Our first week of Ministry in Swaziland had been quite amazing really.  The Lord has really blessed my week with efficient direction that I know would only be His timing.  We started our ministries on Monday, which will in the future be our off day.  Many of my team members and I spent the week checking out possible internships, and praying for God to lead us in the right ways.  Some of the gals on our team were wanting to work as possible teacher's assistants in the schools.  School starts on Tuesday for the children, and I'm sure they can't wait to get back.  I have been doing a multitude of different things.  On Monday I had really no idea what my ministries this semester would look like, but by Friday now I have a pretty good idea of how things are going to be.  We made it here to Swaziland mid afternoon last Saturday.  We rode a bus, which was a little tight, but we are a tight knit group.  We dropped the other Swaziland team off in Mbabane at their house and continued to Manzini.  To my delight when I pulled in there is 7 mango trees in our front yard.  I think I had at least 15 fresh mangos that day.  Luckily all that sugar didn't get me sick though.  The weather here is cool, but really humid even though it is supposed to be like 100 degrees here in the summer.  We are through the middle of summer here, and it will be Fall in March.  We have set up a chore chart and we rotate this week on duties.  Otherwise we're all a big family.  We eat meals together, play euchre all the time, pray and worship together, and we're a bunch of goof balls that are in Love with ministry in Swaziland.  So that's kind of the background.  This is how my week went:

As y'all know I sent an email late last semester about 4 kids getting sponsored to go to school.  Thanks to y'all the money came in and God provided for these children.  They are all starting school on Tuesday.  On Monday my primary goal was to give the money to their old teacher.  She is in-charge of their education and she wasn't hard to find.  I gave her the money, and I'm confident that those children are overjoyed and motivated to join this new primary school.  The rest of Monday I spent at the squatter camp with a bunch of children.  I was with a couple gals on my team.  They got to meet with Pastor Sambo about helping start a pre-school for the kids who can't afford school.  The meeting went overall pretty good.  Then we walked back to our team house.  We walk mostly everywhere here, and everything's only like a fourty minute walk to town.  

The rest of the week definitely panned out well for me.  On Tuesday, I went a rural town called Timbutini.  We lived in Timbutini for 2 weeks in November, so I'm very familiar with it.  I was looking for Pastor Walter there.  He handles most of the building and farming projects.  We didn't have any luck finding him, but I did get to teach so kids how to play catch (yes I brought my ball and glove) and share over 50 mangos I picked.  earlier that morning on the way I stopped in town and did a little mango evangelism if you will.  I was handing out mangos in manzini to the homeless and to random people, which lead to a bundle of conversations.  I met a guy that is named mpumelelo.  It looks promising that I'll get to meet this fella again and share the gospel with him.  So I spent the day with my teammate Bailey, and we walked to 2 different care points where we were able to spend about 3 hours with the many kids at each one.  Wednesday Ben and I visited the BOSCO boys center.  It is an organization called the Manzini Youth Center.  We met a guy named Friday there and he shared his story about how he became an orphan.  This organization took him in after only being on the street for 6 months.  He had grown up now, and took a job there after college.  It was exciting for us to meet him.  We met with Father Larry Mcdonald later that day and he told us about all the cool things they do there.  They have 5 boys homes, and a orphanage.  On the orphanage there are 34 kids and a farm.  The boys centers have 120 kids between all of them.  On the farm cabbages, peppers, mangos, maize, and many other fruits and vegetables are grown.  The produce goes to a factory owned by this organization called Eswatini Kitchen.  They make jams, chillis, chutneys, and hot sauces.  They products are shipped to Europe, US, and all over the world.  It provides Swazis over 1000 jobs.  Kind of a cool organization.  We spent an hour talking with the Father.  Later on Ben and I went to the Manzini Nazarene Hospital for an hour.  We spent it in the children's ward.  That is where I met Sibosiso.  She was a six month old baby dressed in all pink.  I spent the whole hour with her.  Wow how I love babies and little children.  I wish I had pictures to show y'all!

The last 2 days I spent at or around the Boys Center at Bosco.  On Thursday I did some evangelism at the park.  At 1pm or so I went to the youth center and played basketball with one of my teammates Aubrey and several children.  I lost in HORSE to one of the guys training to be a Priest.  It was fun.  This center has fuzbol, badmitton, and a full sized basketball/soccer court.  They also have a projector movie room for the children.  They have between 100-200 kids coming there everyday after school is out at 1 pm.  Friday really helped me to decide what my internship is going to be next semester.  I went back to the boys center.  4 of my teammates went with me because they were curious about the orphanage.  All of us rode in the back of a pickup truck to the orphanage located on the farm.  The girls got to tour the orphanage, and I got a much closer look at the farm.  This is where I will be working the next 4 months.  Harvest starts in Late March, but there is a lot of work to do until then.  They do everything in 2 rows, and harvest will be by hand.  We might have about 10 acres or so to work with.  All the weeding and such is done by hand tools.  There will be 4 guys I will work with full time.  I learned all this from the farm manager.  It will be amazing because during lunch and other times I'll be able to do ministry with all the kids.  How amazing is that!  I think a couple of the girls might work with the girls that live in the orphanage.

So yea it was a busy week, and continue to pray about God's direction for some of the others.  Please pray for our safety while we're over here.  There are a lot of women on my team and the men here are aggressive.  Pray that Ben and I will be able to be with them when we can manage it in our schedules.  Also please pray that I'll continue to Love God more each day.  Just know that he loved you before you were even born and there is no way we'll ever be able to pay Him back for the love he showed us by giving His son a death on the cross for us.  In everything that happens in yours lives remember to give him praise for everything.

Your Brother in Christ,

Marcus