirit, the Living God inside of us is so powerful! He gives us the words when we need and the energy when we need! It’s a beautiful gift we have to continue to embrace! I encourage each of you to ask the Lord to give you more of his spirit. That means you’re just telling God you want more of him! Psalm 37:4 says “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
• The Lord does not carry past sins against us, he forgets them and views us as his perfect child. We are made perfect in his image! He wants us to always run back to him, and he never ever forsakes us!

It was a hard month full of learning! A month full of continually leaning on the Lord and keeping Him at the forefront of my mind.

Fun News!

My parents got to come visit me for a week here in Swazi! It was such a wonderful opportunity to serve with them by loving kids, and loving families in the communities. It was also a great week full of learning from the Lord and from each other!

Thanks for all your love! Please let me know if you have any questions! Currently writing this in our 19 hour van ride to Jeffrey’s Bay, SA where we will be doing ministry the next 4 weeks, then heading back to the states. Woah. Crazy!

Alexina (: