No that's not make wacko, it's "your mom" (mage waco) in siSwati haha.

Another week has passed by. The weeks go by so quickly here. I write a blog and then it seems like the next day it's time for me to write another one. Ok this week has consisted of teaching 6^th and 7^th graders how to write a paragraph and an essay and trying to figure out to teach about writing, but speak God's truth into their life at the same time. My students are absolutely wonderful. I mean they have their moments and then the days when 2 out of 30 kids turn in their homework, but on a whole the kids are a lot of fun.

School and lies: I'm really sorry if this blog jumps around a lot but I have a lot I want to write about. With the school and teaching and then having a Bible study and youth group I've been feeling a little overwhelmed. Not in that it's too much, but what qualifies me? Lies have been thrown at me that I can't do it, that I don't know how to teach or that I'm not old enough to raise up these girls here. Another component of this week has been breaking through this unseen barrier of doubt and accepting and believing that God has called me and appointed me for this. It doesn't matter that half the time I have no idea what I'm doing, because it's not about me. What matters is that God has a plan for these kids and He wants to invade their life and for some crazy reason He's decided to use me.

I know that God has so much for Ezulwini Catholic Primary. I know that He has put me there to not only teach, but reach into the lives of all these kids and show them that someone (God) has a hope and a plan for their future. I can't even explain how insane some of the stuff is that they write about. Some of their stories really just made my heart hurt.

Facing a hard reality:  My team faced a hard reality this week. Some of the girls have been working at the hospital during the week and then we go as a team on Saturdays. The children's ward has become a safe haven for abandoned children. There are several absolutely wonderful kids with mental disabilities that have been abandoned and live at the hospital. There are also a couple of abandoned babies there as well. One of them, Mlumini, we're pretty sure he had AIDS and possibly TB, but he was facing massive malnourishment. He was a funny kid, last Saturday my friend Tessa was holding him and playing with him and I came up and apparently he didn't like me because he just waved me off with his hand, it was pretty funny. This past week he caught a really bad fever, I read his chart, his fever got up to 104 F. The two girls were spending all day with him and I saw him yesterday morning, yesterday afternoon he passed away. I didn't even spend that much time with him, but it just brings a hard reality straight into your face. The two girls mourned for him, but what if they hadn't been there? It just started making me think about all the other orphans that don't have someone to stand next to their bed and that cry for them. I knew that I was going to see AIDS here. Over half the country has HIV/ AIDS, I think it just finally hit us in the face.

The beauty in it all: Last night God showed up. We were singing the song "Our God reigns." And while this harsh reality of dying babies and children that haven't been shown what hope means was hitting me in the face and while the lies that I couldn't do it and thought and cares about home were swarming around me, God gave me a song of freedom. We as a body proclaimed that God reigns over all of this. God reigns over the orphans that don't have anyone at their bedside, He's at their bedside. God reigns over the boys in my class that have been told violence and anger is all there is. God reigns over the girls in my class that have been told their bodies are trash and that they don't mean anything. God reigns over my family, over my team and over every person, thing and stronghold in Swaziland.

Wrap up: Everything is solid here. God is showing up and moving, so please as the body, join us. Proclaim that God reigns over your family. I don't know what's going on in your house or life, but I know that God is bigger than all of it. Cast out the lies and clouds of depression and doubt that like to frequent our world, proclaim the truth and freedom of Christ over all of it.

Prayer request: That God will continue to open doors at my school. My ministry isn't just in the students, but with the teachers, another volunteer and the parents. Please just pray that will reign in their hearts.

-For my team, that we will always come together as the Body and serve Him in and out of our home

-For the girls in my Bible study. That God will move in their lives and that He will raise them up.

-Praise Him! It's so cool to see Him moving here and at a home, praise Him!

I posted some more pictures and am trying to get some videos up!