Updates from Swaziland

Last weekend I had two little boys from my care point in Timbutini over to our house for the weekend. Their names are Siyabonga and Sbura. Siyabonga is about 5 years old, lives with a gogo that “adopted” him (and by adopted I mean she took him in because his biological parents weren’t capable of caring for him… that’s just how the Swazi culture works.) Sbura is about 3 years old and lives with his mother who also cooks at the care point, so I know her pretty well. When they came over they got more hugs, kisses, and tickles than they could handle from my team. Little Sbura seemed a little overwhelmed the first night but was more comfortable the next day. They got lots of new clothes, most of them were donated from America by one of my team mate’s parents who came to stay with us for a week. I took them into town and we ate at KFC and they got ice cream. I later found out that this was Siyabonga’s first time there! I can’t even imagine what have must been going through his little mind. They also got two bubbles bathes in our really big tub, which they seemed to love as well. It was tiring looking after both of them the whole weekend, but well worth it. It was so nice to bless them like that, and in the end I know they’ve blessed me more than I’ve blessed them.

Just this Saturday, two days ago, we had family ministry at my care point in Timbutini. My team mate, Erin, teaches grade 1 at a school close to the care point, so this day was also for her kids to come because most of them live in the area. It was like a big carnival with a bounce house, face painting, balloon animals, music, ring toss, bobbing for apples, cake walk (but with candy instead) crafts for making necklaces. We had well over 100 kids show up!!! It was so great! We first split the children into teams and did stations for the first hour or so, switching every ten minutes so they would get a chance to do everything. Then we presented the gospel, two of my friends did an awesome job with that. Then we handed out hot dogs (which by the way, no Swazis have ever heard of) and ice pops. Then we had kind of free time that was mostly the bounce house and slip and slide! It was so fun and I know the kids really enjoyed themselves.

This past week I was asked by Thulie, the lady I help teach with at the care point, to go and pray for a man who was very sick. This man is named Sabi and in his mid thirties. He lives on a homestead by himself and apparently had not been eating for a few days by the time Thulie found out about his condition. No one in his family really cares about him, and say that because he’s in his thirties he should be able to care for himself, but he’s very sick. He was basically unresponsive and when he tried to speak it was very hard for him, he was very weak and couldn’t even feed himself. The next day my leader was able to drive out there and we took him to a phsyciatric hospital where we sat most of the day, when they were able to sit with him, we were told he had to go to a regular medical hospital to get a drip, and also to be referred to this hospital by a doctor. So he went to the main hospital in Manzini, where he stayed over night in the emergency room. This hospital is awful and any American would be disgusted at the injustice that is shown here. The next morning the doctors told us we should take him back to the phsyciatric hospital. So we wheeled him there in a wheelchair, because we had no other name. We waited a few hours again at this hospital and finally the doctor was able to see him. When the doctor was able to evaluate him and his condition, Thulie and I were told that he could not be admitted “in his condition” and my first thoughts were, “What do you mean? He’s here becuase he’s in this condition!” But because he’s basically unresponsive and so weak, if he needed to fight of any of the violent patients he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. Well, me being a sinner that needs grace daily, became fustrated and very stressed at this point. Now he has to be trasnported back to his home in the rural area and now has medicine that he must take everyday. Thulie told me not to worry, that we must accept things as they come, and trust in God that He will heal Sabi. And at that point I didn’t want to hear that, I just wanted to be angry at this sad situation, because that’s the easy thing to do. But later, even the next day, as I prayed for the situation, God told me that Thulie was so right. He also convicted me of not trusting Him fully and allowing Him to guide my life. He was telling me that Thulie was not stressing because she trusts Him and knows that He knows what He’s doing. I’ve learned so much from this awesome woman of God. She is a widow mother with four children, sick herself, and now is going to Sabi’s house everyday, twice or three times a day, to cook for him and give him medicine. Talk about living like Jesus. We can all learn something from this woman. I haven’t been able to visit Sabi the past two days but I’ve been told he’s getting stronger and seems to be doing better. Please pray for this situation and that the Lord would have compassion on His son and heal him.

There seems to be problems with my recieving mail from any of you in the states. Here is my address again, just to make sure there are no mistakes in the one you may have:

Bailey Swager

c/o Julie Anderson

P.O. Box 5526

Mbabane, Swaziland, Africa