Another day in eSwatini (Dec 2018)

Today reminded me of the past and made me so very hopeful of the future… but I’ll tell more about that later…

We started out at Nothando’s home (where we recently built a new home & toilet for a child-headed family).  We hired Raymond to build a rain catchment gutter-tank system so they have the ability to harvest rain water to irrigate their crops during the dry season.  Thanks to a donation made by our long-time donor and friend Sube, as well as a BraveHeart Foundation grant, we will be able to complete Nothando’s home as well as 4-5 other child-headed homes.  Super exciting! Water is LIFE! More about this tomorrow….

Back to my original story… past becoming hope.  For lunch today, we met with our 2019 sponsored eLangeni High School students.  They were shy.  Perhaps a bit scared/intimidated.  This is a year of turnover.  A huge portion of our sponsored kids recently graduated (YAY!!) and this group of kids are particularly new.  Today’s pizza lunch was an awkward game of them expressing their gratitude for the sponsorship – an open door that will enable them to start to hope for a better future….. and us trying to recall camp ice-breaker getting to know you games while the entire time, we – on both sides – fumbled on our words.  We were stumbling because we wanted to express how much we were cheering for them without freaking them out or putting too much pressure on them, and on their end – quiet and shy perhaps from a fear of disappointing us if they don’t succeed.  Little do they know that we’re going to love them and be their biggest cheerleaders no matter what!

Fast forward to dinner time and it was a completely different atmosphere.  We had dinner with our college kids and recent college graduates.  Most have been supported for over a decade! Instead of nervously telling us their favorite color was blue and they really life giraffes, they felt comfortable telling us about their dreams of the future and the challenges they’re currently facing.  Nomfundo is wanting to start a rural grocery business where she sells food to people living in rural Swaziland unable to travel to the cities to shop.  Awesome!  Lungelo is tired and exhausted from university, but still has 2 more years of his 6 year accounting program (he’s doing great!). Sanele has recently graduated and was describing his new job (he’s currently on day 2!) working for a welding company and his dreams to someday be self-employed in the field.  Sizo was reflecting – now as his job as a high school teacher – how he wished he would have tackled high school as a student and how he develops relationships with his students outside of the class to learn about their particular learning strengths and weaknesses so he can best differentiate his instruction for them. 

The conversations were easy and trusting.  The hope was visibly transparent in our students’ words and faces.  Perhaps I didn’t see the hope in the students’ eyes at lunch because they were busy looking toward the ground in fear/nervousness.  But I bet, after a couple of years of sponsorship and support, we will see the fire light in their eyes and start learning about their aspirations and the hurdles they need to overcome to get there… and that’s my favorite part of this whole darn thing.  What are we without hope?  And how we are as individuals ever able to achieve greatness without the support of a whole entire village of other people? How lucky are we – Give Hope, Fight Poverty - to be even a small part of that village for these kids…?

We dropped one of the new high school kids off after lunch.  His family is particularly food scarce – he lost his mother as a baby and has been raised by his grandmother who is raising multiple orphaned grandchildren.  He was particularly shy.   Didn’t say much at lunch except that he loved math & science and wished to be a doctor.  His grandmother was on the verge of tears as we unloaded the rice, beans, etc onto her doorstep.  She explained how she was praying to God to make this span of time between 7^th grade and high school last forever so she didn’t have to explain to her eldest grandson that she had no money to send him to high school.  Then when Bheki told her he found a sponsor, she knew her grandson would finally have the chance to succeed.  Someday this small brilliant boy will become a brilliant man who saves lives…. because when school starts in January, thanks to your generosity, he will have a desk and a chair with his name on it.  I am filled with gratitude.  Thank you for believing in these amazing kids.  Thank you for changing their lives.  www.ifightpoverty.org