i thought i should share what all i did while i was in Africa this past fall. this is the letter i sent out to my supporters....
Dear friends and family,
I want to start off by saying thank you. Thank you all for your support both financially and in prayer, I couldn’t have done with out both of those. Also thank you for supporting me when I felt like God was asking me to stay until December. I was so blessed by it all and being able to stay the extra 7 weeks was amazing. I want to share with you what I did while I was there but in order to do so I will need to give you some background knowledge. In Swaziland they speak SiSwati and English, but most people over the age of 40 don’t speak much if any English so we had translators everywhere we went which was such a blessing. We were able to learn some SiSwati but it is a very hard language to learn. In Swaziland out of respect any woman over the age of about 45 or so weather she is a grandmother or not you call her Gogo. In the Swazi culture and government adoption is very hard and almost impossible because they believe that the children should be with family, so kids who have been orphaned go to family members weather they want them or not. So for many kids they will wonder the streets doing whatever it takes to make it until they find a Gogo who will take them in. And in order to make ends meet with the Gogos they make mats and necklaces and timbalicrafts purses. The Timbali crafts purses are these great bags that Adventures in Missions helps get the supplies and sell for the Gogos. (which was one of our ministries)? The first town we were in was Nsoko; it is a small rural community in southern Swaziland. In that town alone over 90% of the people who volunteered to be test for HIV/AIDS tested positive. We were in Nsoko for over 7 weeks. We lived in the team house which had running water in the bath rooms and in the kitchen most of the time. The team house was located in the heart of it all, it was on the land that AIM owned and the local pastor –pastor Gift and his family, lived. It was also a care point. A care point is a small concrete building that has been set up by pastor Gift and AIM, where local kids are taught and watched by the Gogos who volunteer, they also cook a meal which most of the time is the only meal these kids get, and anyone can come get the food. The kids who attend these care points are mostly under the age of 8, and if they are older it’s because they can’t afford to go to school. (this was another of our ministries.) in Nsoko there were 9 care points set up throughout the area, since there were 19 girls on my team we split off into smaller teams and went to different care points throughout the week in the mornings for a couple of hours. After working at our care points we would come back to our house and eat lunch, play with the kids and then go on house visits. House visits were hard but much needed, we would go to the homes of those in the community who either didn’t know Christ or did and were sick and dying. We would pray with them, read some bible passages and love on them. there were two main house visits we did one was to a woman named Dudu, she was 27 dying from tuberculosis and AIDS. She had an 8 year old daughter and a one year old son. When I first met her I knew there was something special about her, she told us a little bit of her story, her mother is a Zionist ( which is a form of Christianity, they are right on with something’s and way off on others. They believe in ancestral worship.) and her father is a “medicine man”. But she told us she was a Christian; while we visited we would read her the bible pray and would bring her an orange fanta soft drink which was her favorite. We also were able to throw a birthday party for her son S’nethemba ( sin-ah-tim-bah, which means we have hope.) who was turning one! We spent almost 2 months getting to know her and loving her, we all were struggling with why God hadn’t taken her home, she was in so much pain, could hardly breath and couldn’t do anything for her self. One of our leaders explained it to us one night, she said “God isn’t done using her, she is still glorifying God.” When we heard that it clicked in me, although we feel like we are ministering to her she is really the one who is ministering to us. Her story has touched each and every one of us in some way, she was so grounded in her faith and although she was suffering she knew it was going to glorify God which is the end goal for all of us aren’t it? A few weeks after finally getting it her body started to fail her more and more each day. On October 28th, 2009 a few short hours after a team mate and I had gone to visit her she passed away, it broke our hearts but our comfort was know that she was with Jesus know and we knew she was no longer suffering.
The pastor we worked with, pastor Gift is such an incredible man of God, he is known for loving all those who need love and finding homes for the kids who had been orphaned or even just dropped off and left for dead. We worked with a Gogo who had taken in a boy years ago named Sabelo who was a double orphan meaning both his parents died and no living relatives, so this Gogo took him in and had been raising him for years. Sabelo is so very sweet and kind and is extremely obedient. He has a sponsor so he is able to attend school. One night a 14 year old pregnant girl came to our door looking for help. Her name is Abigail. She was raped by her uncle for weeks, infected with HIV and was 7 months pregnant and had been kicked out by her step mother while her father was in the hospital. And the same Gogo who is raising Sabelo was willing to take her in. not only was this Gogo willing to take in Abigail but she also took in three boys under the age of 11 who were dropped off by their mother who went to the hospital and never came back. We were able to help provide food and other stuff all these kids needed while we were there as well as step up some future finances. These four boys had never really felt true and yet showed it to us complete strangers.
After 7 weeks in Nsoko it was time to move, we would move to a larger city which was about minutes from the capital of Swaziland. We moved to Timbutini (tim-boo-tiny) where we would no longer have running water and would live in a hut. But this hut was made out of dirt but rather concrete and the roof was made out of straw. It was cooler but still hot during the day. We lived on a homestead with a Gogo and her 3 grandchildren. Her oldest grandchild works for Adventures in missions and we worked with him throughout the week. We still did home visits and care points but we also worked in the AIM offices planning and getting gift bags ready for the Christmas parties for the kids at the care points.
While preparing myself for this trip I thought that I was going to change the lives of these kids and then come home and go back to my “normal” life, but I was wrong not only did God use me to change their lives but He used them to change my life. I was constantly reminded of how God has redeemed me and although I have stumbled and make mistakes He still wants to use me and is going to use my life to glorify Him. My heart was broken time and time again for these kids and everyone else we came in contact with but God used them to put it back together. God is so good and I am forever changed because of those three months in Swaziland. My prayer is that I will go back one day and serve God and his people in Nsoko.
In Christ alone,
Mollie Owens
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