Some of the questions we’ll discuss are now posted in the forum… if you have time, check them out in advance and formulate some thoughts.  But remember… the chat Sunday evening is in the Chat Room, not the forums.

If you have thoughts about these questions or new questions after the chat, or if you can’t participate in the chat, post to this forum topic throughout the week.  “See” you in the chat Sunday evening…

Our Red Letters book study starts this sunday at 8:30pm on our chat page.  We’ll have some questions to spur conversation, but please add your own Sunday.  Contact us if you have any questions about the chat page or the book study.

To continue my theme of lacking focus, some additional stuff:

Don is home, but Jenny and I have not heard from him or Barbra - we plan to get together tomorrow evening to talk about the trip and how we’ll move forward from here.

Since I can’t have a post without trying to spur thought and conversation with something philosophical, I’ll leave you with lyrics from The Chior’s classic song Consider… discuss among yourselves.

Consider your laughter…
Consider My tears…
Consider My love…
Consider your fear.

Consider your heart.

Really consider each of those lines for a moment or two, then consider the lines and paragraphs together.  I could write an entire book about what these lyrics speak to me.  Choir lyrics are a close second to Pensees in thought provocation.  If you don’t know about The Choir, you really must buy Circle Slide, Chase the Kangaroo, and Wide-Eyed Wonder… really.

We’re not sure if Don will be able to post again until his return from Swaziland.  To keep the flow of information from the trip going, I’ve copied a post from Bob Mudd, another member of the team on this trip.  We are all very eager to get to talk to Don in person about this trip, but this is good and will have to do for now.

Team Update
Over the past 5 days we have had one compelling opportunity followed by another.  The team that has been lead on this trip to Swaziland is strategic, prayerful and ready to take ownership for their part in the ministry here.  It has been a pleasure to serve alongside this team.

‘Devote’ does not notate simply a spirit of compassion or feelings of sorrow for those in need, it compels one to action that is not contained in a ‘day of service’ but rather a commitment to living a life that holds others as more valuable than yourself and results in your life of charity and sacrifice sustainably meeting the needs of those in pain.  This happens one life at a time.  Do something now!  God is bigger than the statistics.

Yesterday afternoon we split our team into three groups and did one home visit each.  Pastor Gift had a list of people he wanted to receive a visit.  We also brought a two week supply of food with us to leave as a gift after the visit.  We were given some basic instructions on how a Swazi visit would likely flow.

We had an interpreter named Neli.  We met Frola at her home.  She is 70 years old and has been a believer since she was young.  She has lived in the area all her life.

Her home is humble (picture below).  She lives in a 14x10ft home with nine of her grand children that range in age from 23 to 2.  All seven of her children are dead, most likely from AIDS.  Her mother is still alive, but she was raised by her Go-go.

She talked about how hard life is, that she suffers, and she prays to God to take her life.  During our conversations, she laughed alot, and said some funny things.  She was so excited for us to visit with her.  We were honored to be with her too.

We prayed for the sickness to leave her body, and I felt words appropriate for her are her reward in heaven will be huge.

She had not seen the food we brought with us, so as we were leaving, we gave her the food, and she cried more, and praised God for answering her prayer as she had not eaten in three days.

God bless this lovely woman, first because you love her and because she takes wonderful care of her grandchildren.

Go-go Frola in the center, CW from left: Nelly (interpreter), Don, Josh, Joan, and four of Frola’s grandchildren.

We happened to stop by a lunch place in a market place in Matata that has good internet service.  So I will share with everyone a picture or two from two carepoints we visited this morning.

We were able to visit a “Mountain carepoint” this morning.  It is not one of the two we heard about that are in really bad shape, but this is a small carepoint down a muddy road that exists somewhere in between the main road and the Mountains.  It is within walking distance of the South African border on the South Eastern border of Swaziland.  The kids here are young, and the parents leave them at home by themselves while they work from 5am to 5pm.  Keep in mind 1 to 2 hours time one way added in for walking to and fro.  Because the homes are so spread out in this part of the country, the children are literally by themselves when their mother leaves for work.  Pastor Gift who started this carepoint recently found some Go-gos to get this carepoint running again, and currently support about 60 children with one meal per day.  The children here are very quiet and shy.  The lack of nurturing is quite evident.  But a group of girls on an AIM mission trip for 3 months have been visiting this place regularly for eight weeks, and it is starting to make a difference.  A little girl let me hold her, but her responsiveness was very very minimal for understandable reasons.  This carepoint is available for a community partner.

Shy Sweet Sweet Little Girl from KnownToMe on Vimeo.

The members of the team had a great meeting last night to discuss each persons feelings and potential carepoint selections.  Everyone wants to finish the trip before making a final choice.  The target date for final selections is November 30th, but I have mentioned that our group will likely be ready to select a carepoint and get started as soon as possible on the paperwork.  The initial step is to gather profile information on each child coming to the carepoint for meals on a regular basis.  It can take a month or two to get this done.  Once completed, we can get started on capital projects.  For most of the carepoints, we need to start with a fence, kitchen and well.  You don’t do anything without a fence in Africa.  A kitchen helps with storage and feeding especially on rainy days.  Based on economics of drilling wells here, they are drilled three at a time.  When a well gets completed depends on when three wells are funded on the list.

Quick fact.  They did AIDS testing at the clinic at an Nsoko care point and found 90% infection rate.

This afternoon we are planning to split into three groups and do home visits with people who live near Pastor Gift in Nsoko.

Ok, I’ve been told I jumped in too fast with Pensee #1.  I’ll give a bit more explanation on the Pensees and a more straightforward one this week.  Obviously, the real business we’re about this week is Don’s trip.  If you’re here for Don’s posts this week from Swaziland, just scroll on past this.  But humor me while we wait for Don to post something new.  These are really fun - they make me think.

Pascal intended to compile his Pensees (thoughts) into an argument supporting God’s existence and Christianity as the religion that accurately reveals God to the world.  He died before compiling the Pensees into the form of a book, but categorized them into broad groups with the intend of attempting to formulate his argument by making observations about the nature of man and the world.  Major themes are:  order (structure) in the natural world, man’s lost state apart from God (especially vanity, wretchedness, and boredom), the potential for greatness in man, contradictions in man’s nature, and finally a transition from knowing man’s nature to knowing God.

Thus many of his thoughts are very dark and seem despairing… remember that in these thoughts he is attempting to show our frailty and wretchedness apart from God.  He has an equal number of thoughts about our potential for greatness through God’s redemption.  In fact, this contradiction in our nature – wretchedness, with the potential for greatness – is probably the most important theme in the Pensees.  So don’t write off the bleak and despairing thoughts too quickly, but consider them in light of the contrast with our redeemed state as a part of the body of Christ.

So, with that explanation fresh in our minds, let’s think about one that highlights Pascal’s thoughts on this contradiction in our nature… here it is:

Is it not clear that man’s condition is dual? The point is that if man had never been corrupted, he would, in his innocence, confidently enjoy both truth and happiness, and if man had never been anything but corrupt, he would have no idea of either truth or bliss.  But unhappy as we are (and we should be less so if there were no element of greatness in our condition) we have an idea of happiness but we cannot obtain it.  We perceive an image of the truth yet possess nothing but falsehood, being equally incapable of absolute ignorance and certain knowledge; so obvious is it that we once enjoyed a degree of perfection from which we have unhappily fallen.

This one will help you know where he’s going when I get into the darker ones highlighting our fallen condition apart from God.  Comments?  Questions?  Disagreements?  This one is out of order and I’m violating the genius of Pascal’s approach; which is to studiously avoid stating the argument or giving any idea where he is even going until he’s made enough insightful observations and thoughts that you agree with his conclusion before you even know he’s making an argument.  This is fun for me, so I’m going to keep posting these – you’ll start to get the feel for them but I really would like your thoughts on them over time, even if those thoughts are: “what in the world does that mean?”

Today we visited Mahlabaneni carepoint, and participated in a Christmas party with the kids.  Nearly 200 kids showed up for the party today.  The pots of food did not look big enough for everyone to have enough, but everyone received a heaping helping, and everyone was served (heard this fishes and loaves story before?).  They start now with Christmas parties since they throw several more parties for combinations of carepoints to include all in the area.  We brought soccer balls, a jumping gym, crayons and paper, and special food (meat, oranges, candy).  This was the longest period of time we have spent at a carepoint.  It was great to be more relaxed and spend time relating with the kids.  More holding little ones, camera fun, games, food, treats, and hanging out with some fine young gentlemen, but the standout today was watching the Discipleship trainers (a.k.a. D-team) work with the kids.  There are two young men and three young ladies on the D-team today.  Mousa is an outstanding leader.  Watching him work is amazing (see video below).  He is so gifted at health training, teaching, preaching, singing, dancing and relating to the kids, it seems obvious to all of us on this trip this young man was born for the purpose of leading change for kids in Swaziland.  A teaching and preaching time before the meal was very fun and moving (Okay…I cried a little being so moved by the prayers of praise and thankfulness to God from the people in this place).  The D-teams are an important part of Children’s Hope Chest strategy to have Swaziland people in leadership roles.

A quick word about carepoints in general.  This particular carepoint is sponsored by Bob Mudd’s Church.  Prior to sponsorship, these kids were starving.  This is true of all the carepoints.  Without community support, gifts and grants, there would be starvation, malnutrition and death.  The GREAT news is carepoints like this make a huge difference.  These children are now much healthier, happier and feel more secure.  On top of that, they are learning and growing.  There are a few unsponsored carepoints that receive food from Children’s Hope Chest through a limited supply grant that will run out in Feb 2010. 

Feel free to ask questions in the comments below.  I hope to expand on these details when I have more time to post.  The pictures and video below help tell the story of today’s experience.

Holding little ones.  Often they don’t want to be put down.

Fun in the Jumping Gym.

Many of the children don’t have shoes.  One of the little ones had a thorn removed from his foot.

Awesome disciplship trainer helping a blind young boy have some fun in the Jumping Gym.  It was very touching watching the other kids help this boy when he needed a little assistance.  As a community they watch out for each other in many ways very well.

Discipleship Trainers at Mehlabaneni Carepoint from KnownToMe on Vimeo.

Here is a group of 12 to 14 year old boys I spent a long time talking and hanging out with.  The boy on the lower left told me his story.  His father is dead, and he lives at his grandma’s place.  He does go to school, but he told me he does not like going to school without shoes.  He had no shoes, and he is very interested in a pair of size 6 soccer shoes.  We prayed together for God to meet his needs and assured him that God knows his request.  Let’s see how He fulfills the prayer.  I showed all these boys the family pictures I brought with me.  They all thought my wife, Barbra, is very beautiful, and they liked the picture of my huge extended family of 8 brothers and sisters and kids.

Another group shot of the boys.

Tomorrow we go to a 3 to 4 hour Swaziland church service.  Afterward we drive south to Nsoko.  We will do home visits over the next two days.  I am told by the people who work here on the ground, this is where the hidden side of living conditions and suffering is learned.