mahangeni. a place filled with smiles & warm hugs & muddy rivers & endless memories. a place tucked away just close enough for a magical walk everyday but just far enough that it felt like a treasure only we knew about. a place that has stolen the hearts of my team and I. a place that Jesus’s hand is so clearly over. i’ve decided no words could do it justice but i’m going to try anyway to tell you guys about some of my favorite memories over the last 3 months.
The first that comes to mind is our friend Ivy’s going away party. Ivy is a girl we met within our first few days in Swazi & she particularly loved my friend Lauren. Not too long after we met Ivy she told us she was going to a boarding school in South Africa and we would have to say goodbye wayyyy sooner than we thought. Then Lauren, being the thoughtful and intentional person she is, had the idea to throw her a going away party! So we walked to Mahangeni on our day off (with so many snacks of course) and showed up to Ivy’s house and threw her a surprise going away party! There were happy tears and cake and laughter and so much just sweetness!! But plot twist, on one of our last days in Swaziland we roll up to Mahangeni for church and BOOM! there Ivy is, back from boarding school ready to surprise us! It was the sweetest gift! I love this memory because I loved seeing how much Lauren and really my whole team loved so hard and went out of there way to make sweet Ivy feel so cherished and loved like she is by the Father.
The walk. Not just one memory but it deserves to be acknowledged. My team and I learned how to be a family on this walk. We would speak life over each other on this walk. We would have hard conversations on this walk. We prayed a lot on this walk. We stood in awe of the Lords creation on this walk. I learned to love this walk so much. I miss it already.
This next ones a good one so buckle in. So one day we’re at Mahangeni (shocker) and Lilly gets this invitation from a boy named Mbogeni (hoping that’s how you spell his name) to his birthday party, on a nice piece of cardboard of course. It says when and where the party is and that the dress code is white t shirts and jeans. Naturally we were all pumped to go to this bday bash. It was on a Sunday so we asked if we could do everyone’s chores, miss church and walk a hour to Mahangeni in probably 100 something degree weather. And we did just that! we spend alllll morning cleaning, then got all dolled up in our matching shirts and jeans, made a nice hand written card sighed by all of us and headed to this birthday party. we get there all ready to party and what do you know… this party doesn’t exist. they ask us if we have cake and we say no, then they say we can’t come through the gate. So we do our walk of shame outta there BUT luckily we got to go to our friend Joana’s house or as we like to call her Ouma.
And that leads me to our Ouma (which means Grandma). It’s really hard to put such an incredible woman into words, honestly. We met her during our first month in Swaziland and our time with her everyday quickly become one of my favorite things. We passed her house on our way to ministry so everyday we would stop by and pray with her. We would pray for her health, for our parents, for her family, for the community of Mahangeni, for lots and lots of rain, we would pray for anything and everything. On hot days we would go and sit under her big tree and just talk and talk and talk. When we got pranked that one day we went and sat at Ouma’a house and it turned out the day before was actually her 74th birthday! We unexpectedly got to celebrate so I would say all in all that day was a huge blessing in disguise. Ouma is probably the kindest women I’ve ever met and I’m just thankful I even got the privilege of knowing her. I love her a lot, I think everyone who has ever met her would say the same.
FUN DAY! FUN DAY! FUN DAY! Oh yeah this day was about as fun as it sounds! My team and I got to our care point like 4 hours early and we cooked it upppppp. I’m talking potatoes, carrots, beets, onions, allllll the goods. Then in what felt like the span of 5 minutes ALL of our kids rolled up at once. See, usually we have our little kids then they go home and we have our older kids then they go home and we have our high schoolers. But this day we had everyone there all at once and it was a BLAST! We played and danced and sang allllll day. And then we ate all the food we had been cooking up (when I say we I mean the gogo’s, they did all the hard work). We had the best fried chicken I have ever tasted in my whole life. This day was absolutely magical!!!!!! Wishing I could have a million more just like it.
We can’t forget about the rain. There was a day where I swear Jesus thought twice about flooding the earth again. We started our walk to ministry (do you see a routine here?) and it was just a little cloudy, like a normal cloudy day. Side note on this walk our friend Sindiswa, who comes to our carepoint, walked with us and it was so so sweet. Anyway we’re walking and it starts sprinkling, it actually feels pretty good because at first it was kinda hot that day. As we’re walking it picks up a little bit but nothing crazy. Then all of a sudden the flood gates are open, but luckily we weren’t too far from Ouma’s house and she so graciously lets us into her nice clean house with all our muddy shoes (I told you she’s amazing). We took shelter in there for a while but eventually we had to make a break for it. At our carepoint was mud, lots and lots of mud along with a bunch of cold, wet and muddy kiddos. We have a building at our carepoint but when you stick a bunch of kids and all 8 of us in at once it gets a little cramped (by a little i mean a lot). So naturally we all stomped and danced barefoot in the mud but the real fun started when we walked barefoot in the muddy path to the store down the street coming back with loads of pin pops. Eventually all our kids went home so we then trudged our way an hour back home through the mud in the pouring rain. It was one of the best days ever. this is another one I’d do a million times over.
Right now if you asked me what my favorite day of my whole life was I would have to say our last day at the river. Our last “official” day at Mahangeni was on a friday and it was about the saddest ending you could think of. We got picked up 2 hours early and had to abruptly say goodbye to all our kids and we were all just sobbing, it was not good. The next day was our free day so naturally we all picked up and headed to Mahangeni! The way it works is that all of our kids live on one very very long street so we started from the top and went all the way down. It was like a scene out of movie, as we walked kids just flooded out of their houses, they would shout a name of someone else and they’d come running too. By the time we got to the end we had our whole carepoint with us and we were all headed to one place… THE RIVER! Mahangeni has this one river and it’s so beautiful, it’s surrounded by so much green. We get there and it’s literally heaven on earth. Just us and all our kids playing and jumping in and just being together one last time. It felt right, it was the most perfect way to say goodbye to the most beautiful season of my life so far. We walked back with everyone and said goodbye as we went, there were tears but they were different than before. They soaked our cheeks with this peace that just wasn’t there the day before. We ended at Ouma’s which is exactly where we needed to be. We said our last goodbye and took out last walk home. The perfect end to the perfect day.
There is so much more I could say about our time at Mahangeni and our time in Swaziland all together. The growth we experienced, the laughs we had, the tears we shed. I wish I could tell you about it all but we’d be here for a while. I feel like I could fill up a million journals with the amount of memories I have from Africa but these are just a few of my favorites. We loved and were loved so hard here, not only by the people but by each other and especially by Jesus. I’m sorry this blog took so long but I’m going to try to have another one up about Swazi soonish. We’re officially in Asia which is crazy. This transition has been brutal but Jesus has been so comforting through it all. He so sweetly gave me 3 whole months in Swaziland and I know His hand is over the people there. But, those three months were so amazing because that was His timing and now His perfect timing is over these next 3 months in Asia. Im choosing to trust Him and His goodness and His promises. Thanks for reading this, it means a lot to me. I love you guys a whole lot & I’ll talk to you soon.
– Mags
