Alright, so we arrived in Swaziland last Saturday evening. It is absolutely gorgeous here! There are mountains everywhere and me and my friends say that we should dress in skirts (oh wait, we already do) and sing "the hills are alive, with the sound of music....". Seriously, it's that beautiful!  There are 60 of us staying in one house for this week. The first morning we went to church which was awesome. I love listening to them sing! The language here is Siswati so we've picked up on several of the phrases and are using those when we can.

So Monday started our ministry and sessions. Our leaders give talks on different topics every week.  This week our theme is our Identity in Christ. Then we eat our most favorite meal- a pb and j sandwich and carrot sticks. No really, we eat this EVERY day. Then comes the best part of the day- MINISTRY. The first day and second day my team went to a Care Point. There are several of them placed throughout this area (the city is called Manzini). It's a safe place for children to get a meal and then a team of Swazis go to the Care Points every week to do a bible lesson. There are gogos (grandmas) at each Care Point that serve the kids and look after them. There are orphans and school kids etc. and they are just beautiful and so much fun to play with.

On Wednesday, we went to the squatter camp and played with kids at the church and then went and to visit some families. Something that I love about their culture is that their names have a meaning that matters to them. They also give anyone that comes to their country a Swazi name. Many on my team have Swazi names and I'm still working on getting one!

On Thursday, we went to the hospital. I visited the Women's ward first and sat with an 18 year old girl for awhile. She didn't know any English but it just didn't matter. Jesus gave us hands to use for Him. I fed her and sang to her and just loved her without any verbal conversation. Then I visited the babies and spoke with some of their mothers. There was a baby named Noah who had AIDS and hadn't eaten for 5 days. The doctors told his mother that he probably wasn't going to make it through the day. Talk about heart-wrenching. It took everything I had not to lose it as I stroked his tiny face. AIDS is a serious problem in Swaziland but the Swazi people wouldn't tell you that- they won't speak of AIDS and say they have TB or any other sickness before admitting they have AIDS. Apparently the statistics say that by the year 2050 Swaziland will be extinct because of the horrifying AIDS rate. It's hard to wrap your mind around something like that.

After the hospital we walked back to the squatter camp for an outreach at the church. They killed a cow- yes, right there in the pastor's house and fed all the kids and families and danced and sang for a few hours. We had a night session and then my D-group (the leader that is discipling me and the other girls she disciples) went out for pizza.

That brings me to today, we have the rest of this weekend off and we are just relaxing and hanging out. We will go to a park tomorrow to hike or just hang out and then go shopping. We leave to go back to South Africa on Monday morning but I'm very sad to leave Swaziland, although I know we have exciting things to do in SA.

I miss you all so much and thanks so much for all of your encouraging words! I can't believe it's only been 3 weeks that I've been gone! I do thank to the Lord every day for having this as part of His plan for my life. But it's not ME doing amazing things in Africa, it's Him doing things through me:) Love you all so much and I'll continue to update you!