Another perspective on Swaziland

This hurts. But we need to know about what is happening in Swaziland. We need to experience what my friend Ericka and her team experienced on their most recent campaign to Nsoko. Ericka is the real deal. Check her out on facebook and follow the link to her blog. I am sure you will be as humbled as I am. God Bless you, Ericka!

Here is a post from Ericka's blog:

I WILL NOT BE SILENT :: (the harsh truth about Swaziland)

Posted in Africa by Ericka Bennett on 7/21/2008
I haven't had much time to slow down since I got home from Africa. No time to really think. No time to journal. No time to let everything I saw sink in...

But in the quiet moments I find here and there, God is starting to bring it all to mind. Today He brought to mind Elizabeth, the widow we found dying in the dirt outside her shack in Nsoko. Pastor Gift asked us to go and pray for her, so we set off on the dirt path. As Rusty, Molli, Faith and I walked up that afternoon, all of me wanted to scream...

There at our feet, lay this emaciated woman. She was too weak from AIDS to speak, to eat, to move. Dirty, sick, and covered in flies, this widow lay dying as her daughter and grandchildren looked on. It was almost more than I could take. "IT'S NOT FAIR!" I wanted to SCREAM. "IT'S NOT FAIR! Why is this precious woman DYING IN THE DIRT?!"

I dropped to my knees by her head, waved the flies away, and began to stroke her hand and her face. She struggled to move, and finally found enough strength so that she could reach and hold my hand. "She just wants to be touched," I thought. "She just wants to know the world hasn't forgotten about her... that God hasn't forgotten about her..."

Molli knelt at her feet, Faith crouched beside me, and Rusty knelt and put his hand on her back and began to pray. He prayed for God to comfort her, and for God to take her home to be with Him - away from her pain and suffering. I couldn't hold back the tears as he prayed for her... the injustice of it all was just too much.

WHY does she have to die like this? Just because she's in Africa? Doesn't she deserve better?! In America we would NEVER stand for this! GOD IT'S NOT FAIR!!!

I composed myself enough to pray over her, and then, in my heartbroken state, did a poor job of singing the only SiSwati song I knew over her. Moments later, still wiping away tears, we walked away...

Elizabeth died the next day.

-------------------- the following is from Seth Barnes' blog -----------------

And so it goes in Swaziland. It's a country of of pain and contradictions, of death endured in the devastating quiet of a dark shack. It's horrific what's going on over there. Shame is a terrorist stalking the nation's girls and young women because of a culture that doesn't talk about what goes on in secret. It's nightmarish and someone needs to stand up and shout or at least talk about it.This week I got this email from Kristen McGraw, a missionary to Swaziland, that says how I feel about that place:
I woke to the singing of angels this morning as the sun came up and peered through the old curtains of the window in our room. They sang of the Lord's provision of his love and his power. "Your light will shine when all else fades..." These songs are what keep me longing to hear more in such a silent place sometimes. The silence is deafening. We don't TALK about how HIV AIDS is killing our families and our neighbors. We don't TALK about how Thandi has been faithful to her husband and he has given her AIDS because he has been sleeping around. And she is fearful to tell him because he will blame her for giving it to him. And now her children will be left to be put to intense work by him. We don't TALK about the status of women here and how they are beaten and abused. We don't TALK about how a swazi women cannot refuse her husband sex, even if she knows he is infected. We don't TALK about the little girl down the road that was sold by her own mother to a neighbor to be a slave girl for her. We don't TALK about the brothels in Swaziland run by 18 year olds and the American business men who come for the little 8 year old girl. We don't TALK about the children abandoned by aids that live with the grandparents, until the step grandfather decided he doesn't want them because they will eat his food. We don't TALK about all the witchcraft surrounding Swaziland and the darkness that is here. We don't TALK about the prostitute and her pimp that came here yesterday to see her two sons just to size them up to see when they can come for holiday to visit. And by visit they mean for them to work sexually. These are two of my Swazi brothers who I have loved the last three years and played with and now lived with. But we don't TALK about it.We don't TALK about how I have shaken the hands of these men and I feel a groaning in my spirit because these are some of the same hands that have beat and raped. But we don't TALK about that. We DON'T TALK ABOUT IT. Why the hell not? My heart is screaming. My wounded soul is desperate for people at home to TALK. And if you won't talk then I will. And you could at least have the decency to listen. God gave you ears to hear. Eyes to see. How can anyone who hears these things and sees these things turn away? Yes when we TALK about it, it hurts. It seems overwhelming. It is too much, too sad and we ask, "What is the point if no one seems to be listening or wanting to see change?" The point is we can change the children. We can change this next generation. What is going to happen to these children if we leave them because we thought it was too hard? We have to start talking.