Boarding Call at 8:35 pm, cst.

After a delay of little over an hour, our Team is boarding! I spoke to several of them and they are all in high spirits and very excited to be on their way! Crystal and Ashley will email me when they can and I will update the blog just as soon as I receive the information. Speaking from experience, please take the time to reply to these posts... they will all huddle around a laptop to read the messages!!!

Thank all of you for your prayers, support, supplies, encouragement and wisdom you all have shared in recent months with our team! We are all so blessed because of you! We hope to have an update tomorrow night.

God is so very good! Please feel free to join us in giving thanks and praise to our Lord!

The Visit To The Homestead

What did we learn from Love? We learned patience. We learned understanding. We learned compassion. We learned hope. We learned, well.. we learned to love.

A few of us were able to go to the homestead of these four little girls. Picture the reality that four precious little girls, the oldest of which is five years old, living at this homestead alone. All alone. Caring for themselves – the most vulnerable of the weak. As we were talking to a neighbor, the girls came from their stick and mud hut to sit with us. They treated us like we were somebody special. Love went back and forth into the hut. She wanted to show off her “dress clothes.” She only had to change shirts once. That’s all she had. But she was proud of that. Looking back at pictures, the girls wore different clothes a couple of days – but they simply exchanged clothes with one another to have something different to wear. Four little girls sharing clothes. How proud these little girls are of their shared skirt!

Imagine what is was like to not have a mom or a dad there to make certain they brushed their teeth or washed behind their ears. How hard is it to fathom the emptiness they feel? Imagine the sounds of the night. Imagine the cold – the dampness – the darkness.

The visit to the homestead forever wrecked Natalie Mays, Alexis Vann and me. Almost a year later and we still find it difficult to revisit those raw emotions. But we are thankful to have experienced the things we did that fall afternoon. We looked into the eyes of Jesus that day – and I pray we remain broken and humbled with a spirit of compassionate action for the vulnerable and poor. God is good. He is faithful. He is love.

The House that Love Built - Part 2

Our first introduction to the children of Thulwane was through this video shared by Tom Davis with Children’s HopeChest. Please take two minutes to watch this video. Very moving.

This little girl hadn’t always been in a wheelchair. Before her traumatic experience, she walked around and played like most children her age. During her recovery period, her Gogo would place her in a wheelbarrow to get her to the carepoint so she could eat. Kriek and Jumbo Gerber, Missionaries in Swaziland, purchased the wheelchair for Love and this is where her life began to change… for the better.

We had absolutely no idea we would actually get to meet the little girl in the wheelchair. But we did. She is such an Angel!

The next blog will detail our first encounter with Love and what we learned from this little girl and the other children at Thulwane.

Nokuhle Dlamini

Please excuse the camera being turned sideways right after this video begins. The main thing I wanted to share with you is the sound of Nokuhle's sweet, sweet voice.

Nokuhle is just one of thousands of Swaziland children who need our help. While we cannot do everything we want to do at once - we can, however, make a huge difference - one child at a time.

I am so thankful God has put us at this place. God Bless you, Nokuhle. And God Bless, protect and deliver the people of Swaziland.

Journal Entry

Basic (excerpt) journal entry on June 7th, 2008.

The Children of Thulwane – it is so difficult to comprehend the life of an orphan. We walked to three different homesteads to visit and take food – I was scared to death during the walk – and it was daylight. I imagine the nights are very lonely. No electricity. No streetlights. Heck, no streets. Other than at the carepoint, there is no place to provide very basic care. Not because they won’t – but because they can’t. A simple runny nose can turn into flu. Flu can turn to death. In Swaziland, it is about survival. The strong make it ~ the weak don’t. Orphans stand very little chance of making it to the age of 15. In America, we stand a better chance of dying in a plane-to-plane collision than to die of starvation or a runny nose. It’s like two different worlds. God help them. And please give us the heart to help them. But for Swaziland to heal, it must heal from the inside-out. Her people must experience revival. We must experience revival.

Introduction to Love

I originally posted this in mid-June of this year. A friend of mie asked me post it again....

I have experienced Jesus in the flesh. No, this isn't the first time. And I pray it won't be the last. We were on a mission campaign in Swaziland, Africa. The morning had started off with the awesome responsibility of being called to compassionate action. We were at Thulwane carepoint. Thulwane is the place we had viewed video's of Tom Davis' blog. This is the place we have read about on the blog of Kriek and Jumbo . I already had this particular morning planned out in my mind. I would spend some time with the children as they ate breakfast. Then I would help other team members administer some meds at our 'clinic,' while at the same time I would be able to enjoy the sights and sounds of my oldest daughter, Alexis, as she continued the path of being a Godly young woman. But something happened that will forever change the way I view missions. The experience I was soon to live would literally shape the way I viewed life and love.

In order to fully feel the scope of this experience, please take a moment to watch this video: http://tomdavis.typepad.com/tom_daviss_blog/2007/03/the_girl_in_the.html


Crystal Baltimore came to me and said, "Hey, remember the girl in the wheelchair in Tom's blog? Well, she is over here and we are about to feed her." Wow! We met Pastor Walter just the day before - now, I get to actually see the little girl on the wheelchair. My family and I had watched that video at least 50 times. There she was. Little Nedia sat there on a mat in all her Royalty. She was dressed like the Queen of Thulwane. A red velvet dress adorned her bruised and battered body. She quietly ate her generous helping of food from her royal plastic bowl and with her spotless right hand. There was the Queen in all her splendor. I was speechless, as was the rest of our team. At that moment, a rush of emotions came over me. I was angry that she could have been violated in such sick, evil ways. Then confusion creeped in. How could someone physically abuse such a precious angel? It was obvious from early on that Nedia not only had been assaulted both physically and mentally - but she had also been neglected since Tom had posted the video of her from late in '07.

Then it happened. The defining moment of where the rubber meets the road. This was it - where the 'Red Letters' of the bible come to life. There was Jesus dressed in the distressing disguise of the Queen of Thulwane. My heart was wrecked. My sense of justice was awakened. As team members began to prepare for the clinic, I was able to spend some time with Nedia. Just me, her and the Lord. At first, I wasn't sure of what to say. Or what to do, for that matter. I had never met a queen before. I had heard of them and seen them on TV. But this was for real. So there we were. Just the three of us. What was the first thing out of my mouth to her? "Love." My big moment in the history of important moments - and all I could say was, "Love." How did she respond? "Love!"

I have experienced love in so many ways in my life. Love for my parents and sisters. Love for Ashley and our four children. Love for my friends. Love for my work and those I serve. Love for God and for my church. Love for missions. But this was the manisfestation of what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 25 when he talked about the poor. This was exactly what he meant. To be continued...