The Lord is providing for me

Saturdays are family ministry days (meaning our whole team goes to one ministry site together.) This Saturday my team and I went out to a carepoint in the rural area called Tuwani. They’re building a new carepoint because of some conflicts at the one that now exsists. Anyhow they recieved permission and a piece of land from the chief of that area to start building, but the land is covered with small and big thorny bushes that must be cleared before any building can take place. So there we were, white people, mostly girls in skirts with tennis shoes, using machetes and bush knives to hack down thorny bushes. It was entertaining when some Swazis would walk by and say hello to us, knowing that obviously, most of us had never done this before and probably four of us girls were equivalent to one Swazi man.

This week I was finally able to get out to the other carepoint I’ll be teaching. It’s difficult to get there because public transportation doesn’t go out that far in the rural area and our team only has one car. But we’ve gotten a schedule figured out that says Monday is my off day, Tuesday and Wednesday I’ll be at Timbutini, and Thursday and Friday I’ll be at Bhobogazi. I’m working with children who are not yet in school and older kids who’s parents don’t have enough money to put them in school. At Timbutini, I’m already building relationships with both the kids and the women who cook for them. I’ve made nametags for each one so I’m learning all thier names that are so hard to pronounce and they’re beginning to remember my name as well. I’m really looking forward to having awesome friendships with these kids. I want them to know how much I love the Lord, which is why I’m there giving my time to them. Because the Lord says even though they think they’ve been forgotten, they haven’t at all. I love those kids so much! To the people reading this who’ve never been to Africa… I wish one day you’ll get to experience this. You would find it nearly impossible to not pick up one of those kids, love on them and kiss them. They’re just so great and love being loved.

God has just been totally providing for me this past week. As some of you know, when I graduated in May, I enrolled in University of North Florida in Jacksonville and took summer classes and I had every intention of attending in the fall of 2008. But during the first semester of my trip here, the Lord revealed to me that I wasn’t supposed to continue going there. I thought He was telling me to go to a Christian College, so when I was home over Christmas break I was looking for a college to apply to and asking the Lord to show me where He wanted me to go, however, I didn’t feel led to any particular school. And the more I prayed about it, the more I was considering the option of going to community college for a year or two. But at first I was totally against it, and told myself surely that’s not where the Lord wants me. Well sure enough it was less than a week until I was to return to Africa and I hadn’t made any decisions, I was just waiting on Him. So I’ve decided that even though I didn’t love the idea, it would be best if I went to community college and lived at home. Mostly because I have NO money to my name and I have a 100% scholarship to any community college, it will be good to save up money. One of my biggest concerns with living at home is not having enough Christians friends who’re on fire for the Lord. Friends to fellowsip with. Anyhow this past week we’ve met up with the real life team ( an AIM team that’s here for only 3 months) and I met a girl named Linda. Linda is from Alaska and her best friend just moved to a nieghborhood that’s about a 3 minute drive from my house! Linda says her friend is totally on fire for the Lord and has also been looking for friends to fellowship with! We’re supposed to becoming friend on MySpace and start talking now… and make plans to meet up when I’m home! Wow! The Lord is being my provider for something that’s not even for another 3 and a half months! He’s so good to His children!

I miss all of you but love you even more! Hope everything is going well back home. Hope you enjoyed reading my blog!

Love,

Bailey