There is a sweet gas station in Manzini called Galp. The first time I went to Galp was in January. Our team was taking our first walk into town and we stopped at Galp to buy some juice. Nothing too exciting happened that day at Galp, but we met some of the employees that day and they were very friendly. Well eventually we started going to Galp a lot. One of my teammates, Gail, started to become friends with a lady named Thandi that works there. One day, a few months ago, I went to the gas station with Gail to visit Thandi. We talked with Thandi and met another employee of Galp that day. His name is Sizwe and he is about 24 years old. Now mostly every guy that we meet in Swaziland asks us to marry him within the first 2.3 seconds of talking with him but Sizwe was different. He was polite and not creepy at all. He didn't have wrong motive for talking to us, he was just curious as to what we were doing in Swaziland. We told him a little about our program and why we were in Swaziland and we continued to chat with him for awhile. He is a young man from Swaziland who is striving to truly live for God in a country where "living for God" is just a title that doesn't really mean much.
After meeting and getting to know the amazing people that work at the Galp gas station we knew we had to continue visiting them. So Gail and I go to the gas station almost every Monday afternoon. We've had some really great conversations with Sizwe. He is hungry for God. He asks so many great questions. He has also been able to meet with the guys on our team and chat with them some too. He is in need of some male discipleship in his life. I am praying that God will provide that for Sizwe. I can truly call Him a brother in Christ!
Sizwe is the cashier at Galp so the drill goes as follows. Gail and I stand in front of the counter, off to the side a bit, while Sizwe is behind the register checking out customers as they come in and out of the store. He stays pretty busy with customers but some how God always allows us to carry on in some sweet conversation.
I have seen Christ walk in and out of that gas station so many times. Every week we go to Galp God seems to bring in a customer that either needs encouraging or encourages us. We've had the blessing of being Christ and seeing Christ in that gas station on numerous occasions. One time Gail and I had a really cool debate with a Siswati man about marriage, love and if it is okay to have more than one wife or not. The man couldn't speak English so Sizwe was translating throughout the whole debate. I know that it was truly from God because I didn't get angry that the man had three wives. I saw him as Jesus and tried to love him as if I were loving Jesus Himself. We were able to leave him with a verse about what love REALLY is. I pray that man comes to know the only true Love that has ever been or ever will be.
Just last Tuesday Gail and I were at the gas station visiting once again when in walks an older man with a big smile on his face. I tried to greet him in Siswati but Sizwe quickly told me that he was deaf and could not understand me. Sizwe knew the man because he comes into the store regularly. His name is Donald. (Donald is the man in the picture to the left) He had a smile on his face that I will never forget and I could feel the radiance of God all around him. Donald grabbed a piece of paper and started to write on it. He wrote a note to Gail and I basically saying that he could tell we were trying to greet him and he said he likes writing so he asked if we would be pen pals with him. Once again, normally Siswati men are creepy but Donald wasn't the least bit creepy. We wrote back and forth with Donald for a bit, prayed with him and then he was on his way. Gail and I left the gas station on Tuesday extremely encouraged as we usually do.
Needless to say, God is definitely at work at that gas station. I am constantly in awe of God and His omnipresence! I know that God will continue to be there even after Gail and I leave in a few weeks. As with all of Swaziland, God will remain here, carrying out His plan even after we leave in May!
"I am the Alpha and the Omega--the beginning and the end." says the Lord God. "I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come--the Almighty One."
-Revelation 1:8-
Every Tuesday afternoon Gail, Kepp, and myself go to the Life Skills Center in Manzini where we live. The Life Skills Center is a place where Swazi men and women are taught life skills such as sewing, weaving, screen printing, carpentry, welding, ceramics, cooking and so on. A small business has been started at the Life Skills Center for each of these skills and once these businesses get up and running then they will leave the Life Skills Center to find a place in town to run their own businesses. Then the process will start all over again. It is a really neat project because the unemployment rate in Swaziland is about 30%.
Having said all that, Gail, Kepp, and myself hang out with some amazing Swazi ladies every Tuesday. We refer to them as the "sewing ladies". They are so sweet and friendly and genuine. We do a bible study with them every week and every week I fall more and more in love with them. We are really praying that the Holy Spirit would continue to reveal to us what they need to hear. We have talked about God's love and God's glory and Heaven with them so far. This week we will talk about how as brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, we must lift each other up and cast our burdens upon each other. We will talk about being open with each other and trusting each other. We are trying to prepare them for when we leave. We only have a few weeks left with them. My prayer is that after we leave they will continue to fellowship together in the Word and continue to pray for one another. My prayer is that they will be real with each other, casting their burdens on one another. My prayer is that the bible study would spread throughout the whole Life Skills Center. More people each week are asking what we are doing and now even some of the men want to come to the bible study.
No matter how hopeless this country may seem at times, God is still the God of Swaziland. He loves Swaziland just as much as South Africa or America. He loves these people and He is a jealous God. Even after my team leaves He will continue to fight for their hearts. He will not take no for an answer! He is a persistent God! You must worship no other gods, for the Lord, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you.
(Exodus 34:14)
"For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself.
I promised you as a pure bride to one husband--Christ."
First of all, I want to thank God for each and everyone of you! Your support and encouragement while I have been in Africa has been such a blessing! God keeps reminding me daily of the support I have back home from so many people. I feel truly loved and undeserving of such support but I know it is all from God and for that I can not express enough gratitude to my Heavenly Father!
As you all know I had to raise $9,000 to participate in the FYM program and God has been extremely provisional but I still have about $700 left to raise. My prayer is that you will prayerfully consider how God wants you to help me in raising this last bit of money. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you an amount and if you're listening He will reveal that amount to you. Trust God that He is bigger than your wallet or your bank account. Have faith that He is all you need! I don't mean for this to sound harsh or bad but each and every one of us is rich! We are rich! I know you don't think you are but you are! I didn't think I was either but after living in Africa for awhile I have realized just how good we have it in America, just how spoiled we are and just how rich we are. Most of my friends in Africa live on 20 to 30 dollars a month and most of us spend more than that in a day. All I am really trying to say is that if your initial reaction is, "oh no I can't give because then I might not have enough money for this or that." (whether it be food, clothing or whatever) I want to challenge you to reevaluate the situation. Look around your house, look around your room, look in your refrigerator/pantry, look at your car and think about your job. First of all, stop and thank God for blessing you with each and every one of these things because SO many people in the world don't have ANY of these things. Secondly, would you be okay if you didn't have ANY of these things but ONLY had God? If your answer if no, (and if we are truly honest with ourselves I think most of our answers would be no), if you become fearful or scared just by asking yourself that question, if you are sweating right now just thinking about not having a car or an ipod or a job or food or a room of your own or a house with a lot of rooms some of which don't even get used then you need to put your trust in God! It's easy to say that we trust God but can we actually put our trust into action? Without action we do not have trust! My prayer is that you will trust God in every area of your life. It is hard. I know I fail at it every day but we must keep trying and keep trusting.
I can't wait to see you all again in May and share all the ways I have seen God work since I've been in Africa. All praise and glory be to our Heavenly Father who adopted us as His own children and loves us more than we could ever ask or imagine!
Please continue to pray for my team and I! We have been experiencing a lot of spiritual attacks lately! Please pray that we would be able to finish strong here in Swaziland and not hold back for one second from the mission that God has called us to! Please pray for Swaziland! God continues to break my heart for this country more and more every day!
Remember this--the farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure. "For God loves a person who gives cheerfully." And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. As the Scriptures say, "They share freely and give generously to the poor. Their good deeds will be remembered forever."
I just wanted to check in and let you all know that everything is going well in Swaziland! We are on a small break right now to just rest and let God rejuvenate us for the rest of the trip. It has been a wonderful week so far.
I know you haven't seen many picture since I've been in Africa and for this I am sorry but as you might imagine the internet here is extremely slow and it is hard to upload photos. There is a girl on my Swazi team named Loretta and she is a great photographer and she has a website where she posts a lot of our Swaziland/South Africa pictures so if you want to check them out you can! The website is www.flickr.com/photos/lorettawang I also have some Africa albums on Facebook is you have Facebook!
Thanks for all your support and prayers! Please continue to be in prayer for my team in Swazi and all the ministry we have left there! I'm excited to see what God will do in these last couple of months!
Well my first month or so of living in Swaziland was pretty rough. I didn't like it very much. I missed Jeffrey's Bay and all the friends that I had made there. Satan kept lying to me, telling me that I didn't have a purpose here in Swaziland and that God didn't want me here. But after a huge falling out with satan and a lot of prayer from my teammates and I things started to get better. I have been praying since late January that God would break my heart for Swaziland and that He would bless me with great relationships here. Ever since I started praying this prayer God has been answering it. I have building some really neat relationships with a few Swazis and I've come home crying or with a heavy heart for Swaziland on numerous occasions. God has been faithful in answering my prayer but it has been hard.
You see, the culture in Swaziland is extremely different than our culture back home. Here it is completely okay, even normal, for men to have two or three or four wives. The king of Swaziland actually has 13 wives. He picks a new one every year. Also, the men and women of Swaziland are not treated equally. Men are far more superior over women. It is perfectly acceptable for men in this culture to beat their wives or to bring their girlfriends home and make their wives sleep on the floor while their girlfriend sleeps in the bed with them. Swaziland has signed a convention saying that women have equal rights as men but just because it is written on paper doesn't really mean much. There are some Christian men who only have one wife and they do not beat their wives but they are the minority. Although the men in Swaziland are hugely at fault, we can't blame everything on the men.
The women in Swaziland don't respect themselves at all! It's not like in America though, In America most women know that they should and can respect themselves; a lot of women just choose not to. In Swaziland I'm not so sure the women even know that they can respect themselves. I have a couple friends, Futhie and Naomsile, that work at the market and I visit them every Monday morning. They are sisters. The first time I met them I was asking them about their lives and their families. Futhie is 21 and had her first child when she was 14. Naomsile is 26 and had her first child at 17. I was asking them what made them have sex at such young ages and they said that the didn't really know that they could say no. They felt pressure from the men and they thought it was just something they had to do. Also, the woman has no say in whether or not the man wears a condom or not. They are from the rural areas of Swaziland and no one ever taught them how to respect themselves as women. No one ever told them that they are precious creations of our Heavenly Father and He has so much more for them! It's not that no one told them about God. They are taught about God and most Swazis will tell you that they know God but that doesn't mean they have a relationship with God. They just know who He is. They know about Him. As you can see, they mix God with a lot of culture and ancestral worship.
After numerous conversations with girls and women with similar stories as Futhie's and Noamsile's I know that my purpose here is to teach Swazi women of the love that God has for them and that they can respect themselves. I want them to know how precious, beautiful and lovely they are! God has made them to be so much more than bunching bags! If I teach only a few Swazi women how to respect themselves then they in turn can teach other women and they can teach other women and so on.
Prayer will also be a huge part of this process and this is where YOU come in! Please be in Prayer for the women and men of Swaziland. Pray that they would actually read the bible and realize their roles as men and women of God. Pray that hearts would be changed and that the culture would change as well.
Listen, O heavens! Pay attention, earth! This is what the Lord says: "The children I raised and cared for have rebelled against me. Even an ox knows its owner, and a donkey recognize its master's care but Israel (Swaziland) doesn't know its master. My people don't recognize my care for them."
I will be honest, for the first month I
have been struggling with why God has me in Swaziland. I have missed South
Africa/Jeffreys Bay a lot and satan has been attacking me with a lot of
different lies. After a month of doing ministry, praying, fasting, receiving
some godly insight and trusting God I can honestly say that I am excited to be
here in Swaziland! I'm excited about the
ministries God has me in! I am so blessed to be here in this country! I do not
deserve to be here at all but God has placed me here until May 13th and I will,
with His help, strive to be the hands and feet of Jesus while I'm here!
My
main ministries will be the market, the youth center, and the hospital. Gail,
Jillian and myself go to the market every Monday. The market is an open area,
on the streets in downtown Manzini, where there are a bunch of booths set up
and Swazi people sell an assortment of different things. They sell things like
vegetables, fruits, clothes, shoes, arts, and crafts. We just go and minister
to the ladies that work there. I have met a couple of ladies, Goodness and
Spongewe, that have really grabbed my heart and I am excited to get to know
them better!
On
Tuesdays and Wednesdays I will be helping out at the life skills part of the
youth center. As you now know, there are not many jobs in Swaziland. The
mission of the life skills part of the youth center in Manzini is to teach
Swazi people skills like ceramics, sewing, printing, cooking, mechanics,
carpentry and so on. This is an incredible project because it makes for more
jobs and the Swazis are actually learning skills to help them make money. On
Tuesdays Gail, Kepp and myself will do a bible study with the sewing ladies
during their lunch break and help them out in whatever ways we can.
On
Wednesday Jillian, Caroline and myself help make ceramic jewelry with some
Swazi ladies. It is so much fun! I love it and there is a really sweet Swazi
lady who works there named Bongewe and she has loved me since day one! She
doesn't speak a lot of English but I'm excited for how God is already working
in this relationship and for how He will in the future. A couple of weeks ago
it was raining so we gave Bongewe a ride home and she invited us in to meet her
children. We went inside her small, two room house which is probably the size
of your bedroom ,if not smaller, and we met her beautiful children. She has two
daughters and a son. The little boy, 7 years old, was laying on the floor where
he sleeps every night, wrapped in a blanket. We asked Bongewe what was wrong
with him and she said he was hungry but we knew it was something more than
that. This past weekend one of my leaders, Caroline, and some of my teammates
were out in town and they saw Bongewe begging for money on the streets of
Manzini so that she could take her son the the hospital. He was with her and he
was wrapped in a blanket. They gave Bongewe a ride to the hospital and paid for
the visit. We saw the little boy yesterday at the carepoint getting food and
playing and he seemed like a different kid. He was running around laughing and
playing like little boys should! Praise God! It was definitely not an accident
that Caroline and my teammates ran into Bongewe in town on Saturday!
On
Thursdays I go to the hospital to visit patients. This is the hardest ministry
that I have ever done but I knew coming to Swazi that God wanted me to do
hospital visits. I love it because so many people don't have someone to visit
them. To see the smiles on their faces and to be able to sit with them like
Jesus would and does is truly a blessing! It is heart breaking though to see
women who are confined to a bed or small children who have all sorts of different
illnesses who should be outside running around and playing. It is sad because
in America most of these people could receive the help and care they need.
Nevertheless, I think God calls us to visit and help and love the sick like
Jesus would! And God is the ultimate Healer! He can do immeasurably more than
we could ever ask or imagine!
On
Fridays we have team ministry. It will look different every Friday but, we will
always do ministry together as a whole team on Fridays. So far we have visited
the children at an abandon baby shelter in Mbabane, helped Mage Peggy build a
garden for her orphanage and last week we visited the hospital in Mbabane (the
capitol of Swazi).
I'm
excited to share with you all the different ministries that God has going on in
Swazi and that He is allowing me to be a part of for the next for months!
Please be in prayer for Swaziland and for all the relationships that God is
starting between myself and women of Swaziland.
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives
will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free,
and that the time of the Lord's favour has come."
Hello all! The Kingdom of Swaziland is a
gorgeous place! There are beautiful mountains all around and gorgeous green
landscape everywhere! The people of Swaziland are so kind and friendly! You
probably don't know much about Swaziland, as I did not know much before I moved
here so I will tell you a little about Swaziland. Swaziland is a country in
Africa about the size of New Jersey and it is the last country in Africa with a
king. The government in Swaziland is pretty corrupt. 70% of the Swazi
population lives in poverty while the king lives in his palace, has 13 wives, a
lot of stinkin cars and a private jet. The children in Swaziland are required
to pay school fees to attend even a public school. HIV/AIDS is rampant is
Swaziland. The country is predicted to be wiped out by AIDS within the next 40
to 50 years. The average life expectancy is Swaziland is 31 years old. There
are not very many jobs in Swaziland AT ALL and most of the jobs are government
jobs.
Swaziland
is known as a Christian nation but there is still a lot of ancestral worship
and worship of other gods. Our mission, while in Swaziland, is not exactly to
save people because pretty much everyone you talk to will tell you they are a
Christian. Our mission while is Swaziland is to disciple Swazis, teaching them
more about the truth of God's Word and reminding them that God is a jealous God
and does not want to be shared with any other gods. Culture in Swazi is huge
and is usually put before God and what the bible says. As we disciple Swazi men
and women then they, in turn, can disciple other Swazi men and women and so on.
God
is at work and alive in Swaziland. We have been here a month and have already
seen God's power at work in this country. God loves the country of Swaziland
and He wants His people to turn to Him instead of their culture. Our God is a
relentless God and He will not give up on this country. Please pray that God
would change the king's heart because to end poverty in this country it must
start from the top. It must start with the king and his government.
"If you wanted to return to me, you
could. You could throw away your
"It's one thing to write a check to
your favorite charity; it's one thing to speak in sympathetic terms about the
plight of those less fortunate; it's one thing to hand out blankets to homeless
people; and it's another to get down on your hands and knees and
lovingly wash the feet of a homeless person. To put yourself into a simple act
that says "I love you, your are special to me and to God."
- Dan Merchant -
This quote comes from a book called Lord,
Save Us From Your Followers. The book is about culture wars and how
Christians are so quick to say, "you're wrong and I'm right so let be tell
you how to be right like me." It is an extremely challenging book that
calls Christ followers to actually sit down and have a conversation with
someone who has different views than you, to listen to their story and try to
understand them. We are all God's children. He made every single person in the
world. We are all equals in God's eyes. How often do we just throw money at people
who are less fortunate than us or tell someone we will pray for them without
actually having a conversation with them and getting to know them? We get so
caught up in our own busyness that we forget why we are living. We are alive
so that we can be Jesus' hands and feet. That is our soul purpose in this
world.
At the end of the book, there is a
beautiful story about a group of people in Portland, Oregon who hang out with
homeless people every friday night downtown under a bridge. The ministry is
called Bridgetown Ministries and volunteers from different churches all over
Portland come together EVERY FRIDAY night to provide a meal, clothing, and
toiletries for the homeless. Another absolutely amazing thing that the
volunteers do for the homeless people is wash their feet for them. Every Friday
night they have a foot washing station. Homeless people walk a lot throughout
the week so for them to have their feet washed is truly a blessing to them. One
homeless man named Chuck said this, "The foot wash feels really good.
Everybody likes that. I walk a lot so it feels nice to have somebody do that
for you. Vicki and I can get a meal here, have people pray for us, get our feet
washed, it's good." This, to me, is an incredible example of how to be
Jesus to someone. After all, Jesus did wash His disciples feet.
I was extremely encouraged and challenged
by this book. God calls us to love people and so often we fall short of this.
Love means giving of yourself. Love means stepping out and putting yourself in
uncomfortable situations. Love means following through with ideas that God lays
on your heart even though you have no idea what the outcome will be.
"You can tell someone truly knows
Christ when, in a conversation, they are way more interested in what you have to say
than what they have to say."
"You may be saying, "What
terrible people you have been talking about!" But you are just as bad, and
you have no excuse!" When you say they are wicked and should be punished,
you are condemning yourself, for you do these very same things.
Hello from Swaziland! I just wanted to let you all know that my team and I are safely settled in Swaziland! It is gorgeous here! We are surrounded by beautifully painted, luscious green mountains and fields. The Swazi people are extremely friendly! Although Swaziland is a beautiful place and God is totally at work here, there is still a lot of sickness, poverty, prostitution, jealousy, and begging that happens in Swaziland! This past week we have been visiting all the different ministry options to see where we want to do ministry. I'm pretty sure God wants me at the hospital, but I know it will be very hard at times! I went to the hospital twice this week and loved it! I was in the children's ward and ended up spending both days with a beautiful Swazi lady named Vuyisile and her little 6 months old baby. The baby was sick with a stomach flu for a couple of days. On the second day, Vuyisile and I sat and read the bible together. She shared some verses with me and I shared some with her. It was lovely! Monday we will start ministry for real and for that I am SO ecstatic! Please be in prayer for my team and I and the people of Swaziland! I will write longer and more in depth blogs as time goes on. For now I will leave you with an encouraging verse that Vuyisile shared with me. Love you all!
"The Lord is good. When trouble comes, He is a strong refuge. And He knows everyone who trusts in him."
-Nahum 1:7-
My address:
Julie Anderson
c/o Mary Hollis
PO Box 5526
Mbabane, Swaziland
AFRICA
(be sure to write AFRICA in REALLY big letters or else they will send it to Switzerland)
I just wanted to give a short update for you all! This week is my last week of minsitry here in Jeffreys Bay! It will mostly be spent telling all of our friends in the township bye and leaving them with words of encouragment, reasurring them that God is with them even when we can not be! I know God will throw in some curve balls throughout the week, He always does and I'm excited for them! Next week is our last week of The Awakening before Christmas break and it will be spend in St. Francis Bay for our debrief!
It's so surreal everytime I think about the last three months of my life and how fast it has past but how much God has done and is still doing! I will miss JBay but I am super excited about what God has for me in Swazi minus the hot weather!
Please be in prayer for my team and I as we finish our our last week of ministry and our last two weeks of The Awakening! Prayer that we will not check out early and that we will let these two weeks be all that God wants them to be!
I will leave you with a picture of one of the most incredible moments of my life! God is SO glorious!!
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors, and that the time of the Lord's favor has come."
nt to Galp was in January. Our team was taking our first walk into town and we stopped at Galp to buy some juice. Nothing too exciting happened that day at Galp, but we met some of the employees that day and they were very friendly. Well eventually we started going to Galp a lot. One of my teammates, Gail, started to become friends with a lady named Thandi that works there. One day, a few
months ago, I went to the gas station with Gail to visit Thandi. We talked with Thandi and met another employee of Galp that day. His name is Sizwe and he is about 24 years old. Now mostly every guy that we meet in Swaziland asks us to marry him within the first 2.3 seconds of talking with him but Sizwe was different. He was polite and not creepy at all. He didn't have wrong motive for talking to us, he was just curious as to what we were doing in Swaziland. We told him a little about our program and why we were in Swaziland and we continued to chat with him for awhile. He is a young man from Swaziland who is striving to truly live for God in a country where "living for God" is just a title that doesn't really mean much. 
many great questions. He has also been able to meet with the guys on our team and chat with them some too. He is in need of some male discipleship in his life. I am praying that God will provide that for Sizwe. I can truly call Him a brother in Christ! 
ouraging or encourages us. We've had the blessing of being Christ and seeing Christ in that gas station on numerous occasions. One time Gail and I had a really cool debate with a Siswati man about marriage, love and if it is okay to have more than one wife or not. The man couldn't speak English so Sizwe was translating throughout the whole debate. I know that it was truly from God because I didn't get angry that the man had three wives. I saw him as Jesus and tried to love him as if I were loving Jesus Himself. We were able to leave him with a verse about what love REALLY is. I pray that man comes to know the only true Love that has ever been or ever will be. 
Swaziland is about 30%.
k and every week I fall more and more in love with them. We are really praying that the Holy Spirit would continue to reveal to us what they need to hear. We have talked about God's love and God's glory and Heaven with them so far. This week we will talk about how as brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, we must lift each other up and cast our burdens upon each other. We will talk about being open with each other and trusting each other. 
We are trying to prepare them for when we leave. We only have a few weeks left with them. My prayer is that after we leave they will continue to fellowship together in the Word and continue to pray for one another. My
prayer is that they will be real with each other, casting their burdens on one another. My prayer is that the bible study would spread throughout the whole Life Skills Center. More people each week are asking what we are doing and now even some of the men want to come to the bible study.
