We're in Swaziland! Finally, after two days of travelling during which we were completely upside down and inside out in time, we arrived at our homestead in Nsoko at about 8 PM on Wednesday. Our house in pretty simple. A big room, a kitchen, two bathrooms (just toilets no shower), and two bedrooms. I'd Google Earthed Nsoko before we came, and it looked like a really dry place with lots of red clay. That must have been before the rainy season though, because now everything is green. We live in a valley, and there are mountains all around us. It's gorgeous. 

We spent Thanksgiving with another AIM team that's here. They've been here for almost 3 months and are about to go home. It was such a blessing to get to know them, even if just for a few days. Since then we've been resting a lot, getting to know the people here in Nsoko, and getting started with ministry. Pastor Gift is the pastor of the church here. He's great. He loves God and has a huge heart for the people in this community, especially the youth. He gave us a list of the main ministry opportunities yesterday and we all chose one to be our "baby" as PG put it. We're supposed to be focusing on the one thing, but helping each other at the same time. Women's ministry, administration, community education, youth ministry, and care point minstry were the choices. Along with these, we'll all be doing building projects, vision trip facilitation, and preaching on Sundays. Jon and B also do sport evangelism. They asked me to do it, but unfortunately it interferes with my olympic training, so I let those less athletically fortunate take over. Jokes aside though, I ended up chosing administration for my ministry. Weird, I know. I figured I would end up doing care point ministry because that's basically playing with and teaching kids at the care points. (Care points are places where kids can get free food and basic education. There are about 9 of them in our area, and they're vital to the community.) But when I prayed about it, God led me firmly towards administration. I'll be doing a lot of organizing and paper work. It doesn't really sound a lot like ministry I know, but if you could see the mess all their records are in you'd understand. PG doesn't value organization it seems. At all. I started working on it today, and it just felt so right, I know that this is what God has for me to do. What's really cool is that I get to work in a spare room at the clinic. The nurse there is named Wisdom. He's from Zimbabwe and so cool. We're going to be good friends. I'm hoping that he might let me help him out with patients sometimes. 

In between all that we've been doing I've met some incredible kids. They all have intense Suswati names though, so it's taking me a while to learn them. Abbigail is 15 and has a 2 week old baby. I can barely keep my hands off of her. Then there's Ndutuzo. He thinks he's spiderman. Mantize and Nokosile like to do my hair for me. Sabelo, Power, and Musa are three orphan boys. Their mom is/was dying of AIDS and dropped them off at PG's house about two weeks ago. Now their staying with a gogo in the neighborhood, but they just really need a mom. Sometimes they come over and all the want to do is sit in your lap while the other boys play. It breaks my heart. These kids have such a need for love, I feel like I don't have enough. 

So, long story short, I'm in love with Swaziland so far. 

PS. Here are links to my teammates and PG's blogs. Check them out. Especially my teammates because I leave a lot out and they do a better job at writing about what actually happens. And.. I really like them, so you should too.

PPS. I can't figure out how to post a link, so just click on the "Team Blog Page" link underneath "Links" on the left of the page and look for Katie Graves, Jessica Leonardi, Jonathan Melo, and Bryan Marsh.