As I go through my days here in Swaziland, there are so many times that I think, “I should blog about that”…. But sometimes it is just too overwhelming and my brain, my faith, is too small to have anything uplifting to offer. So I just decided to list some the scenarios that have made me think that in the first place, and let you come up with how God wants to use that situation in your heart and mind. I would love to read some responses, to know what it is you think God wants you to do with this information.
So these are some of the things that I wanted to share with you, each of them is true and was much more vivid and real than I could ever communicate.
- The little girl, 5 or 6 years old?, with rough calloused hands. What has she done in her little, short life that has made her hands as hard and tough as those of a farmer?
- The little girl, sweet and shy, maybe 10 years old, who stood up in church during “Testimony Time” to say, in front of the whole church, “I am thankful that I have food, that I am healthy and that I have two parents.”
- The 12 year old girl – beautiful, tall and smiling, suddenly standing back and sucking her thumb while watching the others play.
- The little girl, surely not more than 9 years old, coming into the clinic to have a check up and pick up her next month’s supplies of ARV’s. (Medicine for the treatment of HIV)…ALONE.
- The “family” made up of a woman and her two children, her brother and his child. Living in a relative’s half-built house. No roof. No floor. Just walls and some tin balanced across one room for a shelter. Planting a small garden to sell vegetables to their neighbors. Their prayer requests? School fees so that the children can go to school, and that someone would buy their vegetables.
- So many babies with orange hair and glassy eyes.
- Mothers and Grandmothers with looks of fear, worry, confusion and weariness holding those glassy-eyed babies.
Not all the “stories” here are so heartbreaking. There are so many stories of triumph and joy, but I will share those some other time. I just felt like I needed to give you these snapshots into the everyday life of some of the children and families here in Swaziland.
