Days 1 and 2- Travel Much??

Team Swazi-ready for anything!

Bri and the kids dropped me off at RDU at 8am. It was difficult to say goodbye, but I had absolute peace about this trip-so I had to let any "guilt" go over leaving my children. God TOLD me to go-who am I to disobey :) The kids were SO sweet saying goodbye. Chase even prayed for my trip to Africa at bedtime prayers the night before. As Bri laid one last kiss on me, he sweetly whispered in my ear, " Make sure you don't go clubbing with African men while there." He's always leaving me on a funny high note. I told him I didn't think I could fit clubbing into my schedule down there. hahaha.

We flew from RDU to Dulles, then on a different plane to JFK. We had a decent layover in Dulles, so I was able to call my dad to tell him to pray over the turmoil in the country. (It is election time there and human sacrifices are made-one of which was a maid of Christy's friend--and i'll talk about that later.) No worries, right?

While at Dulles, we met Father Ed. Some of you might remember that a few months ago, God woke me up to pray for the Anglican Church-specifically in Africa-as they were facing a schism. He was from South Africa, but had his church in Iowa (i think). He was on his way to a conference in Jerusalem to meet with Anglican leaders to discuss the split. We said some prayers! I always think it's cool when God brings things full circle-like waking me up to pray for random things and putting people who it affects directly in my path.


Me and Father Ed

We met a couple different teams on the flight heading to different places-one from Indianapolis heading to do a conference in Angola (www.yourchurch.com-how clever!). The other team was from Fayettville heading to Hawaii to do VBS.

At 5pm EST, we started our 18 hour flight from JFK to Jo'burg South Africa with a fuel stop in Dakar. 18 freaking hours. Jennifer sat by me, Annie and Molly directly beside us, and Tenae and Sarah across the aisle from us. Poor Tenae became very ill on the plane, vomiting and all. We knew exactly what that was about-someone was a little fearful of what Tenae was "bringing" to Africa. As we all know, Tenae "brings it" wherever she goes! hahaha. watch out!

After one more hour flight to Swaziland-we were finally there! We got in at 9pm-the next day (lost 6 hours). So Christy and Jordan picked us up at the quaint Manzini Airport (one flight in at a time!). Poor Tenae's luggage also got lost so we waited to complete paperwork and all that,met some new friends while there.

We couldn't see much of Swaziland since it was pitch black, and after driving on the wrong side of the road, we arrived at the place we were staying-the Red Berry Inn. Christy lives on a "compound" with several houses and the Inn, surrounded by walls/fences/gates for protection. One thing you notice in Swaziland, everyone has a huge wall around their houses and bars on every window and door. Not the most warm and fuzzy feeling....

But our place was awesome :) Jennifer and I were roomies-we had the elephant room. I was expecting to sleep in a mud hut with a dirt floor and this was far from it (thank God). haha. Christy said that if you take people too much out of their comfort zone, they become useless in ministry. Understood.


Mine and Jennifer's room at the Red Berry Inn.

Christy had us down at her place for a late night snack of yummy potato soup with toppings, rolls, cream cheese topped in a sweet chilli sauce (that i brought home with me), crackers, and cake. Quite delicious and her "cottage" is adorable! We headed to our rooms and got some zzzz's until 8am. aaaahhh. To lay down in a horizontal position was quite the special treat, since most of us had swelling in our legs and feet from that plane ride!