Debbie is currently on a Real Life team in Swaziland. The Swazi’s have experienced a tremendous amount of pain and devastation due to AIDS. It is believed that their country is slowly dying off as a result a. Debbie shares feeling heartbroken and helpless for the people dying in this country.
I’m not sure how many times I will say on this trip how in awe I am that God called me to Africa and I’m finally here. At times I don’t feel as though I’m even really in Swaziland although my senses drastically tell me otherwise. My eyes see mountains everywhere. Poverty everywhere. Bugs everywhere. I smell everything from flowers to cows. I hear everything from my team laughing to cries of the people.
Monday we had the opportunity to go to the Hope House. It is run by priests and a sister from India. There are separate houses where people who are sick go to receive care either by a volunteer or a family member. Some are believers, some are not. A particular woman we visited spoke no English, but being the human I am, the first thing I noticed was her appearance.
Her body was sunken in and her bones were protruding out. She had sores all over her fragile body. AIDS. All we knew to do was to pray over her. When we finished, we sang her a song in SiSwati and she exploded with joy. She lit up, completely different from when we walked in. We then went to a man laying in bed, trembling with sweat and sores all over his brittle body. His baby was asleep on a bed and his wife with no hope in her eyes agreed to let us pray over their family. I couldn’t help but think of the irony of it all when I prayed, “God heal this man, give his family hope through this time” as I felt death creeping in. In pain, in the last stages of AIDS, his body was shaking to be taken away.
Leaving his house, holding it together was out of the question. Breathing the air in, the same air as these people who are being destroyed by a disease that will wipe out their country by 2050 if more is not done… blows my mind. Touching them, speaking to them. God is using my team to answer prayers. To pump blood to hearts that are lost and broken. They have been crying out for hope for love and affection. Here we are. I’ve never felt more at home then when looking into the eyes of the people here. God has an incredible plan, a promise He made when He called me. That great works would be done, that hearts would break for His kingdom. Each day he folds back a tiny piece for me to see.
