The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few...
7.11.2005
Day 38
Lessee...
From 10am-11am, I was in the library, arranging books on the first floor and looked through a few of them since there wasn't much else to do. Mrs. Twala, the current librarian, will be done in this position at the end of July because she will be working full time as the Director of World Hope in Swaziland. We are all sad that she is leaving the position as our librarian, but where she will be working as director is still close and we will still see her often. We are glad that God has opened this door for her to further this ministry with the homeless/outcasts.
With Jim, Vusi, Nhlanhla, Heidi and I have talked about the difference between Swaziland and America and the difference I've seen between Swaziland and the other countries that I've visited. Then, because Esther challenged us to ask each student, I asked Nhlanhla about the history of his people. He told me about the history of his people, the Ndabele, and how they stem from the Zulu. The languages are similar and can understand each other as much as an American can understand an Australian...in some respects. Somethings are a little different, but others are exactly the same. Sentence structures a little different at times. He told me how Shaka Zulu was the leader that many tribes fled from because he was so contorted in his views of life and so on. I watched a movie of Shaka Zulu and saw this to be true, but it also gave the impression that he was good for bringing together the different Zulu tribes. But what I think really happened was that they were forced into it. He told me some differences between Zimbabweans and Swazis: 1. One does not come in contact with his mother in law and does not even sit next to her, out of respect. I don't think that I got the full explanation of why. 2. A guy does not allow his sisters to have "boyfriends"...they may have boyfriends without his knowing, but if he knows, there will be big fights or something...3. One would not talk alone with a person of the opposite sex for very long without it being seen as something where they were pursuing each other.
So later tonight I attended a movie on Ministry to Muslims. Tonight there wasn't much said about Islam itself or exactly how to present the gospel to them or anything like that. Pretty much tonight it was only the introduction. I was excited about the meeting/training taking place, but I didn't learn much more than I already knew and was hoping that there would be more training and less "introduction." Oh well. By the way, there is a mosque in Manzini that we will probably be visiting and doing ministry there. It was exciting the other day though to have ALL of the students attend, plus many people who are living on campus (graduates) and the ministry team that is living on the carepoint. Lots of people. It was great. This will be a weekly meeting for training on Mondays.
Prayer Requests:
-MORE HARVESTERS! The harvest is so plentiful, but the workers are so few...especially in the 10/40 window.
-health of the students. The colder it gets, the more people get sick.
-Most of the ministry team at the carepoint are down with the flu...and they don't have a toilet (Just a hole in the ground outside) and so that can make things messy and uncomfortable.
Praise:
-The students are becoming more and more excited about missions.
-I feel that I am bonding by having great conversations with the students and Patricia.
-God is healing people here. Mrs. Maziya (Dolly) had dangerously high blood pressure (like she did with her last pregnancy) and she still has two months left til term. They almost put her on bed-rest, but God answered prayer and brought her blood pressure down the next day when she was at the doc's.
From 10am-11am, I was in the library, arranging books on the first floor and looked through a few of them since there wasn't much else to do. Mrs. Twala, the current librarian, will be done in this position at the end of July because she will be working full time as the Director of World Hope in Swaziland. We are all sad that she is leaving the position as our librarian, but where she will be working as director is still close and we will still see her often. We are glad that God has opened this door for her to further this ministry with the homeless/outcasts.
With Jim, Vusi, Nhlanhla, Heidi and I have talked about the difference between Swaziland and America and the difference I've seen between Swaziland and the other countries that I've visited. Then, because Esther challenged us to ask each student, I asked Nhlanhla about the history of his people. He told me about the history of his people, the Ndabele, and how they stem from the Zulu. The languages are similar and can understand each other as much as an American can understand an Australian...in some respects. Somethings are a little different, but others are exactly the same. Sentence structures a little different at times. He told me how Shaka Zulu was the leader that many tribes fled from because he was so contorted in his views of life and so on. I watched a movie of Shaka Zulu and saw this to be true, but it also gave the impression that he was good for bringing together the different Zulu tribes. But what I think really happened was that they were forced into it. He told me some differences between Zimbabweans and Swazis: 1. One does not come in contact with his mother in law and does not even sit next to her, out of respect. I don't think that I got the full explanation of why. 2. A guy does not allow his sisters to have "boyfriends"...they may have boyfriends without his knowing, but if he knows, there will be big fights or something...3. One would not talk alone with a person of the opposite sex for very long without it being seen as something where they were pursuing each other.
So later tonight I attended a movie on Ministry to Muslims. Tonight there wasn't much said about Islam itself or exactly how to present the gospel to them or anything like that. Pretty much tonight it was only the introduction. I was excited about the meeting/training taking place, but I didn't learn much more than I already knew and was hoping that there would be more training and less "introduction." Oh well. By the way, there is a mosque in Manzini that we will probably be visiting and doing ministry there. It was exciting the other day though to have ALL of the students attend, plus many people who are living on campus (graduates) and the ministry team that is living on the carepoint. Lots of people. It was great. This will be a weekly meeting for training on Mondays.
Prayer Requests:
-MORE HARVESTERS! The harvest is so plentiful, but the workers are so few...especially in the 10/40 window.
-health of the students. The colder it gets, the more people get sick.
-Most of the ministry team at the carepoint are down with the flu...and they don't have a toilet (Just a hole in the ground outside) and so that can make things messy and uncomfortable.
Praise:
-The students are becoming more and more excited about missions.
-I feel that I am bonding by having great conversations with the students and Patricia.
-God is healing people here. Mrs. Maziya (Dolly) had dangerously high blood pressure (like she did with her last pregnancy) and she still has two months left til term. They almost put her on bed-rest, but God answered prayer and brought her blood pressure down the next day when she was at the doc's.
Posted by: Anonymous / 19:37 
