7 Christmas parties down, 3 more to go!!!

   This week has been very busy, as we have been getting ready for Christmas parties for all 10 carepoints! We did the first three on Friday and Saturday which made for very busy days! Three more to come next weekend!

Nombali and I moving the fresh beef from the trash bag to another container. :)

   Today for the first time in a while I was able to sit down and process everything that has happened recently and realized I only have two more weeks left. This brought on so many different thoughts and feelings to my mind of great sadness, excitement and prayer. As my time is drawing to a close here, I am wondering and praying about what will happen next, where in Africa will I end up and when? But as I was reading Esther this morning, I realized she had total faith in her God even when her future was uncertain. She readily obeyed Mordecai and walked by faith during trying times. So as I finish up in Swaziland, I look forward in anticipation to what God has in store for me.

This weekend we were blessed with a two day get away to St. Lucia, South Africa. We got to sit out on the beach and be refreshed by God's overwhlemingly beautiful creation, the beach.

 

 The sunrise at five in the morning.

 Monkeys everwhere!

 Uh-Oh :)

Carrying on the family tradition!

Hippos in the yard last night!

 

Pictures from the last week....

Our greeting party at the team house :)

One cool girl!

Going back home after a long day of work.

Havesting with the Joyela and Mahlabeneni gogos!

Hanging out with the girls at Mahogany.

Oct. 25

Today Sanele, Nombali and I went to the Mahlabeneni carepoint. While they were working with the older children I sat and played with the younger ones. It was a cool, rainy day. One little boy came into the building sobbing and soaked; his face was muddy from where he had fallen in the dirt, so I scooped him up and cuddled him against me under my jacket. His shivering stopped and he fell fast asleep.

It was the perfect opportunity to pray for this little boy and his family; his mom or gogo out working and providing a shelter for him and his siblings, his sister who was not much older than he and for his future, no matter how short or long it might be. It was so amazing being able to poor into this little boy’s life and love on him. I thank God so much that I have two parents, I have warm clothes, food three times a day and always have a weather-proof house to sleep in unlike this handsome little boy who probably has never even slept in a bed before.

   In 1996 a young woman, Ntombi, who is mentally handicapped stepped into the fire, burning her foot, while her family was out working in the fields. Slowly that burn healed on her foot but a small spot the size of a dime remained unhealed. For many years it grew more and more infected, but what could her family do? They barely have enough to live on much less carry her all the way down the mountain, pay for transport and spend a whole day at the hospital.


   In 2011 Erica Zeiler went with her team to visit families in that area and saw her infected foot. By this time it had started rotting and maggots filled it. With great compassion and love, Erica went up every week to clean and bandage Ntombi’s foot. Then, after Erica went home, for another year her foot went unnoticed and she went unloved, up in the mountains.


   In spring of 2012 Erica came back to stay and in her first week here, the Lord reminded her of Ntombi and back up the mountain she went to check on her. The wound had again become badly infected and had spread to more area in her foot. Again, overflowing with compassion, Erica cleaned out her foot once a week and left bandages for her father to re-apply. However, it still got worse and worse, so in June Erica took her up to the hospital were they took some flesh to run tests on it, but the results would not be ready for three months. It has been almost four months since the tests and still no answer. So Erica and the Discipleship team have been faithfully driving thirty minutes up into the mountains to bring her and her father down to the clinic three times a week to clean it out and put more bandages on it. For the last 16 years her father has shown his great love for her by carrying her on his back down the long path to the car, holding her hand while her foot is cleaned and then carrying her back up the path to their small house.

 
   Last week I was privileged to go with two members of the D-team to bring down and take back Ntombi and watch as they re-bandaged her foot. On the way back down the mountain after we took Ntombi home I noticed this beautiful flower, rather out of place among the thorn bushes and rocks. It gave me such an amazing picture of how the Lord used one woman through many years to bring a ray of hope to this family, how in Ntombi’s pain filled life, someone has cared enough for her to wash her maggot infested foot and to tell her she is loved not only by her earthly father, but by her Father in heaven.

 

I got to hang out with the precious, shy little girl for an hour the other day. So sweet and beautiful!