Hello Friends! This blog is for the week of Sun. Feb 17^th to now. Let's see… This week has been great. I was struggling for a little while with feeling like my heart is here, and this past week has truly confirmed that this is the place God has for me.

Library/School: We're starting a library!!! (Hence the Reading Rainbow)  I've been trying to figure out how to help these kids in their writing and just expand their thinking. Their reading is limited to their workbooks that contain maybe a page long story. (Note: This does not reflect all of Swaziland, just my particular school)  The Lord really put a desire in my heart to get these kids reading. On Thursday I walked into the school and asked around about books and was lead into the secretary's office. She had shelves of books that weren't being used. Now a lot of these books were donated probably in the 50's and are about Dick and Jane going out to play, but there are some that are really good and perfect for these kids. I was able to send a book home with every seventh grader! Praise the Lord! We found some space in the staff room that will allow the teachers to watch the books. We're looking for the best way to build shelves that fit the needs of the school. We are also going to try and partner with some local churches and host a book drive that will hopefully bring in some more recent books.

Here's where you guys come in. We need help sponsoring the library. It's not going to be that expensive, I mean supplies are cheaper here and it's going to be relatively small, but supplying books is the difficult part. If you would be interested at all in sponsoring the library and financing books and supplies, please just e-mail me (livin4himdaily@msn.com). You can go to the top of this web page and click "Contact Me."  Also, please be praying for these students. Pray that God will instill in them a desire to learn and read. I can't tell you the look on some of their faces when I handed them a book. I don't know the total cost yet, because we haven't figured out the best way to shelve the books yet. I will let you all know as soon as I know. Thank you!

Compassion and hopelessness: You think that when you look into the eyes of a child that has a story sadder than any Lifetime movie it would make you cry in an instant, but unfortunately it can be easier than you think to harden your heart. When you hear story after story and statistic after statistic about malnourishment, abuse and HIV/AIDS it's hard not to shut yourself off. I've been almost not allowing my heart to be open because a lot of this stuff stings. 

Then lately the devil has been kind of throwing lies at me that the situation with HIV/AIDS here is hopeless and there's no chance for change. I don't know if I've already written this but about 40% of Swaziland is HIV positive and that only includes the people that have been tested. This means that close to 50% are HIV positive. Half the people. If HIV continues to spread at its current rate, the Swazi people will cease to exist by 2050. Now, praise the Lord, in the past couple years the infection rate has been going down because of awareness and activism. Even so this fact is still daunting. I know that HIV is everywhere here, but somehow I thought that I have a super-bubble that means that all the people I interact with and love aren't affected by HIV. Then I stop and think about my students. If they don't have HIV, they know someone who does, and have probably had someone close to them die of it.

It can be really easy to just see hopelessness, but then God steps in. He's given us life, all of us. He's reminding me that He sees hope, a future, beauty and joy in every one of these children. In the midst of some of the most disgusting things of this world, God reigns. He is their future, He is their hope and He loves them more than I could ever understand. God is good!

Wrap up:

-Please pray for this library and the students. I'm so excited to see how God moves through books!

-Please pray that the Lord will continually send His hope and compassion!

-There's this girl named Lindo that has been staying with us for the weekend. She is 6 years old and possibly the cutest thing ever. She's an orphan living with her grandma who is mentally challenged and her aunt. Her home situation is hard and she doesn't always have something to eat. She goes to a dropping center that some of our team is working at, so that is how we know her. Her time with us has been so much fun, probably more fun for us, but she has so much joy. Please just lift her up in prayer and in a covering because we know God has big plans for her.

Thank you again and I pray that God is invading your hearts with His compassion! Peace!