This past week we had two birthdays in the house. We celebrated as a big family on Thursday night with lots of Fanta (their favorite drinks) cake, ice cream, balloons, streamers, food, music and games! It was just a great night altogether.
The World Race team (an AIM team that travels to 10 countries in 11 months) is in Swaziland right now and are staying with us. They’ve kind of taken in this little baby and are nursing it back to health. This baby was born about six weeks ago from a mother with AIDS and Tuberculosis. He was carried to full term and wieghed about four pounds when he was born. The mother was all dried up and couldn’t breast feed, she has no money, and is so tired and sick she couldn’t take care of him. So for the baby’s first month of life he starved. It’s only by the work of God that he is alive to this day. The team found out about this situation and the mother gave them permission to take the baby and care for it just for now. They don’t know if the baby is HIV postive or has TB because he’s too little to be tested. If the mother gets better than they’ll give the baby back, but most likely they’ll ask the mother to sign adoption papers so they can put the baby in an orphanage. Please keep this situation in your prayers. It’s the very most we can all do, prayer is very powerful. The very sad part of this story is there are tons of other stories just like all over the world. Let us pray on the behalf of those babies and mothers in the world.
My ministry has been going really well. God has seemed to change my ministry at Bhobogazi from focusing on children and teaching them, to just becoming friends wiIth school aged children, about 14 to 18 year olds. I’m planning on being there when they come after school and just getting to know them, playing their Siswati singing games that they LOVE to play. It’s seemed to make this change gradually because it’s been very inconsistant with children coming in the mornings for me to teach. I’ve been praying about a new building or at least shade stucture being built at this care point. They have a small tree for shade and only two mats to sit on… there’s usually about 35 to 50 kids there. The kids who come after school walk about 5 kilometers (or about 3 miles) around 1pm in the hot sun to get food. I see the need for some type of shade for them, water for them to drink, and a place to play games and hang out after school. I’m looking into talking with the couple that are in charge of things like this for carepoints and seeing what it looks like to try to get money for this building project. There is a church in America that supports this care point through Children’s Hope Chest. I would appreciate your prayers for this very much. Please pray that the Lord would provide for the mothers and children at this care point. Please pray that they would know and be encouraged by knowing that they are not forgotten, that the Lord has sent me to be with them because He cares for them and has not forgotten them.
SiSwati for this week:
How are you (to one) – Unjani?
How are you (to many) – Ninjani?
Response (if you’re one) – Ngi Yahila (knee ya peela)
Response (if you’re more than one) – Si Yaphila (see ya peela)
