Friday, March 24, 2006

The Week in Review with ....

Every once in a while you need to be able to see exactly why you do what you do. This afternoon I visited a potential new CarePoint site in Madonsa. The community had approached us about siting a CarePoint in this peri-urban area outside Manzini: just outside the city limits. It's kind of strange to drive there. Up until you cross out of the city limits, you are driving by what would be million dollar homes in the US. Then you leave the asphalt pavement, cross a muddy creek, and you are immediately back into homesteads made of stick, mud, block, tin and grass roofs and cement. What a contrast.

They have been cooking and feeding the kids for less than a week now and already have close to 150 children coming each day. I watched as a 6-7 year old little girl strapped on her little sister (maybe 1 or 2?) onto her back to walk home. I asked the Indvuna (guy in charge that reports to the chief) about her family. Two younger brothers. Abandoned by their father who they think went to South Africa. Living with their mother who has no work. Destitute. Legally that makes all the children single orphans. There are worse off children here as well. Double orphans and truly destitute, dealing with the effects of HIV in parents, relatives, siblings, friends, themselves. The only purpose of the CarePoint we hope to build here is to offer hope to these children. A place to grow up where some of the most basic needs are met and the life changing gospel of Jesus Christ can impact their lives.

Several gogo's are sitting under some trees for shade surrounded by 30-40 children. They begin to sing "Ngiyabonga Jesu, Ngiyabonga Jesu, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Amen"

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Teresa's take

Government hospitals in Swaziland are limited in how and what they can do for their patients, therefore, making the care, for the most part, palliative. Babies and children that, if treated in the states would have a great chance at making it; here usually don’t make it out of the hospital. Why? Who’s to blame? Who knows? The medical professionals do the best with the skills, knowledge, and equipment that they have to work with. Is it enough? I can’t answer that. It is very difficult to go to the pediatric ward and see sick babies one day, and go back the next day, and they are gone. Where?- to their eternal home. Are they better off? Yes, of course, but could they have made a difference in someone else’s life down the road? Did God have more for them? More questions that go through my mind that I cannot answer. One young mother stood in the pediatric ward our second day visit. I asked her which child was hers. She answered, “Mine was the one that was in the second cot with the wound on his head, he died last night about 6pm.” I was speechless for a few seconds, and then I asked if I could pray with her, she said that I could. I attempted to pray without breaking down and crying, I didn’t quite make it, and quickly said Amen and told the mother how sorry I was. I had to leave the pediatric ward then; I could take no more for now. Then, while I was standing outside of the ward, wiping my tears, I hear someone calling me, and look to see a young boy lying on a cot on the floor. He had seen that we had been taking photos inside and he wanted his photo taken. We asked him what happened to him; he had a broken arm and many scrapes and scratches. His mother told us that he had been hit by an automobile. He was healing well and was going to be alright. We rejoiced for that.

Dr. Beyda was able to bring much wisdom and insight to me just in the two days that he was visiting, seeing children both at the CarePoints and in the hospital. We are very excited to see what God has in store for us and we pray for wisdom to make the right decisions for the future of our medical portion of Children’s Cup.

On a lighter note, the Rehmeyer children have started a Bible study at break time, at school. They are bringing their Bibles and doing devotions and prayer. Yesterday, one little boy came up to Nathanael and started making fun of him, getting down on his knee and mocking, and calling him “preacher man.” I told Nathanael, and the girls, to just hold strong and be obedient, and don’t let the mockers get to them. This little boy that was making fun, may be the first one to be saved, one never knows.

Friday, March 17, 2006

Snippets



All three of the younger kids took part in a swimming gala yesterday. Over all didn't do that well, but had fun trying! A teacher told Teresa this morning that on the way back to the school, the entire bus was singing Christian songs. She had asked her daughter what was going on about that. Her daughter said it was the "three Rehmeyer kids." It makes us proud to know that besides all the sibling "stuff" that goes on, they still carry a witness with them and are an example and a light to the other kids they are around.

More Medical......

We just finished two days with a doctor/dentist team at our CarePoint at Fonteyn in Mbabane. They did a fantastic job ministering to the people of the community. We need to give special thanks to Dream for Africa for allowing us to use their mobile medical clinic for this outreach. The clinic is set up for dentistry and worked great. I don't know how many extractions were done, but there were many, many people who came out smiling: to finally be free of pain from broken & rotten teeth. We also were able to give out glasses to the community, thanks again to the generosity of Dream for Africa in supplying the glasses and the diagnostic machine to measure the eyes!

We have also been busy this week with a medical assessment team from Mission of Mercy. Dr. David Beyda has been here to see what way Mission of Mercy could complement the existing medical infrastructure to best help the children at the CarePoints Children's Cup is operating. Please help pray with us to have God's vision on this and not what we may think needs to be done.

Praise God! This has been a very exciting week.