Reflections on 4th of July in Bulembu

One day I thought it would be fun
to go and play out in the sun.

But then the sun did not come out,
So I sat and tried not to pout.

It was Independence Day,
so volleyball I wanted to play.

But the rain would not go away,
so in my house I had to stay.

But in my house things went awry,
I saw the water tap had run dry!

And on top of that the microwave broke,
I thought to myself "Is this day a joke?"

I chopped the onions and made some food,
but my hands were dirty so I was in a mood.

We decided the weather could not ruin our spirit,
Red, white and blue-no matter what we would wear it!

So we sported our capri pants with socks pulled up high,
and our jersies with hoods to help keep us dry.

And onward we went to the nice Chinda Place,
to celebrate this day with every different race.

Then we sang all the American songs that we knew,
but the Brits couldn't remember their own anthem, 'tis true.

We played "baseball" with a spoon and a bun,
and rounded the "bases" fast as we could run.

We ate burgers and salads and then apple pie,
and shot fireworks up high in the sky.

But after all this the fun had to end,
we knew the kitchen was a mess-we could no longer pretend.

So we rushed home to do the piles of dishes,
and concluded our day sharing our thoughts and wishes.

I have a plan

So the plan is that I will be leaving Africa on August 11th and spending a few days in England...then flying back to Dallas August 17th to LIVE IN AMERICA. I have lived overseas for 3 years now and it is time to return to the homeland. I will be living with my brother and his wife in Frisco until I can get my life sorted out-get a job, some friends to live with, a car, etc. I would like to be closer to Denton because Darren lives there...so we will see. If anyone knows about an awesome job opportunity in DFW or a great used car for me to buy or some fun people I can live with...please let me know.

Things are Happening

This past Sunday was pretty hectic. Africa is a crazy place, I will say that. It is certainly different than America in a whole lot of ways...I mean that's obvious right? But I'm talking about spiritually. In America we don't see a ton of witchcraft, ancestral worship, witchdoctors, and curses. But those things are fairly prevalent here. I'll get into all of that in a minute...before the hectic news regarding those things, we had some other news come in the morning. At about 9 a.m. one of our Swazi friends came to let us know that little Tevi was doing really poorly in the hospital. She had gone in Thursday with bad stomach problems and they talked about doing surgery Friday, but thought she wasn't strong enough. Apparently Saturday they discovered that she had holes in her bowels (???) and did surgery. Sunday morning she was doing so badly that the hospital called the sisters (the Anglican nuns that run the girls home here) and said that they didn't know how long she would hold on. The sisters left immediately to head to the hospital which is a couple hours away and they were able to spend several hours with Tevi. She seemed to be doing a little better and the sisters headed back. But soon after they left Tevi did pass away. So we got that news Sunday night. She was 11 and absolutely precious and we were blessed to have the last few months with her. Most of us truly believe that she came here to be loved and to know God's love. Maybe you remember me saying that she had spent the previous 5 months of her life abandoned in the hospital and was severely malnourished and depressed. So when I first saw her and she came to be in my class, I did not know how or why she was still alive. I couldn't understand HOW she was physically still alive. She was obviously holding on for something. Well, what she found here in Bulembu was love love love. We adored that precious girl and welcomed her into our school and into the Jacaranda girls home and we had a great time with her. She suffered so much with the diseases inflicting her body and she experienced so much pain, we are glad to know that her last days were wonderful and that she is now dancing in Heaven with Jesus. That's the beauty of our future hope! But of course it's been hard and we miss her so much. I guess I never really thought I would have to actually encounter this-losing a student out of my class or even our school-I guess I thought it was something that might happen sometime in the future...but not now while I'm here...not til after I was gone. But it has become a sad reality for all of us here.
Then Sunday night Alison and I were waiting and waiting for the girls (housemates) to get home from church and we just watched the clock until it had been 2 hours since church had let out!! We were really confused as to what they could possibly doing!! Well they finally got home and let us know the craziness that had gone on that evening at church, and in the morning at the church in Piggs Peak. To make a very long story short-Sunday morning this Swazi woman, Ntombi, who has had a close relationship with Kara for about 9 months (Kara seriously has been helping this woman so much...but I can't possibly begin to explain the depths of it) was set free from 4 demonic spirits that were possessing her. But they believe there is still one more inside of her. I know this all sounds crazy but I promise you that even though you probably have never seen this stuff in America, it is certainly happening here. It probably happens in America more than we realize too. I actually prayed at a similar thing last November when a young woman was possessed. None of us girls have ever seen this stuff and we certainly don't have a reference file for it, but we just pray in the spirit as we are led. Anyway, that night at church this other woman had a similar thing happen and our housemate Gennie was down at the church praying for almost 4 hours with a few other people. She has not yet been set free though. But we know that God is at work in this place and Nomsa will also be set free. The really interesting thing is that these 2 women were raised on the same homestead and probably have the same curses placed on them by Ntombi's stepmother. Crazy crazy crazy, I know. It all sounds bizarre and crazy but it is real. Praise God that people are being set free. We are praying and fasting our lunch times this week for these women and the children's center in the village and for Bulembu in general. Please keep us in your prayers especially during this time. Thanks!

MOO

So our main source of entertainment over the last few weeks has been THE COWS. The interesting thing about them is that sometimes you don’t see them for so long and then suddenly you see them on a daily basis for the next month. They are vagabonds. Our first big “encounter” with them was a few weeks ago at about 10:30 at night when we were in bed going to sleep, but not asleep yet. Well, my housemate Kara and I have moved our mattresses into the lounge so we can sleep there because that room is much warmer and it is winter now so the nights are super cold, and obviously we do not have indoor heating systems here. So we hear this extremely loud running noise-many feet, not just one set, crazily stampeding around our house/in our yard. Well, we think some people are trying to invade our house and are about to fly through the door or window and rob us or something crazy, because this is definitely not a normal noise…and we are both super scared at this moment-so Kara is under her blanket shivering in fear and I start screaming TWINS!! TWINS!! Because of the 16 year old british twins that are the daughters of our principal-whom often play practical jokes on us and run down the stairs to our house, etc. and I knew the noise was not made by just ONE person…so to me, this made sense. Also, the screaming would, in my mind, let the criminals that I truly believed were outside (I didn’t completely think it was the twins, I thought we were gonna get robbed) know that we were in fact awake and ready for them-so they couldn’t just barge in on us without us knowing. Does this make sense? Anyway, kara’s like “Lindsey, shut up!!” Because she is so scared, but I am convinced, in my fear, that this will definitely keep the people out! I also was yelling for our third roommate Julie to come into the lounge because I thought she should probably be in the “safe” lounge with us at this time. So she comes running in and jumps on the beds with us. Then the noise stops and we just sit and wait to see if it’s really done. Finally, we go to sleep. Next morning we leave the house to go to school and we see CRAZY HOOF PRINTS everywhere!! All over in our little garden. Apparently the cows stampeded through our yard, but it is a mystery has to how they got in and out because there are gates on both sides!!
Then a few days later we are asleep and it is 3:30 a.m. and Kara and I both hear a MOO so loud that we actually wake up and say “Did you hear that? Was that a cow?” We wait a second to confirm and, yes, there it is again-a second extremely loud moo. Are the cows living outside of our window?? We do not know.
A few days later we are jogging down this one road and we encounter 3 cows, but we don’t know if it’s safe to pass them or if they’ll get upset with us or what…so we walk past. Then we get to another road on the other side of the little valley, and encounter 3 more cows that are in our way as we jog. Weird.
A few days later we are standing outside at the school during break time and we see this massive herd of cows running up the road and several minutes later a huge tractor comes down the road and chases the cows down the hill that they were just running up like 40 seconds earlier. We laughed a lot at that one. Watching the cows run up and down the hillside road is quite funny.
So goes life in The Bu. We have weird, abnormal things happen pretty much daily. Always an adventure, that's what we say here. Nothing is ever a surprise. It's such a strange and unique place and culture.

My Two Week Holiday

It’s always so strange/difficult to write a blog after not having written for a while because so much happens in between and then I can’t possibly write it all or think of it all so it becomes a boring blog to read. Oh well. Here is my update. My dad and stepmom and Darren, my boyf, all arrived in Bulembu April 25th and we headed out on our wild road trip adventure the 26th. It was awesome. We probably did too much in too little of a time though, because almost every place we went I felt like I wanted to spend about 5 days in…not only a few hours or one day. We didn’t spend much time in Swaziland. Headed down to a province called KwaZulu Natal to visit a Zulu village and a game park for a day safari. Good stuff. The game park was super beautiful with rolling green hills and trees. We saw lots of animals-elephants, monkeys, giraffes, rhinos, wildebeest, birds, impalas, warthogs…and who knows what else. Safaris are fun. Went to Durban for 2 nights and I got to see my South African friend Sarah, so that was really nice. We stayed at a great hostel that was across the street from the beach. Very nice. It had several different little cabins/buildings and the bathroom was up at the highest point so you actually had an amazing view of the coast from the showers!! From there we went to the greatest place ever, Cintsa. This place must be the best kept secret of SA. What an amazing location!! We stayed at the greatest hostel EVER, which was situated on a hill-again it was many separate cottages. The main office/house had balconies with incredible views of the lagoon and the ocean. So did the breakfast/dinner room. They had a private lagoon where you could use their free kayaks. They offered yoga classes, surf lessons, sand volleyball, a climbing wall, a great pool and sundeck, and a secluded beach. What more could you ask for? It sounds like I just completed an advert for them huh? Well they did hire me as their new marketing manager. Obviously. Anyway, the place was stellar and I would like to return there for 6 months to work and live, but that is an unlikely dream. The trip after that mainly consisted of the Garden Route, which is probably the most beautiful part of the country. I don’t know for sure, but I think it must be. Mountains, forest, ocean. Unbelievable natural beauty everywhere!!! My dad bungy jumped off the highest bungy jump bridge in the world!!! 216 meters. It was madness. I felt so proud! My dad. What a guy. My stomach turned just looking out at the massive gorge and not even having to be near it. I could not believe that people even WALKED on the bridge, but to JUMP off?? Crazy.
Capetown was pretty rad. It’s such a cool city because of the location. The main part of the city lays at the foot of Table Mountain and stretches out to the coast. How great is that. It reminded us of San Francisco. Darren and I got to stay there for 6 days, which was perfect because there is so much to do. I think we both could have stayed longer though. It would be a nice place to live because there are several great beaches and beautiful areas and lots of cool stuff to do. Unfortunately there is a lot of crime there. It’s pretty bad. We actually didn’t experience it personally until the last day we were there, luckily…otherwise we probably wouldn’t have had as nice a time. The last day we were walking down a busy street and a guy came next to Darren and kept asking him for money. He repeatedly said he couldn’t give the guy any, but then the guy said something like “don’t make me use a knife” or something to that effect…luckily I did not hear him say that but I did try and tug Darren’s arm to pull him away from the guy because he was walking way to close to Darren and hassling him. We got away without any problems.
So now I am back in the Bu and busy working working working! It’s nice to be with my housemates again, but sadly we are one short-Cass went back to the states for a month and a half-hopefully! She should be back mid June after God provides all the money she needs for the year. We miss her dearly because she is pretty much the funniest girl ever. So we are praying that Cass and Gennie return June 14th together so our little house will be full of laughter again! The end.

It's Been A While

I recently realized that I haven’t written in a while…maybe in part because I think only about 3 people actually read this and I’ve also been busy and unsure about what to write. But I have some things to write about!! Probably anyone that reads this received my email update and heard about Phetsile. It’s so amazing because every day she is happy and smiley and joyful. It’s awesome. Now we are pouring into Tevi (newest little girl who is 11 and weighs about 35 pounds and was severely depressed after losing both of her parents and being left in the hospital for the last 5 months) lots and lots and watching her come back into herself. She has a precious personality that is coming out. This week she has been smiling so much every day…and she is talking and laughing and saying funny things. It’s remarkable. She’s still not much more than skin and bones, but she is actually gaining weight and looking better. She makes me smile!
Last weekend for Easter we had a nice 4 day weekend, so my housemates and I went to a very beautiful area in the province north of us (Mpumalanga) to see some beautiful sights. We had such a great time together. On Friday we drove up to Nelspruit, the nearest town in SA that has a mall with a cinema and restaurants and lots of stores. We stayed the night there and then drove up Saturday to a tiny town called Graskop. It was really beautiful and reminded me of being in America because there were several small mountain towns with lots of cute little shops and cafes. So nice!! We stayed at a little hostel in Graskop. The weather was overcast and rainy and pretty cold, but we were still able to see many beautiful things. We went to a couple of waterfalls, a massive canyon called Blyde River Canyon, a rock formation called the Three Rondavels, and a gorge with these little pools of water called Bourke’s Luck Potholes. I’ll put some pictures below. We also went to this tiny church for Easter Sunday and there were about 30 people there. It was precious. We sang with the organ and the older lady in the back row who sang to her own tune. Greatness. We loved it. So the whole weekend was really nice and much needed.
We are learning siSwati now!! It is such a hard language to learn. There is so much that doesn’t make sense. I guess it’s like that for most languages. They don’t have masculine and feminine/she or he at all in their language apparently. To make things plural or possessive or first or third person could be any sorts of different prefixes and suffixes…it seems there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Some things follow the same rules but I don’t know how you figure it all out. It’s pretty crazy. Then there are the clicks.
And lastly we have been able to do more “community service” work lately in our spare time J Two weeks ago we got to help paint the outside of a foster house and yesterday we got to paint and clean up the inside of another house. We were all talking about how we really would enjoy doing service projects like we do on missions trip because it just unifies people to work together like that and it’s always fun! So now we are trying to incorporate those types of things into our lives more. That’s about it for what’s been going on here I guess. Only 10 days until Darren, Dad, and Lynda get here!!!

I miss driving

You people in America probably don't even enjoy driving all that much, but let me tell you that it is a wonderful gift. It is a fun thing. I miss it so much. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I drove about one mile tonight in Julie's car. It was beautiful. I felt so free! So, next time you are driving, thank the Lord that you have a car and that you have freedom to go wherever you want in that car! You are blessed.