Thanks To Children's Hopechest
On January 23, 2008 we will leave as guests of Children's Hopechest to visit the Kingdom of Swaziland. For the 7 days we will spend in country we will visit their orphanages and care points to work alongside the Children's Hopechest teams to see the impact these facilities are having on serving God through His passion to be a father to the fatherless. We are privileged to share company with such an amazing organization.Monday, February 18, 2008
$150 - Thank you to Chicagoland Winterfest Teens!
We raised $150 on Saturday night at the Chicagoland group devotional after Winterfest. I am SO thankful to everyone who bought necklaces, and those who straight up just threw money in the box! Your response to the pandemic problem of AIDS and Poverty in the country of Swaziland was Awesome!
It's time we do more!!!! If you are on Facebook, please Join 5 for 50 as a start. Next goto Hopechest.org and find out more about the awesome work.
Also, watch this video:
Finally, Donate! Donate! Donate! I set a cheezy $316 goal for the next month. Please help me MEET THAT GOAL!!! Use this DONATE link to help now!!! If only my current Facebook friends help out, and at only $5 each that means we could raise $1300. It seems $316 to affirm our belief in God's Love is a simple task. Please Support the work of the Kingdom.
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Thursday, February 14, 2008
Erin WIlson
Erin was one of the amazing people we spent a week with while in Swaziland. She had an article shared about her trip in her local newspaper.The Children of Swaziland
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Moriah Center
The highlight of our trip for me was our time at the Moriah Center. Moriah Center is run by a South African woman named Diane and her staff of four Swazi women who serve as the teachers. Diane and her small staff have amazing dreams for the future of Swaziland, and those dreams start in Big Bend.Big Bend is a sugar colony in eastern Swaziland, lying on the Lusutfu River. The only enterprise in the area is the sugar. The plantations stretch as far as the eyes can see. In this area the sugar company controls everything. The electricity, water, and roads are used as the sugar company sees fit. Every skilled worker for miles around is on the payroll, and does only the work the sugar company orders be done. The sugar fields are plush green and yet only feet away from these seemingly endless acres of lush green is the harsh dusty reality that most of the sugar companies workers are oppressed into.
Moriah center, though an Oasis of hope in that depression, is so much than just another care point. Diane sees Moriah Center as the foundry of a new Swaziland. The UN population estimates for 2050 do not include a future for Swaziland. At a 46% AIDS rate the nation is dying. So Moriah Center is a place where orphans and the vulnerable children are being provided the future of God's Kingdom. Like the Biblical Mount Moriah this is a summit of God's presence.
As I wrote last night about the ABC of ministering in Swaziland, Moriah center's beauty is how they are already participating in all three steps of this plan. Even more exciting is their dreams to multiply into a more grand temple of the living God.
Appetites - Most of the care points we visited while in Swaziland were feeding a community of children who came and spent the day at that care point. During school holidays that number increased since those kids who were able to attend would no longer come once enrolled. Moriah center is not content to feed only those children who can not attend school. Each morning as the children able to attend school are walking past the Moriah Center, the staff is outside with a high vitamin nutrition drink that the children can drink as they walk. There as sandwiches available for those who would have no means for lunch to pick up and take with them as well. After the school age children are past an in their schools, Moriah Center then recieves the preschool age children who will be given the nutrition drink and sandwich in the morning, as well as a hot meal like the other care points in the afternoon. Diane's dream is to have the resources to provide a second hot meal after school hours where the her students and the school age children could receive a meal as they travel home.
Basic Education - Currently Moriah Center provides a preschool to begin the learning the process with her students. There are 3 teachers and they take local children and give them a basic education that will prepare those with the available resources to attend school once old enough. That basic education is not enough for Moriah Center. Big dreams for the future include and elementary school that would be able to continue the education of those who do not have the resources to goto school otherwise. Even bigger plans for the future include a sewing school, a carpentry school, and an electrical school to teach the children a trade they can use to break free from the cycle of poverty.
Christ - Kid's Church, Girls Purity Training, Bible Club, and a local Christian church are all part of the ministry at Moriah Center. Moriah Center is providing a backbone of Christian education that will be vital to the future of the Big Bend community. These young children and teens will be raised up hearing a message of God's plan for community rather than the plans they see modeled in the broken homes around them. Young girls are being taught about God's plan for sexuality, and His desire for purity in the marriage bed. Moriah Center realizes that a generation of Godly girls will need to be met with a generation of Godly young men, so it is therefore desiring to add Marriage, Family, and Purity training for the young men as well.
The beauty of Moriah Center is the ability to dream beyond a simple ABC plan, and instead be challenged to grow into a body that will be able to meet the needs for a new future in Swaziland.
Monday, February 4, 2008
ABC - God's Kingdom Building
After a week of visiting many great care points and listening to the local ministry staff share their needs, and the dreams I desired to compile a simple mnemonic that would help my mind grasp the issues faced by the people ministering to the orphans and vulnerable children in these places. As I continue to process the memories of the sights and words from the trip I realize that a simple ABC solution well sums up the immediate needs faced by those working on the ground in Swaziland.Appetites - Clean water and basic food should be considered a minimum human right in a world our resources. Yet the reality is this is not a human right, and were it not for the work of organizations like Children's Hope Chest and the tireless daily effort of the missions staff of AIM 1000 of orphans and vulnerable children in this country would goto bed without a meal every single day. One can not claim to have the Love of Christ in him and turn a blind eye to the starvation of fatherless children.
Basic Education - The future of Swaziland will look like the history of Swaziland if nothing changes. A starving child needing to be fed and cared for will grow into a starving adult if the future of life has no prospect. Survival is only an education for survival. The future of these fatherless children lies in eqipping them with the skills to transition into successful adults. Aid that stops at the full stomach is incomplete and merely procrastinates the need for long term solutions.
Christ - Kingdom building to starving children that wants to start here is doomed to fail. The presentation of God's redeeming power must come sequentially after food and education. These orphans must be redeemed from their destiny of physical starvation before they can shown the redemption of Christ. Swaziland has no future except for the hope of Christ being instilled into the young people at the Care Points. The heart change that calls these orphans to live differently than their culture will cause them to be a remnant in a dying people. Christ must be first demonstrated through programs that meet the physical and mental needs of these fatherless children, then ultimately preached as the fulfillment for the spiritual starvation around them.
This is the ABCs, the first building blocks of a future I learned Children's Hope Chest is working to provide in Swaziland. CHC needs partners, to join them in the construction of this future. But, we'll talk about those partnerships in another post.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Processing The Trip
So here I sit at 8:00 PM CST in my home, my kids are cuddled in bed and Christi is already asleep. It is 4:00 AM tomorrow in Manzini. We arrived back in the US at 6:00 AM Eastern time and then transferred to Chicago for a 10:00 AM CST arrival, almost 24 hours exactly since we began our flight home from Johannesburg.Extreme Poverty is an unexplainable reality. Meeting not 1 but hundreds of children that are orphaned and without any means for food can not be summed up in a simple paragraph. Watching a six year old start the trek back to her home, likely at least a mile away and possibly 3+ miles a way, with her 2 year old brother riding along her back is a deeply emotional experience not soon to be clawed from the forefront of my memory.
There is so much processing to do, and to much jet lag for it to be done now. Thank you for all the prayers! God Bless!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Tuesday Update
Yesterday we went to a place called the Moriah Center. I have Soooo much to say it avout it when I get home and can process things. It was wonderful, it is a feeding center, church, preschool, and orphanage all in 1. I will say more about it. I felt such peace when I was there, and I want to tell all you how we can be invloved in serving it's ministry.At our decond stop yesterday Christi held a little girl for over an hour, who buy the cough, and sores on her body was VERY SICK and probably HIV posisitve. It was very hard for Christi to leave after she had, held, loved and mothered her. The Mageas (village mothers) said her mom had already died of the infection.
Heartbreaking! - I wish I could write more, please continue to read. Today had great visits also, and we are so excited to talk about all this upon our return.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Swaziland Sunday Reflections
Here it is 2 days into the country. I have so much to say, and want to write so much more, but internet is very expensive, it is about $1 per minute. I would write then transfer via USB, but I can't do that either.My heart bleeds for the children we saw yesterday at the care point. It was magical and beautiful! We played, and fed, and watched them study the Bible. We played more. We were at one of the gems of the ministry. Later in the day we visited the gem of the minidtry. The first care point had a multi-purpose building, water tank, locakable food storage, and enclosed toilets. The second point being the gem, had electricity, electric water pump, a 3 room school house, and housing for 2 teachers. It was amaziung how the kids can be ministered to.
My heart though was truly captured today in church. I have to tell you honestly, I could move here and worship like that EVERY Sunday! The worship was FULL of such joy. It was amazing. At one point the song leader and the pastor were dancing together in the aisle, it was beyond beautiful!!! The worship made the room giddy! I have not felt in the presecnces of such joy before God in a worship gathering EVER in my life.
We later met another man named Kevin Ward, who runs an orphanage, he had such hope for the future of Christ calling a remnant of God's people to rebuild the new Swaziland. It was inspiring to heqar his commitment to being Christ to the kids.
As I said, I will not post nearly as much as I desire to. Please pray for the people of Swaziland. Pray for the work of Children's Hopechest and the care points, which I have VOLUMES to write about. Please pray for Christi and I that God will continue to transform us into the kingdom builders his Kingdom needs.