Ever since I got back from Africa, Phiwe and Ncobile have been consistently on my mind. They were the two girls our group found in a truck that wreaked of garbage. One of the women at the homestead told us that their mother had died after Phiwe was born, and their father had left them. Phiwe is now 5 or 6 years old and Ncobile is about 10. The woman also told us that they would often go 3 days without eating a meal, and only had one pair of clothes. They currently are being taken care of by their aunt, who cannot afford to properly take care of them along with her own children.
The Lord has heavily placed these two girls on my heart. For the last week I have been seriously considering adopting them. However, I know that I have to spend much time in prayer on this to discern whether this is truly God's will for me, or if it is just emotion. Please be in prayer for me.
My emotions on this are that it would be very exciting but it would also bring many trials. I am only 18 years old. Currently I'm studying to be a homemaker, in hopes of one day being a stay-at-home mom. I live with my mom and my sister. We are a middle-class family and have many financial struggles since my parents are going through a divorce (which we are also praying that my dad will one day be saved and come back home). The thought of adopting is scary because it would put me right in the role of mom. There's more responsibility than I can imagine that comes with adopting. However, if it truly is God's will, it will be done, and He will provide. But for now I'll be spending my time in prayer and reading His Word, seeking His will for this situation.
It could be that the Lord is teaching me to trust Him with those that I cannot be with.
This trip has taught me so much, especially about surrendering everything to God. It has been hard adjusting back to life back in the U.S. and it has been hard leaving the people of Swaziland. If I could I would adopt Phiwe, Ncobile, and Mxolisi, knowing they could have 3 meals a day, or a place to call home, but they are children that I have to surrender over to God. The hardest thing I’ve had to do is surrender people over to God, knowing that they are better off in His hands. Maybe someday the Lord will open the door for me to adopt children from Swaziland, but for the time being that door is not open. Most people come back from a mission trip, saying that the Lord has made their calling clear that they are to be full-time foreign missionaries, but that is not the case for me. A preacher had once said, “You either go down the well, or hold the rope for those that go down. Either way, there’s going to be scars on your hands.” One of the things the Lord has called me to, is to hold the rope for those that go down. There are many uncertainties that I’ll be facing in the coming years, but I know that it is all in God’s hands. He is with me wherever I go. Thank you for being a part of this ministry by supporting me
Best Quiet Time - Returning from Africa Category:Travel Places Views:
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I had the best quiet time at the end of the trip at the hotel in Atlanta. It was pouring rain outside, and everyone was either in their rooms, swimming, or in the exercise room. We had just finished out our team meeting, and there was much tension in the group. People had mixed feelings about going back home, and much was kept silent. I had never seen or felt so much disunity in our group. Nothing really got resolved at the meeting, except what we were going to share with the other teams at debrief that night. When everyone split off into their groups, I stayed in the dining room, just pondering thoughts. It was troubling for a while, but then I realized something, it was quiet, there in that dining room. The only sound came from the rain pouring down outside. I’ve always thought the rain to be a peaceful sound. There wasn’t a single day that it had rained in Swaziland, so hearing it that day came as a shock to me. All month I felt like I couldn’t be alone with God, I couldn’t just spend time with Him, listening to Him. That was until that day. I was sitting by the window, watching the rain. The Lord then started to reveal things to me. How easily we praise God for sunny days, and we call those days beautiful. We open up the blinds and desire to be outside. We take much joy in those days. But when it’s cloudy and rainy, we cover our heads, run inside, and close the blinds, not wanting to look at such a gloomy day. We never call such a day “beautiful.” As I was looking out the window I noticed something, apart from the cement streets, planes taking off, cars speeding down the road, and tall buildings, I noticed these flowers by the parking lot. They were absolutely beautiful. The rain was pouring down on them, and I realized, had it not been for the rain, those flowers would never grow. The rain drenched the flowers, but did not drown them. I started to think about the song “Praise You in This Storm” by Casting Crowns. I thought about all the trials that God was leading me through in my life, all the storms I’ve faced and am currently facing. There’s a reason that we have to face storms, it’s so that we can grow, just like the flowers. God is good, and works all things together for good. He uses storms to conform us to the image of His son. He will not cause you to drown. He will never leave nor forsake you. Do you see the beauty in the storm? Can you stand in the middle of a storm and praise God?
The Government Hospital in Mbabane is a place where people go who are too poor to go to private hospitals and doctors. The Government hospital is much less expensive, but the care is poor. We were only allowed into the Children’s Ward. At the end of the hallway, there is a room for abandoned babies. This room is about the size of a living room and usually has about 12 babies in it. 80% of the babies in this hospital are HIV+. There is only one nurse to take care of all the children in this room. The hospital cannot provide the proper care that these children need. When one of our girls stubbed her toe, she had to call our team members that were back at the house, to bring her a band-aid.
Difficult Stories – Our group, in the short time that we got to spend at the hospital had to experience some of the toughest realities in Swaziland. One of our girls was sitting down at the table in the abandoned baby room when a woman walked in with a baby, handed the baby to her, told her the baby’s name, and left. We had witnessed the abandonment of Nosweilo. On the last day at the hospital, our group was exposed to the hardest reality, the death of a child. When we had first gotten there, there was so much joy in everyone, and then the Lord took one of His children home. Though there is great mourning in losing a child there is also great comfort in knowing that this child is home with the Lord. God is good and works all things together for good.
Mxolisi – The first day we went to the hospital I went to the abandoned baby room. Outside there were two children in wheel chairs. One of the boys was already with one of our members, the other was alone. Immediately I got attached to this boy. His name is Mxolisi / Mcosili / Sena (Nurses will tell you different names) and he’s 7 years old. Mxolisi is mentally handicap and has to spend his whole day either in a wheel chair or on the floor. Right away when I saw his eyes the Lord broke my heart over him. I had never seen so much loneliness, fear, and confusion. Sometimes he would start to get frustrated and throw his head back, often hitting it on something, or he would hit his chair with his hand. Every day we went back to the hospital I went straight to the back room to find him. The nurse had me feed him and clothe him many times. I miss that boy so much. I’m not sure how long he’s been there, but unless someone adopts him, he’ll probably live at the hospital the rest of his life.
Ncobile and Phiwe – When walking up the mountain through the homesteads we came across a large homestead, where we met the Dlamini family. They had welcomed us in right away. There were about 30 people staying in this homestead. Me and a couple other girls were walking down the path when we saw some kids in an old run down pickup truck. One of the other kids that was running around opened up the truck for us, and there were two girls sitting in the truck. One was Ncobile who was 10 years old, and the other was Phiwe who was 5 or 6. The truck smelt like garbage and manure. The clothes they had on were so dirty and had many holes in them. We found out that their mom had died after Phiwe was born, and their dad had left them. Their aunt ended up taking them in, but she couldn’t provide much for them because she had her own children to take care of. These two girls will often go 3 days without eating a meal. Neither of them trusted us when we first found them. All you could see was sadness and fear in their eyes. The first day we saw them neither would come out of the truck. I reached out my hand and they put their hand on top, looked at me, then took their hand away. Phiwe eventually came out and let us hold her. Ncobile eventually came out of the truck but wouldn’t come by us, she would just watch us. The next time we went there I saw Phiwe standing on the back of the truck, and when she saw us she had the biggest smile on her face, and she started to jump up and down. When I got to her she spread her arms out for me to pick her up. I can’t tell you how much joy that child brought to me in that moment. We noticed this time both the girls had better clothing on, which was strange because we were told by one of the women that they only had one pair of clothes. It wasn’t until later that we found out that Swazi people will often hide their sick or better take care of their people when white people are around. This was a very troubling concept for us, because we all had the fear that when we stopped coming, the girls would go back to the condition we found them in. If I could have, I would have taken Phiwe and Ncobile home with me in a heartbeat.
Firewood – In Swazi culture most women do all the work while the men sit around. We offered to help the Swazi women at this homestead get firewood for their family. This meant hiking up the mountain for 3 hours and carrying firewood down for another hour. The women told us they do this once a week. Oh and we had to do this in skirts. They had taken us a little bit past the firewood to the top of the mountain near the game reserve. Towards the end of the mission trip, our group went back up the mountain early in the morning and surprised the Dlamini family by bringing down more firewood for them. This allowed us to get into conversations about God, in which we found out at least one of the women there seemed, from what we could tell, to be a strong believer. This woman teaches the local children who can’t afford to go to school to read and write. We gave her a Bible and a couple Christian books.
Traditional Swazi Meal – After we got back from going up the mountain with the Swazi women, they invited us to stay for lunch. In Swaziland if you’re offered a meal you must accept it, because it is considered an insult to deny food. They laid out a mat for the girls to sit on and chairs for the boys. In Swazi culture a girl can only sit with her legs to the side or with them straight out. While we sat with the children, the boys went to help cook. The meal consisted of beef (extremely well done), pap (traditional porridge made from ground maize, which literally expands in your stomach), beans, and a traditional Swazi drink that was basically blended pap that was fermented, or at least that’s what it looked like. Whatever they give you to eat, you need to eat all of it.
Women for Sale – As we grew closer to this family we came to a very awkward conversation. Ncabile, one of the women, was telling us that her 2 brothers wanted two of our girls to be their wives. In order for a man to take a woman as their wife they need to offer the father/brother something. Usually a woman is married for about 17 cows. 2 of our guys had left us at the homestead as they went to go look inside one of the huts towards the back of the homestead, which left us with a 15 year old boy. We tried almost everything possible to tell them no without insulting them, even naming a ridiculous price (which our 15 year old boy was having fun with). But to everything, Ncabile was saying “no problem!” We couldn’t tell if Ncabile was serious or not. We ended up at the price of 200 cows, 30 chickens, and 4 dogs. When our other two guys came back they joined in on the “fun”. So much for having “men” to protect the women. We were eventually able to somewhat convince them that we weren’t for sale
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