swaziland!!!

welcome to THE KINGDOM OF ESWATINI, january 27th – march 11th 2025 !!!!

a taste of home in NSOKO:

after the 35 of us were separated into smaller teams for south africa, being back together in swaziland brought SO MUCH UNITY!!! the togetherness here was like no other, older friendships were nourished and continued to thrive & new friendships were created!

while we were here, we volunteered at local care points each day!

ministry at the care points looked like lots and lots playing with the kids, cooking and serving the manna packs, often their only meal of the day, leading morning devotionals with care point staff, and organizing worship & bible lessons for the kids!

this is a manna pack! a combination of rice, soy, & vegetables, supplying their daily nutrients!

outside of ministry, we sleep in tents, cook meals together, play games, talk for hours and hours & spend time with jesus! 

we even adopted a pet chicken named muhammad…

our team often used the word “glorious” to describe our time there and i can’t think of a better way to describe it. life here was so simple yet so ABUNDANT! john 10:10

i learned to see jesus in every little thing & god continued to reveal his kindness to me more and more each day especially in his faithfulness to answer silly little prayers like asking for a baby to fall asleep on me or for a certain worship song that morning! he sees me!!! and he knows us and loves us more than we could ever imagine!

my word of this country was “low.”

getting low for others!!!

the ultimate example of humility was jesus! he was a king, the holy of holies, the son of god, sitting on a throne & he came to earth in human likeness to be a servant & to die the most disgusting, gruesome death on a cross. he emptied himself for us!!!

philippians 2:2-11

“… complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in christ jesus, who, though he was in the form of god, did not count equality with god a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. therefore god has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that jesus christ is lord, to the glory of god the father.”

my time here also reminded me of the importance of walking in rememberance! in joshua 3 & 4, we see god asking the israelites to stack stones at gilgal as a reminder that he dried up the waters of the jordan river so that they could pass over on dry land and remember for years to come that the hand of god is mighty!!!

i have started practicing this with each country i’ve been to, stacking stones of remembrance of how god has moved and been faithful to reveal himself even in the little things! fear feeds on our forgetfulness! in exodus, the israelites began to fear again and again because they had forgotten how the lord had been faithful to protect them each time before. walking in confidence that we are in relationship with a god who is faithful to care for his children allows us not to worry for the next day or the next country because his path is always perfect and he has never failed me!

the name of my care point where my team and i did ministry was JOYELA. & joyful it was!!! i saw jesus in every smile of a child, in dancing in worship, in laughter playing games! every day was filled with the most joy! psalm 16:11

i fell more and more in love with these kids every day & i miss them dearly!

here are pictures from ministry!

we shared the gospel with our care point children and around 20 kids made the decision to give their life to jesus!

the best news ever, PRAISE!!!

at the end of my time in swaziland, my parents got to come visit me and do ministry alongside me for a week!

just look how perfect they are, i missed them so much!

some other fun moments from swazi were a safari at kruger national park and an awakening, a time where multiple squads were in the same country at the same time for a week of worship and teachings, healing, revival, and prayer!!!

here are some pictures from those last few weeks!

i love eswatini with my whole heart!

on march 12th, i celebrated my birthday in the dubai and singapore airports as we travelled to our final destination, indonesia!

thank you for reading my updates & praying alongside me!!!

feeling all the love even from across the world!

– lily