Meet the head teacher, and update on Tiphelele

Tiphelele is doing well. See the picture of Tiphelele and her mom, Bongiwe below. She was released from the hospital last Tuesday after spending 9 days in the hospital. She returned yesterday for a check-up. The Dr. said she is doing fine. Isn't she just adorable? She's God's little gift. Thank you to all of you for your prayers. I will continue to check on her often.


Meet the new head teacher (principal) of Lomngeletjane: Busisiwe Mndzebele. She was the deputy teacher (assistant principal) of one of our Methodist Primary Schools and she is one of my favorite teachers. She is very well qualified, which is actually how she got the position over two male head teachers, including the head teacher of the school she was at. She has a certificate, diploma and degree and has been teaching for 18 years.

She started yesterday (Monday) and we've already spent a lot of time talking about the school, dreams, issues, etc. We are both excited about working with each other. Another great thing is that the school she came from had a garden to grow vegetables for the school and had got several grants from the government to make improvements to the school. She also believes the children, parents and community have a responsibility to help build the school and take care of it. She has also already sent a couple of letters to the appropriate people in the government asking for student and teacher furniture. This is a big YEABO!

Pictures of Nashville team on final day

Here are a few pictures from the final day that the Nashville team was in Swaziland. I'm starting off with the team that cleaned and leveled the area around the new toilets. They moved wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of dirt from around the toilets to another area where we will eventually need more dirt when with God's help we start to build the second 4-classroom building. It was a hard and thankless job, but this team worked at it the entire week without complaint. They were amazing! One other small team (of two people) didn't get a lot of recognition, but they planted around 70 wind break trees (small pine trees). That was a tedious job.

Final day working on the foundation. They all did an amazing job. Swazi and American women can really mix that cement! Yeabo!


Closing Braai (bbq) with the volunteers and Nashville team.

Update on Nashville team and Tiphelele

The team is doing amazing work! They are always cheerful and are extremely hard workers. They are awesome representatives of Christ, the Church, the US and just what teenagers can do, given the chance. Below you will find a few pictures of the team at work. They have divided into different teams to accomplish so much of the work that needs to be done:
1. A tree planting team - they are planting approximately 70 wind-break trees. Lomngeletjane can get a lot of high wind, so these will help protect the future orchard, the teacher's houses, and the other buildings.
2. A team to work with the children - they are doing crafts with the children and teaching them songs and games. The children are so happy and are having a great time. When the kids go home around 1:00, this team then helps out on the other teams.
3. Dirt moving team - unfortunately, I don't have a good picture of this team at work. They are moving the dirt that came out of the pits for the toilets away from the structures to an area that will need dirt when the next classroom block is built. (I'm hoping this can happen later this year or early next year.)
4. A weed-eating team. We rented two "brush cutters" yesterday (Tuesday) to try and get rid of some of the weeds and reduce the fire danger. This was hard, dirty work and unfortunately probably didn't accomplish much. We're re-thinking how to reduce the fire danger at the school. I've been trying to convince the community to tie up some goats to eat the grass, but they don't think such a crazy idea would work. I haven't given up yet.
5. The foundation team. The team is doing an amazing job on the foundation. They have poured the layer of concrete that will support the blocks for the foundation. They are even ahead of schedule! John, the builder, anticipated that IF they were hard workers, they would be ready to start laying blocks on top of this cement on Thursday. They are going to start today (Wednesday)!










And finally, an update on Tiphelele. She is doing much better. She is still on oxygen and is receiving antibiotics. Rev. Nyameka, Jeri and I went to visit her in the hospital yesterday (Tuesday). On Monday the Dr. recommended she be put on formula instead of breast milk because he is concerned that the mother doesn't have enough breast milk to feed both babies. He also recommended a stronger anti-biotic that he said was expensive and not in stock at the hospital. The antibiotic was hard to find in the pharmacies in Manzini, but I finally found it and it only cost about $20 USD. I also bought formula and nappies (diapers) for them. On Tuesday, Rev. Nyameka reminded me that there was a baby at home that wasn't being fed milk so I bought more formula and more nappies and took the mother home to visit with her baby and other children at home. Please continue to pray for Tiphelele and this family. I pray that Thipelele and her family will all grow in their strength, health and faith in Jesus Christ.

Praise for Belmont UM team arrival and prayers for sick baby

The team from Belmont UMC in Nashville, Tennessee arrived Saturday morning. They had quite a journey. Their flight out of the US was delayed due to a severe storm in their flight path, when they finally arrived in Jo'burg they had missed their connecting flight to Cape Town and found that none of their checked luggage had made it onto the plane. So they had to spend the night, a few hours actually, in a motel and after more mix ups they finally got on a flight to Cape Town mid Thursday morning. Luckily the airline put them up in a hotel on Wednesday night and gave them a voucher to buy some clothes since they didn't have their luggage.

On Friday, I drove to Jo'burg and about 5:00 PM Richard and I decided we would go to the airport to try and find out about their luggage. That was a very frustrating experience, but perseverance and faith paid off. It was nothing short of a miracle that their luggage arrived on Friday night's flight and that the airport officials finally allowed us in to see if it was all there. The even bigger miracle was that they let Richard and I take it with us. It saved us time and also allowed us to have the luggage packed before we went back to the airport on Saturday morning, and because we had the luggage we realized that we didn't have to bring the travel which is another huge blessing.

On Saturday, we met the team and then took over the Whimpys in the airport to get them a "quick" lunch before driving to Swaziland. Two of the women went to fill out the required forms to get reimbursed from the airlines. Over two hours later we finally left the airport. We were supposed to be at St. Paul's at 6:00 for a welcoming dinner with youth leaders from the Methodist Church of South Africa who had come to St. Paul's for a meeting over the weekend. We didn't arrive at St. Paul's until after 7:30. But the team ate, and I think they really enjoyed meeting the few people who were still at St. Paul's. We left St. Paul's around 8:30 for the drive back up the hill towards Mbabane to the Emafeni Christian Conference Center where they are staying. Thank God they gave me keys for the rooms on Friday because there wasn't anyone there except the security guards when we finally arrived. It was after 11:00 that night when I finally made it back home to Manzini.


Sunday was worship up at Lomngletjane. We filled the classroom. After worship they shared a meal with the community. The meal was cooked once again by Zitsile and her mom Maggie. They got up at 2:00 am to start cooking the meal. After the meal the group split into four groups and visited 5 different homesteads. We had bought food parcels for them to deliver to each family. Jeri and I went back to Maggies house to help her wash the dishes while the teams were visiting the homesteads, but the little bit I heard tells me it was a once of a life time experience. Praise God!

While visiting one of the homesteads, they found a baby very sick. The mom of the baby helped us when the team from Louisiana was here. She has twins. One is developing normally and seems quite rambunctious. The second one is quite a bit smaller and didn't seem to be doing real well two weeks ago. The woman came to church with only one of the babies. When the team took food parcels to the home they discovered the baby, Thepelele, was very sick. So I went to the homestead to have a look. The baby had been sick since Thursday and had turned worse. I took the mom (Bongiwe) and the baby to the hospital in Manzini. Since it was Sunday late afternoon, we had to go through the Emergency. Although I pray I never have to be a patient there, the wait wasn't much longer than we would have had to endure in the US. It brought back many memories of taking Christopher (my oldest) to emergency for high fevers, ear infections, etc. Scott's claim to fame was stitches. There were a few moments I thought I was going to break down and cry, but God gave me strength. The mom didn't know what was going on and was very concerned about her daughter. I was a little help in carrying things for her and just being there. The Doctors immediately put her on oxygen and they did their intake process. I kept trying to read over his shoulders to see what he was writing, but all that got me was being kicked out to wait with everyone else outside. After a while I was able to sneak into the treatment room and could talk to Thepelele, and helped hold her into a sitting position so the mom could put a little water into her mouth. She actually drank about 4 ounces of water over the hour or so which is a good sign. They admitted the baby. I still don't know what the diagnosis is. She is 9 months old but especially last night she seemed more like a child that was just a couple months old. She could barely squeak out a cry. I left the mom around 7:30 last night and am headed back this morning to check on them and see if they need funds to pay for anything.

Please pray for Thepelele (pictured below) and her mom.
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To Gogo's (grandmother's) House We Go

This week the weather suddenly turned cold, cloudy and rainy. The cold weather is not unusual for this time of the year, but the rain is very unusual. When the cold set in my thoughts turned to the gogo I met in April that has to be 90+ years old. She tells us she is 2000 years old! I wanted to take her a warm blanket and a little bit of food. So this morning, Jeri, Gary and I met Thoko in town and then we drove to the rural community of Ekukhanye which is about 30 minutes outside of Manzini via a dirt road of course. We met the CCS from Ekukhanye Methodist church and then went to the homestead.

The woman lives in the mud house on the left of the picture below. Her granddaughter who lives on the homestead with her said that she wasn't feeling well, but that we could go into her house to visit with her. We walked into the house and it was so smokey we could barely see or breathe. There was a little fire going inside a wheel rim off of an old automobile that was sitting by her bed. The house is made out of rocks and sticks and then covered with mud. The floor is mud and the roof is thatched. There are no windows or any ventilation to the house.

She was glad to see us again. She is such a kick. She would say anything that was on her mind. She told us she had a son and a daughter but both have passed away. She has her granddaughter and great grand daughter who is about 18 months and a grandson that is 12. When we first arrived she said to us in English "many thanks." She also told us she was hungry and hoped we had brought her food, which we did. We gave her an orange to eat and she was so happy and gummed that orange pretty fast. (I don't think she has any teeth left.) Then I put a warm, soft blanket around her. She kept saying it was so soft and then she started praying. She was thanking God for our visit, the items we brought and asking God to keep us safe as we traveled home. Then she said "When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink, when I needed clothes you gave me clothes and when I was cold you gave me a blanket to keep me warm." That humbled me so much and went straight to my heart. I've read that verse in Matthew many times and have wondered how many times I didn't do those things. This is the first time that I actually tied in what we were doing with that verse. We bring food and clothes to people and we help them get to the Doctor for medication, but somehow I never really thought of myself doing what the scripture commands us to do. I just knew it was what was in my heart and that it needed to be done. We left shortly after and she kept saying in English to us "many thanks." Bless her heart.