What are you doing anyway?

Over the last few years many of you have heard me talk about Swaziland.  You have heard stories of my previous trips and statistics about this country. 

This post is for those of you who have not heard those stories and statistics.  I want to quickly share with you all a little bit about my home for the next four months and why I love this place so much!  I also want to give you an idea of what I will be doing while I am here. Enjoy.

So, Swaziland is a small land locked country surrounded by South Africa and Mozambique.  This is an absolutely beautiful nation.  This trip I am here during the summer and I have really enjoyed the lush green that covers the landscape, it looks much different than my first trip which was during their winter.  Swaziland is the last full monarchy in all of Africa.  The king, King Mswatti the III, rules this country alongside is 13 wives.  Today I learned that Swaziland has an enormous security budget because the budget includes protection for the gigantic royal family. 

Swaziland’s biggest challenge is the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  It has been estimated that 1 in 4 adults living in this country have the deadly virus.  Because of the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS the country is dying off at an alarming rate.  In fact, Orphans and vulnerable children account for an estimated 15% of Swaziland’s total population. 

Another challenge that I have seen on this trip is school fees.  The school year starts in January which is also when school fees are due.  For a nation that lives off an average of $2.00 a day it can be very difficult to collect enough money to put all of your children through school.  It has been proven that without education the cycle of extreme poverty will continue.   Thankfully Adventures in Mission (the organization that I am working alongside) has started a sponsorship program for school fees.  If you are interested in supporting this program financially check out this website. http://www.adventures.org/swaziland/projects.asp

During my trip here in 2009 I quickly saw that amidst the poverty and illness in this country there is a strong presence of joy, faith, and love.  I was amazed at how drastically different this was from our hectic yet lavished lifestyle in the States.  I loved every moment of my 2 month trip to a rural community called Nsoko.  I learned so much from my team mates and more importantly from the people that we were interacting with.  We spent our days at care points loving the children, we danced alongside our translators, played soccer with the children at the primary school, helped the Gogos prepare meals and wash laundry, prayed with families at their homesteads, and most importantly we experienced Christ every single day.  The moment that I left Swaziland I knew that I wanted to return.

Our home until May.  The bottom uploaded a little goofy.

So here I am, 2.5 years later, back in Swaziland.  This time around I am living in a small apartment with one other student from BSU (Bailey) in Manzini, Swaziland.  Manzini is a much bigger and more developed city when compared to Nsoko.  I am here finishing up my last semester of my undergrad.  For the next four months I will be working with Timbali Crafts (http://www.timbalicrafts.org/index.html...buy something) .  Timbali crafts is an income generating project for women.  Many of the women involved spend their days volunteering at one of the many care points around Manzini and Nsoko.  At the care points the Gogos provide a meal and a basic education for the hundreds of kids that flock to the care points daily.   These women, or Gogos, were not getting paid for their work at the care points.  Timbali empowers the women through basic crafts.  Through these craft projects the women are given an income so that they can support their family.  Timbali also helps the women save money for school fees and other expenses such as Antiretroviral which helps to control HIV/AIDS.  Timbali also provides a match program when the women save their money.  Finally, and most importantly, Timbali crafts does yearly retreats and weekly Bible studies with the women.  This aspect of Timbali builds a community of support around the women that is vital in this place with so many hardships. 

While here, we will be helping out with many aspects of Timbali crafts.  Weekly we will do home visits with our translator Titi.  The purpose of these visits will be to build relationships with the Gogos and update information on them and their family.  We will help out with some of the logistics such as buying and transporting fabric, helping out with different crafts, selling crafts to teams, and hopefully a special craft project with some of the older girls at the care points.  Bailey and I also hope to take some trips while we are here, such as days at the Indian Ocean and a trip to Krueger national park.

This first week or two will be mostly orientation to the community and the culture.  I will do my best to update you all as we really start everything here.  For now Bailey and I are going to keep practicing driving on the left side of the road.  

Oh, She’s traveling…

For those of you who know me well you know that I love sharing and hearing puke stories.  This is one of those stories!

I left for Swaziland Sunday afternoon.   Just thinking about the journey that was ahead of me brought on lots of different emotions.  I was mostly excited to know that in thirty hours I would finally be returning to Swaziland.  I was also a little sad to know that I would be leaving other homes that love dearly. 

Flight one was from Minneapolis to Washington DC.  This flight went by really fast.  I sat next to a sweet old lady (we never introduced ourselves so I do not know her name) but we spent the entire flight chatting.  She has traveled the world as a Peace Corps volunteer, with her husband who is originally from Yemen, and visiting her adult children.  I really enjoyed hearing her stories and appreciated having someone to talk to as I started my own journey.

Flight two was from DC to New York.  This was a quick flight on a little plane…and we got to board the plane celebrity style on the air strip!  I spent the short flight reading.

Flight three was from New York to Johannesburg!  Unfortunately, I first had to survive an 11 hour layover first.  Upon arriving in New York I had to switch terminals.  The train was just across the street from the airport so at one in the morning I got to ride the train from terminal 7 to terminal  4 with a handful of other people.  I guy with a sweet pair of TOMS sat next to me and I mentioned how much I liked them.  We began talking and I found out that he also had a long layover.  It was comforting to have his company.  We set up camp on a cold marble floor near the entrance of the airport.  We talked for a little while sharing stories or our travels and plans for our post grad futures.  After maybe 20 minutes we both fell asleep on the uncomfortable floor clutching our back packs.  I slept on and off until about 4 in the morning.  I finally decided to get up to find some food and noticed that my new friend had left.  I was disappointed that I didn’t get to wish him luck on his future adventures and thank him for his company.  My last 7 hours in the airport were pretty miserable.  I felt sick to my stomach and I couldn’t stop shivering.  I spent those seven hours reading, journaling, and sleeping in different places around the airport.   There was a comfortable looking chair that I had my eye on the entire time and finally near the end of my lay over it was finally vacated.  My half hour nap in the chair was incredible! 

With two hours left in my layover I was finally able to make my way through security and head towards my gate.  I was still feeling really sick but my excitement for my coming adventures was beginning to return!  There were lots of people my age waiting at the gate.  I really wanted to talk to everyone after my long lonely layover but I fell asleep before I worked up any courage to talk to anyone (eventually I talked to one girl and found out that she goes to school with Lindsay Ryan…Small world).  Finally it was time to board the plane. 

Thankfully there was no one sitting in the seat next to me so I spent the 14 hour flight sleeping and reading.  Actually, now that I think of it, I actually slept through take off!  I felt significantly better after eating something and continued to feel great until the last hour of the flight. 

This is the part of the story that you have all been waiting for!  Finally the plane landed in South Africa...I was too worried about keeping down my most recent meal to have any excitement.  As soon as the seat belt light turned off I jumped to my feet, determined to get out of the plane and in to a bathroom as quick as possible.  If I was really thinking I would have grabbed a little puke bag just in case…but unfortunately I didn’t.  I made it off the plane and in to the little walk way between the plane and the airport (what is that called?) when I realized that I wasn’t going to make it.  After a similar illness over Christmas break my entire family learned that I am still a projectile vomiter…this little fact made me very worried for the slow walking people in front of me.  I made it past a few people when I started spewing.  I forced my hand over my mouth to save them from them from my returning breakfast.  After swallowing a re-puking several times I finally made it to a garbage can.  After throwing up in front of all of my fellow travelers I ran to the nearest bathroom, partially out of fear of what was to come, but mostly from embarrassment. 

After cleaning up as best as I could I realized that I still have one more flight.  I made my way through the airport security and to my final gate with ease.  I felt much better and excitement returned to me as I realized that in less than two hours I would be back in Swaziland.  Eventually our flight was called.  I followed a few other passengers on a bus which dropped us of at our plane and my final leg of the journey.

Flight four was from Johannesburg South Africa to Manzini, Swaziland.  Thankfully, the flight was the quickest one yet.  We arrived in Manzini at a very VERY small airport.  My luggage was not in Swaziland so I gave them my phone number and hoped for the best.  I think I was too exhausted to care…and I was just happy to have finally arrived in my new home and be reunited with Bailey. 

Food, sleep, and a shower soon followed.  My luggage arrived several hours later!  The first 24 hours in Manzini have been very relaxing.  We have had some orientation but most of our time has been filled with sleeping.  I am thankful to have some rest.  Soon our days will be filled with work and learning.

I am happy to be back and I cannot wait to share more stories with you all soon.

The end.  

Thoughts on The Long Haul

Just finished reading the book The Long Haul By Myles Horton.  This was an incredible book about social change and education.  The Highlander school has positively influenced communities for over sixty years.  The following are some of my favorite quotes from the book.

“God is love, and therefore you love your neighbors.  Love was religion to her, that’s what she practiced.  It was a good nondoctrinaire background, and it gave me a sense of what was right and what was wrong.  I’ve taken this belief of my mother’s and put it on another level, but it’s the same idea.  It’s the principle of trying to serve people and building a loving world.  If you believe that people are of worth, you can’t treat anybody inhumanely, and that means you not only have to love and respect people, but you have to think in terms of building a society that people can profit most from, and that kind of society has to work on the principle of equality.  Otherwise, somebody’s going to be left out.” –page 7

“From Jesus and the prophets I had learned about the importance of loving people, and the importance of loving people, the importance of being a revolutionary, standing up and saying that this system is unjust.  Jesus to me was a person who had the vision to project a society in which people would be equally respect, in which property would be shared; he was a person who said you have to love your enemies, you have to love the people who despise you.” –page 26

“…try to find out how to get social justice and love together.” –page 32

“I don’t think you help people by keeping them enslaved to something that is less than they are capable of doing and believing.  I was told one time during an educational conference that I was cruel because I made people who were very happy and contented, unhappy, and that it was wrong to upset people and stretch their imaginations and minds, and to challenge them to the place where they got themselves into trouble, became maladjusted and so on.  My position was that I believed in changing society by first changing individuals, so that they could then struggle to bring about social changes.  There’s a lot of pain in it. And a lot of violence, and conflict/ and that is just part of the price you pay.  I realized that was part of growth-and growth is painful.  A plant comes through the hard ground. And it breaks the seed apart.  And then it dies to live again. 

I think that people aren't fully free until they’re in a struggle for justice.  And that means for everyone.  It’s a struggle of such importance that they are willing, if necessary, to die for it.  I think that’s what you have to do before you’re really free.  Then you've got so much you want to do.  This struggle is so important that it gives a meaning to life.  Now that sounds like a contradiction, but I encourage people to push limits, to try to take that step, because that’s when they are really free.” –page 184

“As I read about birds, I realized that they not only use tail winds but they don’t fight the winds.  They change their course year after year on the basis of the particular situation.  They never come back exactly the same way twice because the conditions are never the same, but they always get to their destination.  They have a purpose, change tactics according to the situation.  I thought, for God’s sake they’re pretty smart, why can’t we learn not to do things when it’s almost impossible?  Why can’t we learn to hole up and renew our strength?  Why can’t we learn to change the entire route if it’s necessary, so long as we get to the right point?  I started learning from the birds about how to take advantage of crisis situation and of the opposition and use that knowledge for my own purposes.” –page 199

“Goals are unattainable in the sense that they always grow.  My goal for the tree I planted in front of my house is for it to get big enough to shade the house, but that tree is not going to stop growing once it shades my house,  It’s going to keep on growing bigger regardless of whether I want it to or not.  The nature of my visions are to keep on growing beyond my conception.  That is why I say it’s never completed.  I think there always needs to be struggle.  In any situation there will always be something that’s worse, and there will always be something that’s better, so you continually strive to make it better.  That will always be so, and that’s good, because there ought to be growth.  You die when you stop growing.” –page 228

Lessons from the rejected

Lesson 3

Reflections from CHUM's Development Director, Mary Schmitz

I listened to a variety of Christmas music this weekend.  I love all kinds of Christmas music as it prepares me for my favorite holiday!

As I dusted and moved the furniture in preparation for putting up my Christmas decorations, I hummed along.  When “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” began I listened with a new pair of ears.  Rudolph was different He was left out.  Members of his community didn’t know how to engage with him.  Rudolph was hurt that he didn’t have anything to offer.

The folks we meet and advocated for at CHUM day after day are like Rudolph.  We don’t understand who they are and why they are not like us.  We can’t always see how to engage with them.  We are not sure if we should greet them, make eye contact or even if we should walk by them.  They appear different from us.

But fortunately Rudolph did have a special gift to offer, one that others couldn’t give.  Each person we meet has something to offer, even when it is not readily apparent.

As you hustle and bustle in preparation for your faith traditions holiday, take just a moment to acknowledge and engage the “Rudolph’s” among us.

I finished up my internship last week.  A majority of the time I spent at CHUM was with the employment program.  Many of the people I worked with have a pretty rough background.  Felonies and addictions make them unemployable.  I often wondered what their lives would look like if people gave them a chance.  A chance to work, to have an income, to provide for themselves and their families, to have responsibility, and to have dignity.  There is a tricky balance between having the compassion to give people a second chance while still reminding them that there are consequences for past mistakes.  With that in mind, I hope that we all can find ways to show compassion to those around us.  May we see value and worth in all people and may we empower them to live out their strengths in beautiful ways...no matter who they are.

Holy Groans By Rachel Tulloch

"As I write this, I am waiting for a bus on a busy corner in a extremely poor community in Central America, in which I lived for a year and have been visiting now for nine years. Most of the time, the tragedy of this place fades into the background of my thoughts, pushed there by familiarity, busyness, and the cheerfulness and the resilience of the people who have welcomed me here. Nonetheless, it is evident that the joy many people here display is in clear defiance of the facts of their daily existence.

Sometimes, moments like this one come when I can no longer ignore these facts, and the sense of tragedy becomes overwhelming. I can see garbage strewn around me-plastic bags, empty bottles, crumpled wrappers, cigarettes-things discarded. Since it is located on the site of an old dump, garbage literally serves as the foundation of this mini-city, which is full of people discarded. I see a young girl walking towards school and I wonder if she shares the experience of so many other girls and young women here whose bodies are used, owned, or defaced. I see a boy whose swagger makes him look older and more confident than he probably is. As he joins the group of laughing older boys, I am aware of how likely his future is to be stolen by gangs and drugs. They are more lucrative ventures than most other job options that will be available to him-lucrative as long as he is alive, that is. Beside me is a woman selling tortillas and green mangoes. Like the innumerable other single moms in this community, she must choose between being with her children and feeding them. Even the dogs, whose ugly skeletal bodies manage to reproduce at obscene rates, join this dance of joy and threat, death and life that is ordinary living here.

From behind me, I hear an old man groan; he is struggling to stand up from where he is sitting against a wall. And it seems to me right now that I can hear in his groan the groaning of this whole place, and for that matter, the groaning of all creation that Paul spoke of in Romans as it waits for its redemption. The groaning of these hills, soaked with the blood of those murdered for a cell phone or a pair of shoes. The groaning of this river, polluted with chemicals and sewage. Holy groans. Like the groans of the people in Egyptian slavery that touched the ears and heart of God. Like the groans of the psalmist while his very bones wasted away. Like groans of the crucified One, bearing the weight of the whole world's pain. I want to groan too, because I don't have any words to speak. So I am thankful for the beautiful Spirit who joins the groaning, who takes my conflicted feelings of guilt and anger and love and intercedes for me with "groans that words could not express." Holy groans.

But now, I am struck by something else. I hear the voice of a little girl coming from around the corner, singing loudly and clearly a song I know well: "Oh love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong, it will forevermore endure, the saints' and angels' song!"

Love of God, rich and pure, measureless and strong. In the middle of so much suffering, this can easily sound like the mockery of an indifferent universe, I am certain of one thing: it must either be a cruel joke or the deepest possible truth. It is easy for philosophers and theologians to debate the question of suffering when they are removed from its stark reality. However, it is a costly thing for those who suffer to speak of the love of God in the midst of their pain. That is why their voice of the carries the ring and force of truth. When it come to questions of love and suffering, the voice of the smallest, the poorest, and the most vulnerable carries an authority far beyond that of philosophical treatises or the debates of the experts. I have read many good books on this topic, and I have even tried to write about it myself. But I have never read anything that speaks so profoundly to life's deepest groans than the song of this child in this place. This song does not dismiss or deny our groaning, but assures us that we do not groan in an empty void, but in the midst of a universe whose truest reality is Love."

Lessons from the rejected

Lesson 2

Community.  This is something that we all desire in some form or the other.  I have been a part of some incredible communities over the last few years and through these communities I have realized that they are essential.  Last Friday I completed the 6th week of my internship.  As I interact with the homeless population of Duluth in the drop in center and at my house I have seen some beautiful communities.  For example, there is a couple that moved to Duluth and into the shelter the same week that I started my internship.  They knew no one.  That same week another single guy moved into the shelter after spending a number of isolated weeks living out of his truck.  Throughout the last six weeks I have watched these three people find a community, a support system, among one another and with others in the drop in center.  This community can be bad, pressuring people into bad decisions, but it can also good.  When healthy, community can be the support system that people need to make it out alive.  Similarly, this past week our house of hospitality grew from 4 people to 10 people.  These new guests have all experienced some pretty traumatic events prior to coming here.  Abuse, addictions, violence, and homelessness has brought this group of people together and their budding friendship could be a huge factor in helping them to get out of those situations.  It has been such a joy to see these communities forming and I am so thankful to be a part them!

I know full well the importance of community and I desire it in my life.  One thing that I am learning though is the amount of trust needed within communities.  It is so easy for me to close myself off to others, not allowing them to really know me.  Without this openness I am closing myself off to truly being in community with others.  Trust and community go hand and hand.  Time and time again I find myself in conversations with people who are homeless.  These conversations are far from surface level.  Maybe, this is why the communities that they form seem so much deeper than most of communities that I see.  This level of trust allows them to go so much deeper in their relationships.  As a social work student I also understand the importance of boundaries within the relationships between myself and the folks that I interact with at the drop in center.  Although, I am learning a lot from seeing these relationships form.  As I see community in this setting I feel more pressure to apply these lessons to my communities of support.  I am learning the importance of being open and trusting, especially among those who I love. 

I hope that no matter where we are we can find communities that care for us, energize us, teach us, and love us.  We need this more than we realize.  Where do you find community?  Are they supporting you?  Do you support them?  And most importantly, how much do you trust this community to truly know you, care for you, and love you? 

          

The Sphere Of Exaltation

This really resonated with me and I wanted to share it...

We have all had times on the mount, when we have seen things from God's standpoint and have wanted to stay there;but God will never allow us to stay there.  The test of our spiritual life is the power to descend;if we have the power to rise only, something is wrong.  It is a great thing to be on the mount with God, but a man only gets there in order that afterwards he may get down among the devil possessed and lift them up.  We are not built for the mountains and the dawns and aesthetic affinities, those are for moments of inspiration, that is all.  We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle.  Spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mount.  We feel we could talk like angels and live like angels, if only we could stay on the mount.  The times of exaltation are exceptional, they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware lest our spiritual selfishness wants to make them the only time.

We are apt to think that everything that happens is to be turned into useful teaching, it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz., into character.  The mount is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something.  There is a great snare in asking-What is the use of it?  In spiritual matters we can never calculate on that line.  The moments on the mountain tops are rare moments and they are meant for something in God's purpose.

-From the October 1st lesson from Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest.