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.