Loosing a night of sleep so that we might gain many
A few weeks ago Bryan and Jon took public to
Manzini on a Tuesday. While they were there, they ran into the leaders of the
other AIM team that is in Swaziland, Liz and Neil. We met them about a month
ago when they came down to Nsoko to visit us for the day to see the ministry
opportunities available. Liz and Neil of
course asked how things were going.
At this point we had had many a sleepless night.
One of us (girls) would wake up to a weird sound, not be able to go back to
sleep for hours, and another would invariably wake up as well. Other nights we
would have disturbing dreams, of some of our deepest fears coming true.
Meanwhile our guys, in a different room, would wake up completely alert in the
middle of the night, on full protection mode and not be able to go back to
sleep for hours either. It was making all of us irritable and exhausted during
the day and at times fearful of even trying to go to sleep at night. Despite us
praying over the beds, the house, and the property on which we live, nothing
was changing.
Liz and Neil heard all of this from Jon and Bryan
and prayed with them in Manzini. Their team needed to cross the border that
Friday anyway. They decided to come to the border closest to us, Lavumisa about
30 km away, and then spend the night with us.
They got here, helped us finish up some last minute
things and we all headed to Nisela’s for dinner. It felt like being reunited
with old friends even though we had only met them for one day a few weeks ago.
We talked and shared life with each other. When we got back to the center it
was a typical Friday night, with the soccer team spending the night and adding
15 more people from the real life team. We out to the pavilion to worship
together under the cool starry night and were joined by some of the soccer
players. It was a glorious night. My soul has missed worshiping with large
groups of people, with songs and a language that I’m familiar with. Don’t get
me wrong our team has been worshiping together about once a week and Swazi
worship is beautiful but in a completely different way. We prayed over one
another, sang songs they knew, songs we knew, and all appreciated the stars
that somehow seem bigger and brighter here.
Then we, the Novas team, went to sleep while the
Real Life team took turns praying in groups of two for an hour each until 6 AM.
I got the first full night of sleep I’d had in a week. There’s something so
humbling when you see people serving you in such a loving way and realizing you
don’t deserve any of it. Sure I’d do the same thing for them but it’s
incredible to feel love like that from people we just met a month ago.
Our nights have gotten better with only a few
sleepless nights here and there. Thank you Real Life team for loving and serving
us and above all thank you Lord for moving in such a beautiful way.
