June 15, 2010 | Missions (General)

A Mouse Chewed His Nose

Jumbo and his wife Kriek currently serve with Adventures In Missions in Swaziland. You can read their personal blog here.

This week I have gone out with the Capital church from Salt Lake City to their care point, Mkhombokati

It has been fun hanging around and watching the team doing their thing and how the kids respond to that. Capital is always one of our best prepared teams and we just always stand in amazement at all the creative ways they minister to the kids while they are here. They did bring a bunch of supplies for just a team of 10 people, but the kids are having so much fun and some of them even tried to skip school not to miss anything that is happening at the care point. We are in the middle of the trip today and still there is so much more to do and to experience.

One of the things that continues to amaze me was to see how content the kids are in their circumstances. The kids are just accustomed to their surroundings and it always amazes me that they seem to be happy, totally unaware of the desperation of their parents and the lack of resources to make sure that they have a future. This is one of the miracles that you get when you work with children, and maybe that is why Jesus says we need to be more like children.

I have to share a little story of a little boy called Thandane. He is one of Kriek’s favorites here at Mkombhokati and he speaks in this little deep voice that sounds like an adult man’s voice.

So when I saw him yesterday, he had a little sore on the tip of his nose. I asked him what happened and he told me a mouse has bitten him. I laughed and asked him if he was sure it was a mouse and he very firmly replied that it was a mouse and a very big one with it. He did not think it was funny that I was not believing him. But we laughed together and he told me in detail how he woke up the evening and how the mouse, NOT a rat (he said!) was chewing on his nose. I was thinking that I would have most likely freaked out if that was my boy, but then I just looked at him and realized that that is the way things are here and he is totally going to be fine.

It is good for me to spend some time at the care point and with the kids so that I do not forget that this is why we are here; for the kids and being part of making sure they grow up and have a future, even if mice might chew on their noses in the evenings.