We left the Nhlangano Sun Hotel at 8:00 on Tuesday morning and started the long drive to Mbabane. The rain had kept up all night and was still coming down when we left the hotel, a watery blessing on the newly planted fields of maize.
We took a last group photo at the door of the hotel and piled into the van to drive away.
I was reconciled by now to the idea that we hadn’t come to Swaziland to DO anything. It was important to bring our sponsored children gifts and pictures and letters and to lay our love and support at their feet, but we didn’t engage in any great, earth shattering actions there.
I was convinced rather that we came to learn: What does the face of HIV/AIDS look like? It looks like a frightened girl named Nokuphila who has already buried her one and only son. It looks like a surly young man who only wants to be treated with dignity and respect.
What safety nets are in place to keep children from falling through the cracks of life in a stricken land? They are people, and they look like Mandla and twenty other sponsorship promoters who walk the red dirt roads to bring letters and hope to our little ones.
Who cares, and how we can we add enough of our support to those that care to make a lasting and substantial difference? How can we open ourselves up to the tragedy and sorrow of this place and not be broken by it.
And who were our teachers in this place?
First, there were the children. Every smiling face, every wide-eyed stare, every chanted nursery rhyme we heard in a thatch-roofed Hope Center said the same thing: “We are your children. We are your family. We are all one: A person is a person through other people and we are your people."
The children put the words from Proverbs 3 into action for us, and became our models: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”
They seemed like small corks boats, buffeted in the storms of famine and drought and disease. Yet they found enough grace in their lives to smile and laugh and squeal with glee when they saw their own pictures in our cameras. They humbled me.
The sponsorship promoters and the ADP staff were our teachers. We met a woman who had been attacked by wild dogs while climbing over the hills to visit the children she was charged with protecting.
We talked with staff members who hiked through the rain for days on end and who were in some cases the only “family” that many orphans had left. We talked with one sponsorship prom0ter whose husband had recently died from a lightning strike while hiking these lands, but who was doggedly looking after her scattered chicks.
Amon and Musa of World Vision Swaziland were our teachers. Amon’s undisguised joy in the presence of the children of Mhlosheni taught us something. Musa’s compassionate determination to bring Lhomkosi from South Africa to Mhslosheni taught me grace, as did his heartfelt prayer when we said goodbye to Nokuphila.
The World Vision International people, Ruth and Andy, were our patient teachers. Their love for the people of this land, young and old and in between, was a clear reflection to me of the love of Jesus. Mind you, they’re not perfect people. Andy recounted to me how he’d made a list one night of some of the thoughtless and unthinking things he’d said in the presence of the Swazi people who were our guides. But they are worthy of emulating in every way. They taught us to look for – and find – the evidence of God’s healing grace at work all over this land.
On our way to Manzini and the Swazi cultural center we drove beside the Mkhondvo River for a while. At one point I saw a long, rickety rope and wood footbridge crossing the swollen muddy river. It looked like something from an Indiana Jones movie, and reminded me again how far removed we all were from the realities we were so comfortable with back home. None of us would dream of walking our kids over that bridge.
After watching traditional Swazi dances at the cultural center (it was funny to watch polished, grown-up versions of the dances the kids had laughingly performed at our banner-signing party!) we toured a replica of a traditional Swazi village.
After checking into our rooms we had a huge goodbye dinner with our new friends from Swaziland. Bonginkosi thanked us warmly for our patience and our flexibility (at the beginning of our journey he’d given us each a small Gumby doll to remind us of the need for flexibility).
I had asked Bonginkosi earlier what the siSwati word for “shepherd” was. He said “Umelusi.” Bonginkosi was our tall, soft-spoken, always-smiling umelusi, driving us over miles and miles of rutted red roads to help us discover the song of Mhlosheni.
We took a last group photo at the door of the hotel and piled into the van to drive away.
I was reconciled by now to the idea that we hadn’t come to Swaziland to DO anything. It was important to bring our sponsored children gifts and pictures and letters and to lay our love and support at their feet, but we didn’t engage in any great, earth shattering actions there.
I was convinced rather that we came to learn: What does the face of HIV/AIDS look like? It looks like a frightened girl named Nokuphila who has already buried her one and only son. It looks like a surly young man who only wants to be treated with dignity and respect.
What safety nets are in place to keep children from falling through the cracks of life in a stricken land? They are people, and they look like Mandla and twenty other sponsorship promoters who walk the red dirt roads to bring letters and hope to our little ones.
Who cares, and how we can we add enough of our support to those that care to make a lasting and substantial difference? How can we open ourselves up to the tragedy and sorrow of this place and not be broken by it.
And who were our teachers in this place?
First, there were the children. Every smiling face, every wide-eyed stare, every chanted nursery rhyme we heard in a thatch-roofed Hope Center said the same thing: “We are your children. We are your family. We are all one: A person is a person through other people and we are your people."
The children put the words from Proverbs 3 into action for us, and became our models: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”
They seemed like small corks boats, buffeted in the storms of famine and drought and disease. Yet they found enough grace in their lives to smile and laugh and squeal with glee when they saw their own pictures in our cameras. They humbled me.
The sponsorship promoters and the ADP staff were our teachers. We met a woman who had been attacked by wild dogs while climbing over the hills to visit the children she was charged with protecting.
We talked with staff members who hiked through the rain for days on end and who were in some cases the only “family” that many orphans had left. We talked with one sponsorship prom0ter whose husband had recently died from a lightning strike while hiking these lands, but who was doggedly looking after her scattered chicks.
Amon and Musa of World Vision Swaziland were our teachers. Amon’s undisguised joy in the presence of the children of Mhlosheni taught us something. Musa’s compassionate determination to bring Lhomkosi from South Africa to Mhslosheni taught me grace, as did his heartfelt prayer when we said goodbye to Nokuphila.
The World Vision International people, Ruth and Andy, were our patient teachers. Their love for the people of this land, young and old and in between, was a clear reflection to me of the love of Jesus. Mind you, they’re not perfect people. Andy recounted to me how he’d made a list one night of some of the thoughtless and unthinking things he’d said in the presence of the Swazi people who were our guides. But they are worthy of emulating in every way. They taught us to look for – and find – the evidence of God’s healing grace at work all over this land.
On our way to Manzini and the Swazi cultural center we drove beside the Mkhondvo River for a while. At one point I saw a long, rickety rope and wood footbridge crossing the swollen muddy river. It looked like something from an Indiana Jones movie, and reminded me again how far removed we all were from the realities we were so comfortable with back home. None of us would dream of walking our kids over that bridge.
After watching traditional Swazi dances at the cultural center (it was funny to watch polished, grown-up versions of the dances the kids had laughingly performed at our banner-signing party!) we toured a replica of a traditional Swazi village.
After checking into our rooms we had a huge goodbye dinner with our new friends from Swaziland. Bonginkosi thanked us warmly for our patience and our flexibility (at the beginning of our journey he’d given us each a small Gumby doll to remind us of the need for flexibility).
I had asked Bonginkosi earlier what the siSwati word for “shepherd” was. He said “Umelusi.” Bonginkosi was our tall, soft-spoken, always-smiling umelusi, driving us over miles and miles of rutted red roads to help us discover the song of Mhlosheni.
He kept us together and more or less in line, and never lost a single sheep. He provided the rhythm for our worship by thumping enthusiastically on a bible and patiently answered our hundreds of drive-by questions: "What’s that?” “Why do they do that?” “Who takes care of that?” “When is lunch?”
He has the bearing of a theologian and the laugh of a boy. He was a blessing to us, and I hope to meet him again some day. I owe him more than he knows.
After dinner we went to bed, ready to begin our long flights home the next day. I missed the kids and Joie terribly, but I wasn't eager to leave.
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