Thank you for your prayers, especially for Robin, regarding the death of Tema. We are rejoicing this morning that she is in the lap of our Heavenly Father! We are preparing for church this morning and what a joyous experience it will be! Church in Africa is always absolutely beautiful!! However, we’ll be missing Dr. McKinley!
I wanted to show you a bit of the fun side of our day yesterday. Enjoy!
I’m not even sure where to begin with this one…..
We arrived at Timbutini this morning to see hundreds of children eagerly awaiting for their “Fun Day” to begin. As I stepped off the bus, I was called into the church by Allison (our sweet Alabama missionary). One of our children at Ruby’s carrpoint had been murdered during the night. She and her mother were shot at their home. The mother is in critical condition. We were all in shock. There have been so many tragedies occur on this trip with our children. Abandonment, abuse and now murder. Why are these things happening? Why?
We are surely meant to be here and we are clearly doing what God wants us to do. The enemy is trying to discourage us with these horrible things we are experiencing. But we know our God is greater. Our God is stronger. We know He is sovereign. He is forever faithful. We know that tonight Tema is resting in His arms. She is in no more danger, no more pain. We have to hold onto that tonight. We have been with her at the carepoint this week. She was so full of life. So full of love and joy. Robin spent a lot of time with her reading Bible stories to her. Tema didn’t have a “special friend” so she wanted to write a letter to Robin. Please see the sweet letter below and also her picture. Tomorrow a few of us are going to visit the family members and tell them stories of this precious child. Please pray for strength for us as we try to provide any comfort we can to this family. And for each of us as we try to process this terrible tragedy. We love you all……
Good morning, all. Today we head out for our Fun Day! A day of playing with the kids from both carepoints and giving them a very special meal of chicken dust. We’ll have a bounce house, lots of games and will also be showing “The Jesus Film for Children” in Siswati! Please pray that the children will be touched by this film.
Unfortunately, this is also a sad day for us. It is the last day we’ll be at the carepoints with our kids. The goodbyes are tough, but the times spent with these precious children is priceless. The memories will be with us forever. And remember my previous prediction? Eleven more hearts are forever left in Africa. I can’t wait to see when they’ll be ready to return to them!
PS Carol, I’ll miss being with you as the 5…15…30…57 kids roll out of the party bus!!!
Unfortunately, our team only got to see Ruby for a brief moment, but her spirit was definitely there……
It’s early morning here now and I just did not have the emotional energy to write last night. What a day it was. There are so many wonderful stories to tell that I will not be able to do justice over a blog.
There was a little boy that had came to Timbutini the day before with a very badly injured hand. He said he had “fallen”. Jeff looked at his hand and it was clear this injury was not from a fall of any kind. He would not tell the D-Team what really happened to him. Jeff and Dona worked on his hand but decided he really needed to be taken to the clinic, which is quite an ordeal in Swaziland. Jeff went with him to the clinic. He was treated, given medications and checked from head to toe. Sounds like a great story with a nice ending, huh? Well, this child “just happened” to be one of Jeff and Dona’s special friends. Needless to say, this was a very emotional time for them. This child was clearly hurt by the hands of another. He was scared yet at the same time a very strong little boy. Dona cradled him in her lap the entire time Jeff worked on him. While they were waiting to leave for the clinic, Jeff fed his “son” from a bowl.
The valley? The stark realization that someone could harm a child. We all know it’s there and it happens everyday, but seeing a child hurt, in pain and scared will shake any of us to the core.
The mountain top? This child received more love over those few hours than he has probably ever experienced. He was loved on by his “parents” like every child should be.
We were able to bring him back to our team house and share dinner with him before one of the disciplers took him home. We then prayed for the safety of this child and all the children of Swaziland.
This was a difficult situation to walk through, but God provided the strength needed for Jeff and Dona, and for their precious Swazi son. A coincidence that this little boy was a special friend of Jeff and Dona’s? Of course not. Jeff and Dona had planned on being at a different carepoint on that day, but ended up staying at Timbutini. God directed their steps, they just followed.
As we all are…….
We want to share lots of photos with you from our past couple of days! I had a blog helper earlier that posted a couple of individual ones. She’s fired!
Thanks to the absolutely beautiful weather we are being blessed with, we were able to hand out rain ponchos to the children. It’s sure not to rain now!
Where do I begin on how we have seen our awesome God show up! If you have been following us at all over the last couple of days, you know we’ve been asking you to pray for our weather. Now that the “storm” has passed, I’d like to fill you in on a bit more specifics. On the drive to Swaziland on Monday, we were told that there was a cyclone brewing off the coast of Madagascar. There had been a cyclone that hit a week or so before we got here that resulted in extensive flooding in Manzini (this is where we are). On Monday, the cyclone was projected to hit Saturday or Sunday. By Tuesday, it was a Category 4 heading for Swaziland. Needless to say, this caused a bit of concern. We were wondering if we needed to go inland until it passed. Then, could we even make it back to Manzini after the storm? This is when the prayers began…..fervently. By the time we left the careoint on Tuesday afternoon, the sky was jet black and the winds were very strong. We went to the McAdams house for dinner and a time of devotion, praise and worship. As Joseph was leading us into the next song, Stephen N. spoke up and told us he felt strongly that we pray at that very moment. He humbled himself in prayer before our Father and CLAIMED that He could stop the storm. There are not many times in my life that I have had chills throughout my entire body, but this was certainly one of them. The Holy Spirit moved through that room so much stronger than the winds ever were. By the end of the evening, we walked out of that house to perfectly calm weather. When we got back to our hotel, Jeff pulled up the weather radar to see that the Category 4 was now a Category 2 and had completely turned away from the coast and was nowhere near Swaziland. “You rule oceans. You subdue their storm-tossed waves”. —- Psalm 89:9
Wednesday morning as we stepped outside on the balcony to have our time of prayer, we were surrounded by blue skies and the beautiful singing birds. We have all been incredibly humbled by the power of our Heavenly Father. He definitely has work for us to do here and we are very honored to be here to make much of Him. Thank you again for your prayers — know that they have been heard and gratefully received. We love you all!
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