Today’s planned activities were feet washing and building up of the soccer goals. After a little shopping in Swaziland this morning, we picked up some supplies at a few stores for both.  I was in charge of purchasing the towels, and I had a gut feeling that one of the ladies should really be involved in this part, but they weren’t.  Turns out my gut feeling was correct.  I did not purchase enough nor the correct size of towels, but the team did a great job of making what I purchased work.  We counted 145 kids at Ludlati Carepoint today!  Blessings were received by the washers and washees of feet this morning.  The time spent working with the boys on soccer goals was excellent.  Once Xolani and I started on the project the boys eagerly jumped in to help.  It was good to see and share a sense of accomplishment with them.

Today was full of joy, but this day had difficulty mixed in that made the day emotionally conflicted for the team.  The main story came through a girl that holds a special place in our hearts from last year’s trip for her thankyou messages.  Her name is Dumsile.  She is a wonderful light of a young lady and child at Ludlati.  Today we visited her homestead, and learned that she recently has to live there alone.  Her mother died some time ago, and she was able to stay with one of the Bomake for a while, but she had to return to her homestead, or her rights to the property would be lost. Without going into all the details of culture, how and why, our immediate response during the visit was to pray for this young teenage girl that would soon be standing by herself as we had to get back to town before dark.  We gladly prayed for her to have strength, courage, fearlessness, peace, safety and love. After giving her a gift bag, some hugs and goodbyes, we made the difficult walk back to the van knowing we had to let this child stay alone tonight.  As a father, it is inconceivable to think of leaving my child alone for the night.  But this is the difficult situation facing many children in Swaziland these days. Everyone on the team is struggling with the knowledge of her living alone tonight. Even though it hurts, we are humbled and thankful to share in her suffering, and find it interesting that a deep sense of joy accompanies this pain. None of us would trade this joy and pain for our previous state of unaware minds.  Join us in sharing this joy and suffering of our Ludlati Carepoint friend, and pray for this brave girl.