jonathanbarnett - A New Perspective, A New Light

I received a new revelation on the Swazi people this week from my father above. When we were over at the Swazi house Wed, we had a little time to "be still and know that I am God" I was kind of wondering what that meant, but my mind kept getting occupied with songs and what not, so I thought to myself, "Self, what did God do for me today?" and the first thing that popped into my mind was, my buddy Marcus had brought me an ice cold cup of water during dinner (he's a very servant hearted guy) and at the time it didn't mean much, but as I was reflecting, I think God kinda revealed to me, "Hey this cup of water is just for you, this small act of service was done just for you." And it got me thinking about the Swazi people and why I'm here, and going off that how Christ died for each one, all the faces that I pass by each day, each one I say hello to is like saying Hi to my savior, they are all worth dieing for, which makes them incredibly special, and how each small act is like it's being done for Christ, "whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." So it was pretty cool getting that, and being able to look at the Swazi people in a whole new light.

My Good Ole Dirty Feet After A Hard Day's Work

So I've been working my butt off this week. And have been doing all my fellow Alaskan's justice by getting tan for them here this week. Everyday I come back burned like white person does in Swaziland. I've been working with Michael helping clear up a garden at a crèche like school in Lobamba, which is about a 10-15 min public ride, the video this week is a quick look at riding in a Koombie, the sound doesn't do it justice, which is unfortunate, because the bass was so high that day that my heart fell into beat with it, it rattled my soul, and the high notes, I couldn't hear for a good hour after out of the koombie.
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Working in Lobomba: Tuesday, Michael, Michelle, Tessa and I went into Lobamba after meeting a man who told us about the crèche school there, and how he oversees it, and we should go check it out, so we did, we got into town and didn't know where to go, so we started asking around and nobody knew what we were talking about, finally someone understood and got us there, we met with the ladies there who run it (all Swazi volunteers) and they showed us their facilities (2 buildings, that pack about 20-30 kids in each, who are fed 2 times a day, and get unofficial schooling. We saw what we could do, and after that we walked around Lobamba and checked out the little town, we went to a nice stadium that's a bit of a walk from the crèche and saw a man who was herding cows on 2 crutches. He didn't speak English so we couldn't communicate with him, which was unfortunate.

So later that day we went into Manzini, where the other team lives, and Michael and I went to about 12 different hardware shops which are all next door to each other before finding a grass cutter and a hoe. Which together cost about 90 Emalangeni which is about $12 USD, so we got it and boy did we get some looks walking around town with a hoe and a grass cutter.

Then Wednesday, Michael and I went back to go help on their garden which grows food for them to help feed the children, and can put funds to other uses besides buying food for them, so we worked our butts off for a good 3-4 hours, before we were too exhausted to lift the tools anymore. But as you can see from the pictures we cleared up a lot.

Me and the Hoe Working

Wednesday night we went over to Swazi house to have dinner with Swazi team and the D-Team, which is local Swazi college age students who kind of do what we do, except they are from here and live in their own houses, but it was nice meeting with them, our team doesn't know them too well, but it was good to eat with some new faces.

Wackin Weeds and Choppin Grass

Thursday we went back to do the same, although a little less ambiguous knowing what we were getting ourselves into. But we both put all our effort into it working 5 hours and cleared up a lot more, although it doesn't look like it so much, we did cleared as much as Wednesday but with a lot more weeds in the way.

What We Started With...

So last Sunday, the guys from all the teams met at Swazi house around 8 to what we thought was to go watch the Superbowl at 10, but actually it didn't start till 1:30am here, but we all went to Jambo's house, he's a Safrican man, who you do not question what he says, he can be a scary man, but he cooked up hot dogs at 2 in the morning for us, but we could only watch the game on ESPN so there weren't any American commercials, it was just ESPN ones which got boring, and the game really wasn't that interesting, so I called it quits at halftime along with a few of the other guys and walked back to the house at 3ish, then spent the rest of Monday, our off day sleeping and recuperating from the night before.

What We Had Done By The End Of The Day

Friday, we finished up the yard, by working our butts off, we have a bit of touch up but we weeded everything so its all good. Then we had ministry team at 5 and practiced our drime which is the other video below, and then we had youth group at 6:30 which went really well, probably about 30ish students, so I ran games, then they did worship, then the ministry did the drime, and the Michael gave a message. Which rocked.

Saturday, we did team ministry at the hospital, where I got to see my home girl that I fed last week and hung out with all day. She remembered me which was awesome. Then we had team dinner at Swazi house with Swazi and RLT. Good times.