Saturday, May 11th -Summersfield in Swazi, Orphanage

We went to breakfast with the Murdocks today at our place - Summersfield in Swazi. Elder and Sister Lombardi met us there, along with Brother Jerome Shongwe. We had a wonderful breakfast and discussed our schedule for the day. The Lombardi's are a lot of fun and so dedicated to what they are doing. They drive a Bakki (truck), because Swaziland often has dirt roads with gulleys in them that they have to drive on, including the one to their home. Since they are assigned to a District, instead of a stake, there are no high priests in the district yet, so Elder Lombardi is pretty much the high ranking priesthood at their events, as well as serving as mission leader for their district. This means that they are so busy, but such loving and wonderful people. They were supposed to leave in February, but extended their mission another six months. Sister Lombardi said, "How could we leave them?" She has become very attached and protective of the elders in their charge. She told us about 14 young men who are very poor and meet at a shack in the hills. It started with two young single men who joined the church and then brought other young men into the church. They have no families, so they have all banded together to support each other and they meet in the evening at the shack for scripture study and support to each other. Every Monday, Sister Lombardi fixes them dinner and they have FHE there. She says that no matter how much food she fixes, it is all gone. She once burnt the brownies she was making and made some more. When she started to throw away the burnt ones, all 14 said, "NO" and took them and ate them. They are heroes to me.

We then went to the NCP (National Care Point), which is one of the places in Swaziland that takes care of orphan children, most of whose parents have died of aids. They were supposed to get support from the government, who said they would take care of all the orphaned children, but when they found out there were so many (150,000 +), they said, "We cannot afford it." The care points are where the children go during the day to learn and have a decent meal during the day (sometimes their only meal). It is run on donations only and the teachers are all volunteers. They are amazing people. Sister Lombardi's daughter came to visit them and wanted to do something for the people in Swaziland, so Elder and Sister Lombardi were instructed that before she came to visit she would like them to find someone or an organization she could help. They passed by this 'school' every day, but didn't know what was going on there, so one day they stopped and asked. They found out about the lack of funding and that there were 72 orphans there, so they asked how they could help.

They said they needed to have the buildings painted and a couple of windows put in. Lombardi's got the missionaries together and they painted the building and two of the windows were donated and put in. So, Elder and Sister Lombardi became supporters of the school and took us there for the leaders of the school to thank the church for their help to the school. It was raining pretty hard all morning. Luckily, it was Saturday, so the only children that were there, were the two that belonged to one of the assistant teachers. They were very cute, but unsure about what was going on.

There was a big turnout, with eight elders, us, the Murdocks and Lombardis, plus the women who find donations, the women who volunteer to teac, cook and tend the children, plus the village chief and Brother Shongwe, our public affairs director. Brother Shongwe was conducting and he spoke, then the Main lady who started the school spoke in Zulu and was translated by Brother Shongwe. She spoke of her love for the school and those who volunteered their time to work there, plus all the donations of time and money to keep the school running. She spoke of how the church came to her and asked how they could help and she said, "We need our buildings painted." Then the church told her to pick out the color and they would paint, which they did. She was very touched by their service and spent a lot of time telling them how much she appreciated it. Then the chief started talking about how he had watched the people in the church while they did service and interacted with each other and while they painted the school, plus their interaction with him. He said that you can tell if a church is good by their works and that he knew the church was good and represented God. He then said that he figured it was about time he got baptized. Everyone's mouths dropped open, because this was the first they heard about this non member being baptized. The Spirit was so strong in that modest little school. It was an amazing experience.

Then Brother Shongwe got up and said it was the Swazi tradition that when a person came to their country for the first time and something good happened, they would get a Swazi name. He then motioned for someone in the back of the room to come up. I looked over my shoulder to see who he was motioning to and when I looked back I realized he was talking to me. So, self-consciously, I went to the front of the room. Brother Shongwe said that I had brought the gift of rain, so my new name would be Nomvula, which means "Rain." He has been calling me that ever since. He then asked me to say the closing prayer. I am not used to all of this attention.

We then mingled and got some photos and found out that they also need new outdoor toilets for the school. The ones they have are made of tin and have no doors on them, so basically the children (and the volunteer teachers, etc) are going to the bathroom where anyone can see them.

 There is a partial building that looks like someone was going to build a couple of bathrooms out of block, but then never finished. We took a look at it and realized that it would not be that hard to finish, so we talked to the elders and decided that we would all find a way to give them their toilet with doors and maybe paint the inside of the school. It's a small thing, but they appreciate everything so much. Most of the Swazi people have no plumbing or electricity. We take a lot for granted in our country. It was an eye-opener for sure.

We invited the Lombardis for dinner at our hotel Saturday night, which they readily accepted and we had a great meal and even greater conversation. Elder Murdock had chocolate cake with chocolate syrup on the side for dinner. He is a riot. Afterwards, he had corn soup. Ha. These people will be our friends forever...very fun. We tried to convert our waiter (a very nice young man) and he agreed to have the missionaries call him. hmmm