HEALINGS IN ESWATINI (Swaziland)

Ministry in Eswatini is kids ministry. We spend the day at a care point, where children in the area come to play, be discipled, and get a meal. In the mornings at the care points, we do house visits because the kids don’t come until the afternoon after school gets out. We go out in the community and visit the kids families parents and grandparents. It’s mostly grandmothers, gogos, who take care of many grandkids all alone. Many of them are sick and running out of hope and strength to provide. At our first care point, we visited a gogo with our two shepherds (Shepherds are the people who are working directly with the kids at a care point each day and teach and disciple them). We visited this woman two days in a row. The first day, she was not doing well. She had severe stomach pain that caused her to vomit, and ear pain that we didn’t know about at the time. We gave her encouragement from God’s word, which is so so powerful, and we prayed for her for healing and strength and provision. Just one visit seemed to change a lot because God moved through us to encounter her and lift her up. The next day we went back and she was looking much more alive! She said her stomach pain was gone, her ear pain was gone, and she had much more strength! Praise God that he healed! How incredible!

The next week, at a new care point with a different shepherd, we visited an old man whose kids go to that care point. His wife had recently died and it was just him taking care of the children as well as the homestead. He had some illness that caused him much pain and he had to relieve himself through a catheter. He needed new physical strength and hope as well as healing. We prayed for him, and after, he blessed us by inviting us to go into his field and pick corn and watermelon. Later that week, we went back to bring his family a manna pack. He said that physically he was feeling so much better, less pain, and energized! All glory to God!

Mid week that same week, we visited a gogo in the afternoon. We were invited into her house and she looked defeated. She looked hopeless and exhausted and so discouraged and sad. She was alone in taking care of many kids whose parents had either left or died. She had high blood pressure and severe pain in her legs, and she said she could not sleep because she’s always thinking and her mind can never rest. She said shed began to believe that God had abandoned her. While she shared all of this with us, she was weeping. My heart was broken. First we prayed. We just went straight to God to lift this woman up. After we prayed she kept sharing, and while she was moved by our prayer, she was still discouraged. We then began to speak encouragement. To each one of us there God just kept on giving words to us to encourager her, reminding us of scripture.  it truly was him speaking and not us. It seemed uplifting to her, slowly she seemed a little lighter. Then one of my squad mates, Zack, remembered that he woke up with knee pain that morning and asked to pray for her knee pain again. We all prayed for healing for her legs, knees, blood pressure, and mind. This time she we finished and looked at her, she was lit up, filled with hope and light and joy! She said that the pain was gone! No more pain! God is incredible! She was laughing and smiling and completely changed from moments ago! The joy and rest and presence of God on that house was incredible. And I truly believe that even while we were just there for a moment, God used us to usher in hope and joy and life and renewed strength into this woman’s life.

God is completely utterly incredible. How can it be that the almighty creator of the universe cares about each person, out of billions, to heal us! That he desires for us to thrive! Who are we that he cares that greatly? Yet he does! And who am I, who is this group of average American young adults that he would work through us, invite us to partner with him to be vessels for him to display his glory? What an honor! It’s insane that he chooses mere humans as vessels of his glory and power! And how incredible is it that Jesus commands us to go and walk in these gifts from God in the daily! That we can go and use Gods gifts to usher in healing and encouragement and hope and life in the daily! That we’re promised to see even greater works than what Jesus did! How beautiful is it that when the body walks in these gifts, a beautiful picture of Gods glory is displayed! One person heals, another encourages, another brings wisdom, while still another brings faith. All just walking in Gods power, not their own, and Gods kingdom is ushered in because of it!

I’m in awe. I’m in love. With Jesus and with Eswatini.

God is the same God from the Old Testament, to the New Testament, from Africa, to an Asia, to America! What God does for one he can do for another! He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever.