Lately I've been really requesting Joy of the Lord. It was the first thing I thought of one morning as I lay in Bed. Then a paper with Psalms 138 fell off the wall and onto my face. Then for the last week it seemed Joy is all I could get around here.

Days in Swaziland.

On the public back from the care point Bailey was talking to a friendly guy. You have to be careful about how you mention what you're doing here, because Swazis often like to put you on th spot and ask you to preach right then and there. So the young man and Bailey laughingly had me stand up and speak the rest of the ride back to manzini. I talked about what the lord did for me in the Walk till you Drop and how he can heal. Somehow the man translated this as "His Girlfriend laid hands on him and healed him!" So the whole bus started laughing hysterically! It got sorted out and I got so into it we missed our stop.

I get the opportunity to go an hour's drive out to Nsoko carepoints. Unfortunately the 100 kids at the care point hadn't eaten from the care point in a month, but they showed up faithfully every day in case we might come with the boxes of food. The food comes from an organization literally called "Feed the starving children!" ("What is you company called?" - "Yeah? What do you do?") Lately there's been some creepy youth hanging around to steal food at that place and molest the girls. Mrs. Black had to slap one in the face the other day, so I'll be going with the women more often now. Thankfully having a white man there stops most all of that.

In Swazi Culture it's assumed that if I walk somewhere with a woman, she's my Woman. So I get a lot of hilarious conversation about my harem of 5 girls at a time. Let's just say all of the girls on our team know their worth in Cows.

At the next carepoint I met a Kid with socks tied over his his hands. A lot of the time that's to keep them from sucking their thumbs around the age of 3 or 4, but this time it was because he'd burned himself across the middle of both hands, and the socks were the only things they had. The socks were wet with puss and dripping. I had to pray and keep going because we didn't have anything. Next week. At the next carepoint we had to wait until someone could open the building so that the food could be locked inside. Men from the community had been demanding water from the tank supplied to them, and when the women refused they'd kick off the locked tap, take what they want and let the rest be drained out. They would also steal the food for the children. Pray and move on.

At the next care point we were close to where Mozambique and South Africa meet Swaziland, so we went past a military checkpoint guarding who goes onto the mountain. We gave him a box of the care point food to keep up good relations. He was about 300 pounds, but it's the G42 ministries need the good relationship because he's never asked for bribes or given trouble. At the Care Point just past that the ground was swarming with ticks, but there was no one there. So we couldn't leave food, and they won't feed children until next week.

At the next care point we this man with mental disabilities kept trying to shake my hand, and I ended up just holding his hand the whole transfer of food while he spoke one word in Siswati. It was pretty funny. Now we're out of food, and people are starting to come from all directions because they saw us drive by.

So next we went to a potential missions team house in the area. If we got a team in there they'd be able to start loving on the kids. But it's too expensive for the group to buy right now.

The next day we went to the Church of the Nazarene Hospital. I like the "Broken Children's ward" because it's full of bored boys made to sit in bed with just a broken arm or Leg. they all started freaking out and yelling when I showed them that you can write and color on your cast without getting in trouble!

Next we went to the Bosco Center of Selestian Monks. An Irishman named Father Larry Macdonald was sent to manzini in 1970, and since then has created a street boys center, a youth center, a trades school, a grade school catchup center for being youth, a honey farm, a sauces and spices farm and factory, a bursary program for hundreds of kids, and acquired an orphanage. These things employ about 600 people. All one guy obedient to God's call to give up his life. But when we talked to him, he was extremely pessimistic about the Swazi future. "Some may escape to other countries."

At Gary Black's house 3 Aid organizations ate dinner together, soaking in eachother's American familiarity. Michelle and I were talking with him, and the conversation went to Swazi people saving Swaziland from a 50% HIV/AIDS rate, and an expected extinction in 2050. Then I mentioned teams, and Gary told us how most of his ministry when not leading teams is cleaning up after the mistakes of young Americans making promises and preaching. It's true. I've done it myself. Missions trips to radically different cultures commonly do more harm than good. I spent a day helping a 10 year old kid in a wheelchair named Thando who was given hope of being sent to a disabled school in Cape town by an aid organization. They never got back to him, and school starts tuesday. Thando's mother and I went to the school to beg to let him in for the 5th year in a row. He hasn't got grade one, and now he's turning 11. He's so brilliant and longing to be educated that when I started teaching him, he had made an Alien language of his own with pictures representing sounds. He learned the first 8 letters in upper case and lower case, -with sounds- in an hour. I had no shame in being used to beg because I was white. But they rejected him from the school again -even though his mom had money- because they were full.

Back to missions trips being useless if compared to people who give their lives to a culture. Michelle was really shook up by Gary Black's words, and she was sobbing as we prayed on the front steps together. She pleaded that she might not just fill hearts and dump them when she goes back to the states, and that she could have a ministry that produces more fruit than it does disappointment.

That is a hard part of desiring and receiving God's heart for a lost world. God's heart is for all children everywhere all the time. How do you know what Children you're called to?

One thing is clear, If you are not called to stay, YOU ARE CALLED TO GO.