Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds

This trip to Swazi has been the toughest by far. So many things have gone wrong and I have never felt more defeated. We seem to hit road blocks everywhere we turn and I have been so scared to try and write a blog because I was afraid I would have nothing good to say. This journey has been a difficult one and the majority of our stories are not easy ones, but they are real and they are meant to teach us something.

I have been praying about what God is trying to teach me while I am here. There have been a number of sleepless nights when I wonder why He would allow me to come here only to be faced with disappointment after disappointment. Last night, I think I finally received an answer.

I began to think about my relationship with Swazi as a relationship with another person. I believe that God is teaching me that, like any other loving relationship between two people, there are times when one will be let down by the other. I had expectations from Swaziland. I expected to come and feel happy and purposeful. I expected to be encouraged by the people I met and the ministries I was a part of. I was wrong. Things have been incredibly difficult here and I’ve struggled to find any purpose for this trip. I feel like this isn’t too far from what happens in our relationships with other people. We expect for the other person to make us feel a certain way. We expect the other person to make our lives easier and to heal our pain. But in our humanity, we let others down. We can’t always make the other feel better and we can’t always make the pain go away. Sometimes the world gets to heavy for even the person you trust the most to carry. So what happens when the person we love lets us down? Do we say, “You didn’t make me feel a certain way today so I can no longer love you?” I don’t think that’s what love is. Some days you have to look at the person who has let you down and choose to love them anyway. You have to remember all the joy they’ve given you. You have to think of all the light and color they have brought into your world. Relationships take work. For better or for worse you must believe in the other person. Today this person may have let you down, but that doesn’t discount all the times they have surprised you with their overwhelming ability to swoop in and save your day.

So today I will choose to continue loving Swaziland. I will not forget the incredible lessons she has taught me, the innumerable smiles she has brought across my face, the beautiful people she has placed in my life, and the courage she has given me to believe in myself. Most importantly I will remember that she has brought me closer to my Heavenly Father. She has helped me to better know His heart, and for that I will love her forever.

"Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds, nor bends with the remover to remove, Oh no! Love is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken."

Girlfriend

I almost forgot about the inequality between men and women in Swaziland. I was quickly reminded of it on our first trip to town on public transportation. I can’t even count how many times we’ve been harassed by men. It takes everything I have within me not to say something rude back to them, but we have to be careful not to make them angry with us. Men stare at us, grab us, and tell us they love us and want to marry us. Just yesterday I was sitting on the bus when a very intoxicated man (keep in mind it was barely 10 am) got inches from my face and started telling me how much he wanted to go back to England with me. He then moved back towards his friends and began saying things that I would rather not repeat. I could feel the anger rush up inside me. Had this been on a bus in America there would have been plenty of people to tell him to stop and get off the bus. However, people here just laugh.

The lack of respect for women here is so infuriating to me. Many men here believe they have all the power, and yet it is the women I see here who exude the most strength. We saw one woman get out of a van with a three year old strapped to her back, a gigantic bag of groceries carried on her head, and even more bags in her hand begin walking down the street with no assistance from anyone. Walking through town we saw two boys drop their book bags in front of their little sister and tell her to carry their bags for them. She picked up the bags and slowly trudged along behind them. I could probably count on one hand the number of men I’ve met here who I’ve seen clear evidence of them being good fathers and husbands. In fact, there seems to be a lack of middle aged and older men present in the family unit at all.

The good news for me is that I get to go back to a country where I don’t have to worry about my safety every time I walk through town, I have a Dad who still opens the car door for me, and I am taught in school that I can do anything a man can do. All of my life I have been taught to respect myself and to never let a man think its okay for him to belittle me or think that I am less than him. But what about the girls here in Swazi?

Meet Sethabile. This little girl is itty bitty and the boss of all the boys at the carepoint. She is fiercely brave, hilarious, and comes with a lot of attitude. It breaks my heart to think that one day her staggering spirit may be broken because of the environment she lives in. Who will tell her how important she is? Who will tell her that she’s beautiful and more precious than gold? Who will protect her and teach her that she shouldn’t take disrespect from anyone? It is my prayer that as Sethabile grows and matures she will recognize who she is in God’s eyes, and that one day this itty bitty girl will grow up to be a powerful woman of God.

So, I was going to write out my blog last night...but I fell asleep watching a movie so I will write one quickly just to keep you updated.

We arrived in South Africa around 5:00pm on Friday evening. The border closes at 9:00 into Swazi so we sped and broke many traffic laws to try and make it. When we were 13 minutes away our tire blew out and we ended up having to pull over at a gas station. This began our 16 hour stint in a Honda CRV with 5 people. About and hour into our wait the electricity went out in the town. It was pitch black! Jess and Katie got out to use the bathroom on the side of the road (good thing we stole toilet paper from the plane) when I man came up with a flashlight. Of course they screamed and I thought we were going to die. Turns out he was the security guy for the gas station. He told us he would get in his car and go to his friend's house to try and get us a tire...We never saw him again. Around midnight my stomach started to turn into knots and make crazy noises. I was like, "Really, I've only been on this continent for a few hours. How can I be sick already?" Needless to say, that was miserable!! I tried to get out and go to the bathroom on the side of the road. Didn't work. However, it gave us three girls a nice laugh. Finally in the morning Sabelo was able to ride public transportation into town and get us a tire.

We finally arrived in Swazi on Saturday morning. It was surreal driving past familiar faces and places. When we arrived at the homestead we saw Gogo, who remembered us immediately when we said "and yooooou." :) Lelo is letting us stay in his newly renovated bachelor pad for the next few days because an AIM team is staying in the hut currently. The hot showers were such a nice surprise! Yesterday morning we went to church and it was all I could do to not burst into tears at the sight of everybody. All of the kids are like a foot taller and Thaban could be spotted immediately sitting on the lap of a guy with drool running down his face. After church we rode Lelo's new four wheelers with some of the kids. The picture above captures why I love Swazi so much. Of course the two smallest kids would be pushing the four wheeler up the hill.

Today we went to visit the Hope House. It was so good to be back! We visited with one of the care givers that we met last time. Her name is Loveness and, believe me, the name fits. Please pray for Loveness as she is sacrificing being with her two youngest daughters in order to be able to work to provide for them. She is a single mother and she said she questions whether she is doing the right thing. The love for her children is written all over face when she talks about them. She only gets to see her daughters once a month because she cannot afford the bus fair to go visit them. It was hard to swallow when I realized the bus fair was only 15 bucks. Loveness spends her life working and taking care of others. Day in and day out she takes care of two Gogos at the Hope House. You can tell that she is tired but that she is a strong woman who wants the best for her kids. It's so funny how many times I leave a person's house feeling more blessed than when I walked in. The very hope that I wish to bring to people is brought tenfold back to me.

Well, I am running out of time but I want to just give you guys a few things to please be praying for.

1) Our stomachs :)
2) Two guys tried to break into Lelo's house about a week ago. Lelo caught one guy by throwing a bush knife at him and beat him up (we saw pictures and video). The other guy got away.
3) The girls currently staying in the hut told us that rats have been leaping onto them while they are sleeping during the middle of the night....
4) Pray for us to figure out where God wants us to spend our time in ministry here.

Sorry if there is bad grammar and spelling in this blog! I didn't have time to proofread.

A Lesson from Bananas

If any of you knew my Papa you might say that he was strong, stubborn, stoic. A real man’s man. He was fiercely protective of his family and worked hard to provide for them with everything they needed. He enjoyed life and although he was in a wheelchair for the latter part of his life, he was on the go more than anyone you ever met. Who else do you know that would go for a ride around the neighborhood in his wheelchair in the middle of an ice storm just because he refused to be cooped up in the house any longer? You might even say that he was a man that you never wanted to make angry. Take it from the girl who would burst into tears at the thought of being told on to him for misbehaving (although I never actually heard him raise his voice at me, let alone give me any real form of discipline), he was a very intimidating man.

But if you were to ask me what the single most descriptive term I could think of for my Papa would be, I would say that he was kind. This headstrong, stubborn manly man is the key to my very first memories of learning what it means to show kindness to others.

Growing up everyone knew that my Papa adored his granddaughters. People tell me all the time about how they remember him riding around the neighborhood showing my sister and I off tucked securely in his newspaper bag on his lap. And seeing as how he was friends with all of our neighbors, we made plenty of stops along our route. It seemed as though my Papa never met a stranger.

One of my fondest memories of my Papa was when I would go to the nursing home with him to visit either my great grandma or grandpa. It’s common knowledge that for many people a nursing home can be a sad and lonely place. Often times, people are dropped off and are visited seldomly by family members. My Papa was not this type of family member. He visited every single day, rain or shine. However, he didn’t just visit his own family. The man knew just about everyone in that nursing home by name. It would take us forever to make it to our family member’s room just because he had to stop and talk to people. My favorite stop to take with my Papa was to Mr. Roger’s room. I never saw any of Mr. Roger’s family come visit. He would usually just be sitting in his chair looking out the window. Every time we would stop in his room my Papa would sit and chat with him for a while and before we would leave, he would reach into his bag and pull out a couple of bananas and hand them to Mr. Roger. They were his favorite.

This is the first distinct act of kindness I can remember. It was the first time I had seen someone go out of his way to show love to another. This story may seem trivial to you, but it has paved the way for knowing what kind of person I would like to be.

It’s what got me here.

My name is Kaci. I am 21 years old. I am a girl.

This is Thaban. He is five years old. He loves to be held and to play. His eyes sparkle when he smiles, and so many of us on our team have fallen completely in love with him. Thaban can't speak. We are told that he does not swallow properly. Because of this, Thaban constantly has a tremendous amount of drool dripping out of his mouth and caked all over his clothes. Thaban teaches me how incredibly selfish I can be. It's often so hard to pick Thaban up when you are hot, soaked with sweat, and the last thing you want to do is have drool all over your clothes, hands, and hair. I have to say that God is definitely using this sweet little boy to show me what it means to die to myself daily. He constantly reminds me of what I must look like in comparison to God. If I could only see how I really look in relation to God, I would see so many similarities that I share with Thaban. How many times do I run to God with open arms, filthy and smelly in my humanity, and every single time God bends down, lifts me up, craddles me in his arms, and cleans me off? No matter how disgusting I am, God is never afraid that my uncleanliness will diminish his righteousness. I am so thankful for Thaban, and it is my prayer that i will no longer be too selfish to bend down, lift him up, craddle him in my arms, and clean him off.

Your Love is Extravagant

I was listening to this song during our down time the other day and this one line really struck me. I have found in my short time in Swazi that it is virtually impossible to get my hands and feet clean. No matter how many times I make an attempt to wash them, my nails seem to be caked with dirt and there is a stickiness that appears to be permanent. It would seem that our living conditions here are anything BUT extravagant. However, I have recently discovered the real meaning of extravagance. It appears that every time we pray over our day as a team, we ask God to let us be his hands and his feet to minister to his people. I am almost certain that while Jesus was on earth, he must have had filthy hands and feet. He went to the lowliest places and spent time with the dirtiest of people, and yet, he was never offended by their uncleanliness. Here was the very son of God. He was the light of the world, the hope for all of humanity, and he chose to share his extravagance with the most helpless of people. He became unclean so that we could be made pure. During our short time in Swaziland we have had the opportunity to come into contact with so many orphans. They are covered in dust, some have snot and left over food caked on their faces, some are smelly, but all are the beloved children of God. If we really want to be like Jesus, if we want to be his hands and feet, we must be willing to meet the children in their dirtiness. We must be willing to be caked with dust, snot, and odor in order to show them love. So now when I look down at my hands and feet, I don't look at them in disgust. I look at them with awe and wonder that God would use them to bring him glory. By earthly standards my hands and feet may seem to be soiled, but I believe whole heartedly that when God looks at them he smiles. He smiles because they are covered with the extravagance of his love.

Passion

So, it’s been almost an entire year since I’ve last written. It’s one in the morning, I can’t sleep, and maybe some of these thoughts floating around in my head might be worth putting out into the world…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Passion. In looking up the definition of the word, I came across its origin…

1125–75; ME (< class="ital-inline">passiōn- (s. of passiō ) Christ's sufferings on the cross, any of the Biblical accounts of these (> late OE passiōn ), special use of LL passiō suffering, submission, deriv. of L passus, ptp. of patī to suffer, submit; see -ion.

How incredible?!

What I’ve come to believe is that God created each one of us to be passionate about something, meaning that there is something on this earth that we were MADE for. There is something that when the sheer thought of it makes it way to our minds, makes our hearts go wild.

How often do people go through life without ever having a moment where they can stand before some thing and know, without a shadow of a doubt, that God engraved this thing deep into their hearts, long before they were born? How tragic to miss it.

What an incredible honor and privilege it is that the maker and sustainer of the universe would let us in on the miraculous things he is doing. Even more so, how silly it is that He would use us in all of our brokenness to make beautiful things happen for his Kingdom?

Look back at the origin of the word Passion. Christ’s sufferings on the cross. Sufferings? This means that our Passion is going to cost us something. Perhaps it is our comfort, our security, or even our very lives. However, I think it is safe to say, that the pursuer of the passion would say that the costs to him are nothing compared to the JOY that comes from standing face to face with his passion…to realize his part in this thing that he was created for.

Please believe that you were created to do BIG, BEAUTIFUL, CRAZY things in this world. The very same power that raised Christ from the dead is in you.

"You make beautiful things out of the dust. You make beautiful things out of us."