I came home from Swaziland late last week. I appreciate your messages, prayers and those who supported my family while I was gone. Thanks so much to you all. It was great to return home from the Swaziland trip, and feel extremely blessed to be a husband and father that receives warm, exuberant hugs, peels of vocal excitement and sighs of relief at my return. The last few days of rest were used to recover from jet lag, share African gifts with my family, record additional thoughts in my journal, and put together some pictures and video to share with everyone. Over the coming weeks, I can share many more experiences and thoughts from the trip, but for the first report after I return home, I feel compelled to share a thought about giving and receiving.
In reading and hearing others stories about similar trips, it is both wonderful and challenging to visit places where poverty and suffering are daily life for each person. Many of the children and people are so happy to meet us. The children are especially excited and crave much needed interaction and attention. As you see in the pictures, playing ball, holding hands, climbing on backs, and being held and hugged is great fun.
At the same time, there are some among the crowd with what my wife and I call “the fussy look”. These are the ones who’s hurts show on the outside, and require extra sensitivity and encouragement to open up and return a smile. There was one four or five year old girl that willingly let me hold her for about an hour, but never did yield a smile. I will pray for her whenever I remember her face.
It is wonderful to share in the fun and loving interaction, and it is challenging to see or listen to personal accounts of sickness, death, suffering, loss, hunger and loneliness. I had multiple heart pained and some tearful goodbyes because a heart felt bond was built quickly, or compassion welled up, or because a child was still “fussy” and I had to leave without a break through. But being there to interact, share a smile, give a hug, shake a hand, say a prayer, or have a short visit at a home is simple, important and greatly appreciated by those who can show it. It is humbling to be placed in such a seemingly honored position. In giving simple actions of love, so much was given back to me that I can almost imagine I am in danger of taking from the poor. I think Mother Teresa said it well, “Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.”
If I did return home only to remember my experiences, and show off my passport stamps, a charge of theft might be warranted. This is an attempt at a clever way to say, “We are not doing that!”. The trip has developed the awareness we desired to select a carepoint, adopt it as our Connect Community, and begin building relationships with the children and workers on the ground there. I hope and believe each individual in both our connected communities will receive the riches of life from God through each other as we work together to give and share simple acts of love.
The movie below shows pictures and video from the entire trip. The movie is published in two parts and lasts a total of ~25 minutes. The pictures will scroll by without music. I believe the silence will allow the pictures to speak for themselves. There is music and audio included in the movie that was captured during recordings (be prepared to adjust your volume level for the first audio section). All the carepoints we visited are shown in the movie, but we will publish another movie on our selected carepoint with more pictures, video and information in the near future. Without further suspense or delay, I am happy to announce the 100 kids of Ludlati are now OUR KnownToMe kids! You can find some of the pictures and video from Ludlati in the movie below.
Swaziland Vision Trip 2009 Part I from KnownToMe on Vimeo.
Swaziland Vision Trip 2009 Part II from DandB on Vimeo.
