New Beginnings

Dear Friends

Thank you for all your support over the last three years. God has done wonderful things for us here in Swaziland and has opened so many doors we never knew existed!

We know that God has called us to Swaziland and the people here who are in need. Children’s Cup is doing a wonderful work in this country and we are proud to be associated with this organization. The focus of Children’s Cup is clear and well executed. As our time with Children’s Cup has shown us, there are many needs that are outside of the scope of work we are currently doing.

The vision of Children’s Cup is, and will always remain, our vision. After being in Swaziland for some time, our original calling has grown. A clearer picture of the overall need in Swaziland and our place in God, in fulfilling that need, has been solidifying in us for the past six months or more. We feel that the time has come to respond to this larger vision. Children’s Cups’ vision and the confines of the organization cannot facilitate this divergent direction. Prayerfully and with the consent and support of the Children’s Cup leadership here in Swaziland it has been decided that we shall continue working out our calling beyond their structures and leadership.

The number of children with HIV/AIDS and directly affected by HIV/AIDS continues to rise here in Swaziland. We seek ways to help those children who are still not being reached with diagnoses, treatment and coping strategies.

In parallel, there is a large and growing population of older teenagers and young adults who have had little or no training or encouragement/mentorship for growing up to be productive in their communities. There is no provision for being responsible for themselves, their families or even younger siblings that they may find themselves responsible for. We see a great need for developing progressive training in fields that would promise economic growth and self reliance as well as the moral and ethical foundations found in the Christian world view.

Coming alongside the leadership of Children’s Cup, training and assisting new leadership to take our place in Children’s Cup as well as helping with the transition of new leadership in Children’s Cup is our next goal. After three years of experience and commitment we shall be taking as long as needed to ensure a smooth hand over is done. During this hand over period our financial and other personal detailing will be sought out and communicated to you. We are preparing clear visionary goals and we will be sharing them with you as the Lord continues to direct and lead us.

As the Lord led us here as a family, He is continuing to lead and grow us as a family. Thank you again for all your prayer, support and generosity. We hope that you will be as excited as we are for the awesome work we expect to be doing here in Swaziland. Taking the last three years with Children’s Cup, and our lives, to the next level, we trust that God is refining our faith and growing us in Him.

Growing both in God and for God, in vision, action and impact for Swaziland.

God Bless

Daran, Teresa, Gabrielle, Danielle, Nathanael, & Joelle

Lomansontfu June 26

Good News!!!! Praise the Lord!!!!! At long last, after 3 or 4 weeks, we finally have all of the documents necessary to send Lomansontfu to for her surgery to have the tumor removed. I saw the letter from the senior medical officer today, and it states that she will go to South Africa on Monday the 30 of June. Abraham came up from Maphiveni today and took the sister and the child to get the travel documents. He said that it was just God, because when he got here, he realized that one of the certificates he was bringing was not correct. So he prayed and asked the Lord to make a way where there is no way, and He did!! He said that they took them into an office and corrected the document and they were able to get the travel documents without even waiting in the line! We were rejoicing and praising God right there in the corridor of the children’s ward at the government hospital! Prayer works!

When I visited her earlier in the week, I felt led to just pray and agree with the child, and the sister that this paperwork would be gotten quickly and that the doors would be open to get her to I could hear the other care givers in the room agreeing with me in prayer, and God did hear us, and answer! The tumor is getting bigger every day and causing her more and more pain. One of the care givers in the room told me today that it causes her much pain and she cries at night.

Now we must get her older sister to Mbabane to travel with her on Monday.Please help us pray that this goes smoothly, they travel safely, and that the surgery goes well.God is a good God!!

Lomansontfu - June 22

This is a little girl named Lomansontfu (name means Sunday), which probably means she was born on a Sunday. She is from our Maphiveni CarePoint. She is about 10 years old, and she is an orphan. She lives with her older brother and sisters. She is not treated very nicely by them, because she is just an extra mouth to feed. She has a large tumor growing on the side of her face. The doctors think that it is a myeloblastoma. She needs a major surgery to remove the tumor and probably plastic surgery because the tumor is eating into her jaw bone. This surgery can’t be done here is Swaziland. She has been in the Mbabane Government Hospital for 3 weeks waiting for the Senior Medical Officer to approve her case and provide the money through a government fund to send her to South Africa to have the surgery done. We are also waiting for her family to get her certificate of birth from the chief so they can get travel documents for her trip to South Africa.

Each time I see her, the tumor is bigger and bigger. Sometimes, she drools because she can’t keep her mouth closed. She is having a lot of pain, especially at night, and her gums are beginning to bleed. In spite of all of this, she manages to still have a beautiful smile that lights up her whole face! I pray that we can get the help that is needed for this little girl. Please pray that the funding, the paperwork and the approval will all come quickly so that she can get the medical care that she needs and deserves!

10 Year Old Caregiver - June 15

There are so many children that are raising themselves. It is very common that the mom and dad die, and the younger ones are raised by the older siblings. Then the older sibling has children of their own and they are being taken care of by the younger siblings. In many cases, the older sibling is working and the younger sibling is raising their children. So, you have an 11 year old taking care of a 5 year old, a 3 year old, and a 1 year old. This 11 year old girl brought these little ones in to see me at one of the clinics. They all had scabies from poor hygiene. They also had infected sores from where they had been scratching. I can’t imagine my 10 ½ year old being capable of taking care of 3 little ones 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I’m sure that this little girl doesn’t get to go to school since she is the care giver for these little ones while their real mother works, or does nothing, whatever the case may be. She doesn’t have much choice in the matter, if she wants to eat; she has to take care of them. I’m sure that she needs to be tested for HIV herself, but she really has no caretaker to be responsible for her. I sent our counselor out to talk to this family about testing. I have not heard how it went yet. This is one of the many difficult situations that we deal with here in Swaziland, only God has the answers to them all!

Nothando - June 8

This little girl’s name is Notando. She has TB, but not in her lungs. Her TB is in her lymph node on her neck. She is also HIV positive and eligible for ARV’s based on the fact that she has TB. She was hospitalized for about 2 weeks to begin her TB treatment. Both her mother and father are mentally challenged. She was discharged on TB meds, which she is supposed to take 3 tablets daily. When we tried to find out from the mother about the meds, she said that there were no meds. When I checked with the nurses at the hospital, they said that the dad had been trained about the meds and the meds were given to him. I had the teacher at the CarePoint investigate and we found the meds. It looks like none of the meds had been given since the child was discharged from the hospital, which had been about a week. So I had the teacher (Lindiwe) keep the meds and start giving them to Notando when she came to the CarePoint each day.

Now this little one needs to be started on ARVs also. This will be a big problem, because they have to be given 2 times daily, exactly 12 hours apart every day, without missing a dose. This will be next to impossible with mentally challenged parents. Lindiwe can give one dose a day, but the 2^nd dose will be difficult to ensure.

Notando has a younger brother. The mom brought him to me at the clinic this week. He was very sick, probably pneumonia. I knew that I could give her an antibiotic to give him, but it has to be given 3 times daily. This mom really does love her children and care about them, but she is just not capable of taking proper care of them. There is no way that she can handle this, so I told her to bring him to the government hospital the next morning, hoping that they would admit him to get him well. I sent them home with Tylenol for fever and nothing else. I didn’t feel good about my decision, but really had no other choice.

Please pray for me for wisdom. Sometimes I just don’t have the answers, but I know that I serve a big God that does have all of the answers!

Update for April MoM Medical Team

I heard from one of our teachers that a lady from the Logoba CarePoint who was helped by the Mission of Mercy medical team wanted to say thank you for giving her the money to go to the hospital. This lady is pregnant, and was having problems with her pregnancy. The medical team collected money and gave it to her to go to the hospital to have proper tests and medical treatment. She was able to do that and had some left over for food. She has not had the baby yet, but everything seems to be OK with her pregnancy now. She just wanted to let the team know how much she appreciates their kindness!

Belated Mother's Day Update

Again, when the medical team visited Maphiveni, they saw a baby who was dying from malnutrition. The mother is HIV positive and had no more breast milk, and the baby was starving to death. The team gathered money and sent for formula and bottles for this baby. We were able to work with the mom and baby, teaching her how to mix the formula and feed the baby with formula to save her life. We also counseled the mom about getting on ARV’s herself. Pastor LaSalette and her staff also counseled and prayed with her and she accepted the Lord and is now coming to the church regularly! I saw the baby on Mother’s day. She and mom both look good! Mom says that she is now laughing, and she was not doing that before. The baby is about 11 months old, still can’t sit up, but is making progress. Praise the Lord! What a great Mother’s Day Blessing!

MoM Clinic Outcomes

George is a 16 year old boy who lives in Maphiveni. When the doctors visited in April, he had just gotten out of the hospital. He had recently been diagnosed with diabetes. He had collapsed the week before at school and been rushed to the hospital, unconscious. He was living with his old grandma (gogo), who has difficulty caring for him. Some of the members of the medical team from the States gave Pastor LaSalette some money to take him back to the hospital to get his blood sugar under control. When we checked it at the clinic, it was still very high, even though he was on insulin.

I went back to Maphiveni and checked on George a couple of weeks after the medical clinics. He is now living in a room at Pastor LaSalette’s church. He is being taken care of by Abraham, who also lives and works there at the church. He is trying to cook healthy meals for George and make sure he checks his blood sugar twice a day and takes his insulin. Pastor bought a blood glucose machine for him to check his blood sugar. George looks and feels so much better these days.

HIV Testing Results

	Positive		Negative
Age	Females	Males	Females	Males
^14	2	2	5	4
15-19	1	0	2	0
20-29	7	1	1	3
30-39	7	0	0	0
40-49	4	0	4	2
50-59	0	0	1	1
^60	1	0	4	1
Total	22	3	17	11

These are additional results from the clinics held in April with Dr. Beyda's MoM medical team.

Pepe Update

PePe finally went home from the hospital on the 8^th of May! Praise the Lord! She no longer has an NG tube for feeding. She is now drinking the nutritional formula by mouth. She has to have four 500ml bottles of the formula daily and then she can have other food. She celebrated her 12^th birthday on the 10^th of May! She is doing well at the home that her and her brother, Banele are in. Banele is also doing well! He is going to school this term! Hopefully, soon, PePe will also be strong enough to go to school!

Clinics with Mission of Mercy

The clinics with the Mission of Mercy medical team went very well. The team consisted of 2 doctors, 3 nurses, a paramedic, and 3 other non-medical people, who ran the pharmacy. We saw over 1500 people in 5 days. Everyone had an opportunity to pray with someone before they left. There were many testimonies of salvation, and spiritual encouragement over the 5 days. Many people also went for HIV testing and counseling.

We saw many difficult situations, and were able to help with most of them. One lady that we saw was 11 months pregnant, and could not be induced, because she didn’t have R250 ($32), for the medication for induction. The team gave her the money to go to the hospital to be induced.

There was an 11 year old girl at one of the clinics that had been raped. Her father brought her to be seen by the doctors. She had been living with her mother up until about a month ago, when she was taken to live with her father. He said that she won’t talk to him about what happened, all she does is cry. When we asked her what happened and when, she said that the last time it happened was about a month ago. She said that she feels safe now that she is living with her father. She wouldn’t tell us who raped her, only that it happened while she was living with her mother. She didn’t want to be examined by a man, but when we told her that the teacher and I would be with her, she finally agreed. Dr. Beyda was so kind to her and explained exactly what he was going to do, and that he was so sorry that this terrible thing happened to her. When we tried to examine her, we could only get her legs a few inches apart. We had to do the best we could not to traumatize her anymore than she already was. On examination, we discovered that she had a discharge and a large wart growing between her labia, which is very painful. Dr. Beyda decided to treat her for all STD’s (sexually transmitted diseases), which included an intramuscular injection, along with several oral antibiotics.

After the exam, we called in one of our missionaries, who was doing spiritual counseling to help us talk to her and pray with her. Jacci was definitely led by the Lord, and talked and prayed with her for a long time. The little girl was crying, I was crying, Jacci was crying and our interpreter (one of our teachers) was crying. The girl accepted Christ into her heart, and when we were finished, she was hugging us. In the beginning, she would stiffened when we tried to hug her. Her facial expression changed and you could see that she was different than she was before.

We saw her a week later, and she looked like a different child. The withdrawn, unhappy countenance was replaced by a smile and she was hugging us willingly. I’m sure that she still has a long way to go both emotionally and physically, but praise the Lord, she is on the right path!

Thanks Sabine for the pictures!