Sunday

Malindza Clinic Day!

We helped around 400 children today at our mobile clinics.  We started at Maseko’s church of orphans and saw 129 children.  While we were there, someone asked to speak with me outside.  I imagined she wanted to ask for more medicine/toothbrushes/toothpaste/sanitary pads/soap or whatever else we were giving away… what I didn’t expect, however, was for her to ask if I would adopt her baby.  She is due in two weeks, the father lives in South Africa, she already has two children and cannot take care of the ones she has – let alone this upcoming addition.  Unfortunately international adoption from Swaziland isn’t legal, so even if we wanted to – it wouldn’t have been possible.  I wonder what will happen to the sweet unborn child…

We had started the day at 6:30am and didn’t leave the church until 12:30pm.  We traveled to our New Hope Center where we were greeted with a production by our children!  Maseko has a friend in the Police band who is training our students in song and dance.  They had prepared a few songs for us and it was such a special treat!  We then treated all of our children, and those from the nearby community seeing almost 300.  The entire day, I kept seeing the medications we purchased running low and worried.  However, it was like the bible story about the fish that became plentiful.  Miraculously, the medication did not run out until the very end and there was only one child (with bloody urine and likely a bladder/kidney infection) that we were unable to treat and had to refer to the hospital.   



After the clinic, the children had a huge feast of chicken, rice, and salad.  Then, Ty opened the trunk and surprised the children with soccer jerseys (thanks Kaser family), practice jerseys (thanks Peyton Bendix) and the brand new balls and goal posts (Thanks Cheryl Brier).  We even hired a professional coach to train our team of orphans.  Watching them run around the field with a new excitement was so beautiful.  The pro coach is only able to come on the weekends as he too is a Police man so the father of one of our vulnerable children volunteered to come every single day after school for the children to play.  He even ran home and returned with a whistle and started teaching the kids strategy.  Honestly, I anticipated it just being a fun activity for the children to kick around the ball…but my husband tried joining them and got schooled by the 2nd and  3rd graders (don’t tell him I told you that!). 



It’s always hard to say goodbye.  Today at church we were joined by Sharon, Nothando, and Nomalungelo – 3 of our Malindza high school girls.  Sharon said that things at home are worse than ever (her grandfather is abusive) and Nothando wanted more time to be able to show me her recent school work – there is never enough time.  

If you’d like to donate toward our mission: www.ifightpoverty.org/donate.html or if you’d like to join us on an upcoming trip to Swaziland, email me: anniefightspoverty@gmail.com  We would love to have your help!  

No comments:

Post a Comment