Swaziland Team Update #3

Swaziland Update #3

Hello All,

Roger Alexander reporting for the crew tonight from Maguga Lodge, Piggs Peak, Swaziland, SA. Look it up on the web…we are suffering with beautiful views and getting ready for dinner at 18:30. The lodge overlooks the Maguga Dam. Beautiful. Drs. Linda Alexander and Ramona Stowe and their seven MNU students along with MNU grads and teachers Mike and Cheralea Purcell woke this morning around 4:45-5a.m. to travel two hours to teach by 8a.m. The Purcell’s taught a 7th grade class and the others younger grades. The Purcells were prepared for the day but were surprised by the teacher asking them to do 30 minutes on American history…so, TIA (This Is Africa), they did 60 minutes on American history with the teacher asking most of the questions…”have you met your Prime Minister?...we don’t have one….what?...Have you met the President?...

Dan Rexroth, our leader reminded us in our meetings to be flexible… We are flexible! The construction crew joined with a team of workers from Manzini (about two hours away) who had already started their day by laying cinder block walls. Our team tried not to slow them down by joining them. By lunch time we all were in synch and made quite a bit of progress by adding around 5 more courses. One section of the Diane Garrison Memorial nurses dorm is almost ready for us to pour concrete for the tie beam (a beam that runs along the entire top of the outside walls tying it all together for strength. The Lord willing tomorrow we will be able to complete the other half of the dorm and do their tie beam….Lord willing. Other members of the construction crew started digging a foot wide trench, two feet deep and fifty feet long. They only hit one large water line and one small water line…repairs begin in the morning and the neighbors will be happy (a joke…the leaks are very small but supplies take time to get as everything typically comes the two hours from Manzini.) I have learned the dorm is basically a duplex with two bedrooms, a bathtub and sink room, a toilet room and a living room on each side for a total of 4 bedrooms for nurses. With this setup four nurses could be on each side or some nurses could bring a child to live with them in their room. TIA. The nurses will have to walk about 30 feet to the clinic.

Tomorrow a group of doctors and nurses will be at the clinic and have agreed to see every patient who is in line. The clinic will start early in the morning and has been known to run until one or two in the morning. People will walk for miles for this primitive care. It makes me want to stop complaining about traffic lights and having to wait five minutes in a Walmart line.

Everyone is fine (except the author who used his 6 foot 4 head to hit a 5 foot 10 inch door jam…not too many tall people around I noticed somewhat late so there is no need to waste wood on taller doors apparently). We are working in Piggs Peak, Swaziland area where the Church of the Nazarene’s first missionaries were stationed. I heard today that it took the missionary three years for their first convert. May we all be so persistent in sharing our faith. A little about the area, it is VERY hilly, about 5-6,000 feet, the sun is shining and dry, about 65-70 degrees. The local people are running around freezing with coats on and we are in shirt sleeves. Well, that is about all for now. Thank you for your continued prayers for our team. We are learning a lot about the country and ourselves.

God is good all the time.

Roger AlexanderCub Reporter