Home Again!

Sanibonani ungani wami! I have returned safely to the states! I am sorry I was not able to upload anything while I was away! Unfortunately I only accessed the internet once, and it was too terribly slow to even open email. Thus, I will have to send you stories as I start to write them. I wish I could share with all of you what the Lord did, even though I know that will be impossible. Thus, I will try to give you a small glimpse...

This is an exerpt from an email that I send to a friend (I tell you this so that the wording of some of my sentences makes more sense):

We had a crazy month in Swaziland! I'm not sure where to even begin in relaying any stories, but maybe I'll just pick one or two and begin there. First, I must give you a background on Swaziland since I don't believe you have ever been there, but you may find yourself called there at some point. The country itself is beautiful! It is full of majestic mountains and typical "African" landscapes. The people also are wonderful and their culture is one steeped in tradition. Compared to Kenyans, they are a very shy, quiet people who often hide behind walls. Their closed nature at times made ministry in Swazi a little challenging, and certainly different than Kenya. However, I feel that the relational nature of ministry and the challenge left our team better prepared to minister to those in the states where the atmosphere is similar. I actually found myself learning a lot about God's heart for the nations and for his people rather than a particular culture or location while in Swaziland as I didn't find myself "in love" with the culture the way that I was in Kenya. It was a great experience to start to see that: 1. God is confirming my heart for Kenya and that I will return there soon one day and that 2. God really does desire us to have a passion for HIS NAME alone in spreading the gospel to all tribes tongues and nations!

Our team itself was very interesting. As leaders we were faced with opposition from the very beginning with losing one of team members because of her outright refusal of the Gospel before we even left for the field. It was a spiritually exhausting situation, but as odd as it seems, I think our team was better for sending her home. Somehow a spirit of oppression was lifted after she left. As one of my friends commented, you wouldn't send a football player into the superbowl without being properly trained to play. Similarly, you can't send someone to preach the love of Jesus if she herself didn't know the love of Jesus...it's dangerous for both her and the team. We continue to pray for her and hope to follow up somehow. I am confident that she was led to training camp for a reason to be exposed to the Lord in a new way (as it seems her church was not preaching the salvation that you and I know), and I'm confident that he is going to use those few days to impact her.

The rest of the team was a great group of girls! They were quite young, but they were always positive, encouraging, and extremelly unified (especially for a group of 11 girls!) However, because of the things that they had never been exposed to, they were forever changed by the trip! I saw such growth in them and continue to see it occurring as they are already back home processing what the Lord did in and through them and its finally hitting them what happened over the month in Africa! Many of them had dealt with far more than any teenager should have to go through, and the fact that they were dealing with much of that baggage on the field made for an interesting trip. It was great to be a part of walking them through that and pointing them to the Lord and watching the change in them after God had spoken to them. I realized in a whole new way on this trip my own heart for discipleship and teaching these girls more about the Lord. I hope to be able to continue those relationships in some capacity, as I started to see the team as my own little sisters.

My leadership team was amazing! I could not have asked for two better co-leaders. We continually referred to ourselves as a triple braided cord, for the Lord had knit us together perfectly in our strengths and weaknesses as a group. We are all very different people which worked out well in defining our roles with the team. I was so thankful that we were so unified, for I think it affected the whole team's unity, of which there were absolutely no problems! Our male leader, Stephen, did great with all of the girls. Because there wasn't a guy for him to be discipiling, he was able to focus his attention to caring for and protecting the girls as a father would. They felt comfortable enough to share with him and learned from him so much about what a godly man looks like (which so many of them needed in their lives!). Teresa H. also was an incredible rock and mother figure for our team. As the A leader she was often weighed down with logistics, but she carried the burden so gracefully. She was such a great friend to me, and I know that's not the last time we will see each other.

I know I could sit here all day and type out stories about dear Swaziland and South Africa (as the mountain village we had the privilege to go to was actually found within the larger countries borders), I suppose for now I will relay just one of the many. We refer to this day as "MacGyvica Day" (MacGyver in Africa). I suppose you heard about our kombi flip. [on June 24, our van flipped on a dirt road in the middle of the African bush...we had no communication and were pretty far from anything. By the grace of God, not a single person was even cut badly! One girl was suspected to have a fractured collar bone by the doctor, but by the time the x-rays returned...no fracture could be found...praise the Lord for his healing and protection!] That day was indeed a scary one, although the Lord protected our team in a huge way! Even though during that accident, I saw that the Lord had given me my calm personality for such a time as that as I was given the job of getting the girls out of the van and calming them down, I still was a little scared myself to get back in a van on a gravel Swazi road for a few days after the disaster. On MacGyvica Day, we were riding to a new location a few days following the accident and we found ourselves once again on a dangerous Swazi road with our driver swerving back and forth. The girls rode in silence and tears as I prayed that day to see the Lord's hand at work. After finally making it safely to our location, we unloaded the team and Teresa and I prepared to go to the grocery store with out host pastor and cook in his car. I got in the vehicle to find that it was a little worn down and contained no seat belts. When he tried to start it, the only thing that occurred was the car rolling backwards to almost hit a fence. I thought to myself "Great...we're going to get in another wreck today." After a few unsuccessful attempts at starting the car, it was decided the battery was dead. In this rural community with no other vehicles, there was no obvious way to remedy this situation. We tried to push start the car, but again to no avail. The pastor even tried changing the battery with what appeared to be a lawn mower battery...but again to no avail. At this point I had a vision of the team laying hands and praying for the car, so I ran back to where they were having quiet time and told all of them to sit and pray until the car started. I felt that the Lord wanted to increase their faith by showing them that even in times like this he would hear and answer their prayers.

Meanwhile back at the car, Stephen had noticed that not only was the battery dead as a doornail, but the car was completely missing a major belt. As we were in the middle of the African bush, our only choice of remedy was to find some acceptable belt alternative. We turned to none other than some ratty panty hose and medical tape to hold the car together. Watching and laughing as they tried to rig together the belt, I thought to myself, "Lord it is only by your grace that this car is going to start because this would never work without you!" We gathered once again behind the car and pushed it down the cow patty ridden road and almost hit a dear cow before the vehicle started! I felt the Lord's great victory in that moment as we hopped in and made our way to the store.

Unfortunately we made a stop at a mechanic on the way and saw that the water in the radiator was boiling, so we ended up leaving the car and hitching a ride with a random Swazi man (most of whom are pretty scary characters at times). After getting to the store we found that they had no water or us to purchase for the team and we had no ride back. But leave it to God to again rescue us. We ran into the world race team [another group of AIM missionaries] who informed us that they were actually just down the road from us and that they had running water. We purchased some buckets and prepared to hitch a ride back when the Lord saw fit to arrange such that the world race driver had been friends with our cook (even though they have not seen each other in nearly 10 years). Because of either his genuine kindness or interest in our cook (I tend to think it was the latter, but I can hope), he offered to take us all the way back to our rural location. It was a grand day of the Lord's provision, as well as one of chuckles as we tried to fix the car MacGyver style!

I suppose that will be the end of my stories for now, although be assured that I have plenty more! I can't wait to see everyone and to begin to share how the Lord has worked and changed myself and my team!

T aka Phendulile (they give each person SiSwati names...mine means "The Lord's Answer to Prayer")