If you told me this time last year that in a year I’d be getting home from a missions trip to Africa, I would have turned my head and looked at you with eyebrows furrowed. Nevertheless, I returned from southeast Africa last week with a revised knowledge of life, my God and the world as a whole.

Swaziland is a nation slightly smaller than the state of New Jersey yet it possesses the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in the world. The landscape is breathtaking, but so are the droves of vulnerable youth growing up without parents or role models. The majority of Swaziland’s population are between 0-14 years old.

I was part of a team sent by Calvary Chapel Chester Springs (my home church) through Adventures in Missions to travel to Nsoko, Swaziland to serve a small portion of these kids at the Ngunya Carepoint along with the grandmothers (or Gogo’s in Siswati) who feed them their only meal of beans and protein fortified rice each day.

As we drove up to the Carepoint, I saw true poverty for the first time. Drought-stricken land scorched by the powerful African sun coughed up clouds of dust as our van slowly crept along the dirt road. Small cinderblock homes with rusty tin roofs surrounded by thin wire fences were scattered across the landscape. Goats, chickens, pigs and cows wandered throughout homesteads looking for a drop of water. Young children spotted the van and rushed out of their homes with excitement, smiling and waving to us.

The Carepoint overlooked the barren land in the valley below. The only green you could see were a couple of sugarcane plantations at the foot of the large mountain in the distance (see picture above). As I turned my attention from the landscape that first day, I saw a handful of young kids staring at us through the bus window. Some were on the swing set gliding through the air as they watched and others dropped what they were playing with and looked on at us with imagination. I started to wonder what was running through their heads and what they had experienced.

Comparatively, I’ve had a cake walk life. Never have I gone a full day without eating something, nor have I ever gone down to the local river to retrieve my family’s water supply for the day. The closest relatives I’ve lost are my grandparents who both died of natural causes after long lives, not a parent or sibling dying of AIDS. My childhood was spent in large part playing video games, a concept as foreign as Mars to children who don’t have electricity. I asked my parents for new shoes when they became slightly worn down, not when my toes stuck through the toe cap.

This was why I had come, though. The kids. I wanted to be with these kids, no matter the differences. I wanted them to hear God’s word through our Vacation Bible School program that emphasized Godly relationships and know that they were loved, pursued and cared for even if it didn’t feel like it.

As soon as they sensed that we were there for them and wanted to play with them, they quickly obliged. Some ran up stretching their arms out for you to lift them up and hold them. Others waited back wanting attention but unsure how to go about getting it. One little girl in particular, Ama, couldn’t have been more than 1 or 2 years old. She was wearing a little brown hoodie over a frilly pink dress and sat motion-less on a “swing” that was essentially a rope tied to the top of a slide platform forming a u-shaped swing. A grin grew across her face as I asked for her name and she looked at me not understanding a single word. I started to push her on the swing and the grin opened up into a tiny giggle as she moved through the air.

I looked around at all the little faces each day and they each seemed so joyful. None cared that they were covered in dust or that their clothes were rags. A large portion of the kids didn’t even have any shoes. I had known that this kind of life existed some places in the world. I’d heard about the plight of Africans due to HIV/AIDS, drought and starvation among many other things. But as I spent time with the kids that week, those things were far from my mind. To me, they all were kids just like me who craved the same love, affection and attention I did.

I met a little boy named Phiwe (pronounced Pee-Wah) who quickly became my little buddy. After just a single high-five, Phiwe would run up to me and stand magnetized to my legs. At first, I didn’t understand that when he did this, he wanted to be picked up and held. I did catch on eventually, though. He didn’t say much other than a quiet “I am fine” when I asked him how he was doing, but I learned just how much Phiwe loved to play. From morning to sunset, he buzzed around the Carepoint playing with a soccer ball, a frisbee, blocks, or a wire car. When we arrived each morning, Phiwe ran up to me with some kind of toy to play with him.

The younger kids like Ama and Phiwe spent each day, sunrise to sunset, at the Carepoint. In Swaziland, many children don’t go to school because their families don’t have enough money to send them. Often times, one sibling attends school for a year while a different sibling attends school the next year. Young children usually start school much later for this reason. So, if we got there early enough in the morning, we saw tiny children walking to the Carepoint with their little plastic food bowls in hand.

Every afternoon however, the older kids started to arrive at the Carepoint after they got out of school. They quickly ate and began playing with each other and the younger ones before our VBS lesson started for the day.

Each day, we taught about a different Godly action that is found in healthy relationships (kindness, gentleness, humility, patience and forgiveness), ultimately demonstrated to us by Jesus Christ. The message was that since he showed us these things, we can accept what he did for us and then do so to others.

On Tuesday or Wednesday, I met a boy named Seluleko. It didn’t take me long to realize that Seluleko was probably one of the smartest 13-year-olds I had ever met. He came up and started quizzing me on the book of Genesis in the Bible.

“What was the penalty for Adam and Eve’s sin?”

“What was the penalty for the serpent?”

“What is sin?”

It really caught me off guard. At that point, I didn’t think I was going to have any deep conversations with the kids because of the language barrier. I don’t know why he quizzed me like this but it led into a great conversation about the fall of mankind and every human’s need for a savior. We got to talk about that savior, Jesus, and how his blood was the payment for our sins. I pointed out to him that since we both received Jesus into our hearts by faith, we were considered brothers even though we grew up on different continents in vastly different cultures. This all happened the very first time we met! It blew me away.

Seluleko really enjoyed teaching me Siswati. One day he taught me the words for different body parts and then quizzed me the next day. He pointed to the body part and loved hearing me butcher the names. Seluleko wasn’t the only one, though. Once I expressed I wanted to learn a little Siswati, the kids surrounded and taught me. We roared in laughter together as I attempted to repeat what they said and did so horribly. Seluleko’s English was so good that he often translated what I was saying to the other kids. Whenever he saw me from afar, he gave me a little wink and went on with whatever he was doing. Seluleko was one of the best personalities I’ve ever had the pleasure of being around.

On Friday, we went to a “sports day” where kids from local primary schools faced off in soccer (boys only) and net ball (girls only). Net ball is essentially basketball with no backboard and no dribbling; only passing and shooting. Seluleko and I watched on as his primary school, along with most of the other kids attending the Carepoint, scored a goal in the last minutes to tie the other team. Jubilation ensued as classmates ran to cheer their team chanting in Siswati. As soon as the goal was scored Seluleko was off, running to congratulate his team.

As a sports fan, I stood and watched with a big smile across my face as the sound of vuvuzelas (large plastic horns) filled my ears. I thought about how these kids experience competition and love to support their teams just like kids in America. It was a really cool moment to see the children who I had been getting to know at the Carepoint in such a relatable setting.

Sports day was the day I got to know Nseefway, the soccer team’s goalie. After the big game, Nseefway came over to watch the girl’s net ball games with Seluleko and I. We talked sports for a while and I got to know him a little more. He explained to me the rules of net ball and told me about some other Swazi sports as I told him about some American ones.

Nseefway and I bonded over sports in a way that I do with my best friends here in the States. I only wish we had gotten to talk more early on in the week because it was already Friday and the trip was almost over.

Saturday was our last day of ministry at the Carepoint. We hosted a big community party called “fun day” where chicken and beef sausage were grilled and the Ngunya community feasted. This is one of the few days out of the year that the kids and their families get to eat meat. We had game stations for the kids to go through including a bouncy castle which easily proved to be the most popular.

As we said our goodbyes to the kids on Saturday and Sunday, I thought about the fact that I might never see some of them again. I thought about what they would experience in this upcoming year and I thought about just how quickly the time with them went. I thought about all I learned from them. The respect for others they show by greeting each individual with a right-handed handshake held up by the left hand to show they have so much respect for you they need to support their right hand just to shake yours. I thought about how they seemingly had a perfect understanding of Philippians 4:11-13 when Paul discusses contentment independent of whether he has plenty or is in need. I thought about all the kid’s joy and how beautifully they praise God……

…… and I’m still thinking about it. I probably will be for some time. After seeing lives that look so different, you start to think about the why behind it. I’ve got a good deal more reflection to do when it comes to this trip but I can say that the Swazi’s have taught me a ton about contentment, respect, community, selflessness and hope in Jesus.

Thank you for praying for me or simply thinking of me while I was away. I felt God’s peace and saw him answer prayer in a big way. I got to see God’s faithfulness again, a movie I’ve seen many times but often forget. Till next year, LORD willing!