Training camp was good.

our team is quite small. 6 participants and 3 leaders. a nice ratio.
and we bonded quickly. don't know what else to say...the weather in
georgia was hot and sticky...rain every evening...good food...quite
fun.

then we got on a plane and flew 19 hours straight...except for a
stopover in dakar for refueling...honestly, i was not aware that a
plane could fly for 9 hours straight. but we managed here alright. no
luggage was lost or broken, so that was a nice bonus. umm...we landed
in south africa approximately 2 weeks ago and spent a few days in a
homestead called alabanza. is was awesome. a really nice place. and
then we drove the 6 or so hours into swazi on the thursday.

these past couple weeks have been fast paced and not very settled. we
spent a few days at our house...then moved to a different house for a
couple days, then moved back to our house...which is hopefully where we
will be for a while.

this past week has been spent trying out all of the different
ministries that we will be doing over the next month and a half or so.
teaching school...playing with orphans...visiting the hospital...

so, obviously there are several stories that i can now share with you...after getting the boring stuff out of the way...

first one is a short tale of the children's deprivation of love. it
basically consists of them seeing us drive up and jump all over us the
second we get out of our van. one little girl, who looks like she broke
her ankle (she is maybe 2 years old), and is now left to walk on her
foot which is now bent completely sideways, so she is walking on her
shin bone...she hobbled over and pointed up the the sky with both of
her index fingers...and they just stand in front of you, and look
up...and everything else in the world disappears and picking them up is
the only right thing to do...quite sad, and quite beautiful.

the second story is a little different. it is sad. it comes from our
first visit to the hospital. we went into the children's ward, and
there was one boy that was sitting by himself on his bed eating as best
as he could. me and matt (the other boy on the team) went over to visit
with him. in our very limited siswati we discovered his name to be
sinazo. lucky for us our translator came to help us. he is 10 years old
and 2 months ago, his mom dumped him on his dad. one month ago, his dad
dumped him at the hospital, and he hasn't had a visitor since. his
mouth is full of sores. his tongue is red and white and peeling. he has
been sitting on his bed for a month. we weren't told exactly what
disease he has, but it didn't look fun. as we sat with him, we colored
a bit (i have the proof in my journal) and he actually smiled once. it
was so cool. we are gonna try and visit him as often as we can.

- the different ministries we will be involved in

-VBS

-school

-hospital / hope house

-care points

- our team

- anything else that you can think of...

- but i would ask that you don't pray that i, or we as a team, be kept
safe. the world, and swaziland in particular, does not need
missionaries who are preoccupied with their safety. pray for strength
and compassion. love for the people that is willing to put ourselves in
the dangerous places in necessary. a refusal to conform to the patterns
of religious organizations, and a passion for Christ.

take care all. hopefully i'll write again in another couple weeks or so.

Mark