Saturday, January 31, 2009

TAKING A BREAK


I've been blogging every day this week straight from my Swaziland trip travel journal. I had hoped to get it finished before the one year anniversary of our return to America, but it's just not gonna happen. Each of the blog posts usually take a couple of hours to complete due to all the uploading of photos, editing, hyperlinking, etc. This weekend is just too full with other things. Oh well, that's the story of my life.


But...my blog will still be here in a couple of days as will my travel journal. So for now, I'm breaking to not only host a HUGE Super Bowl Party tomorrow (wanna come?) but also to enjoy my husband. We are celebrating our EIGHTEENTH wedding anniversary this weekend. I surely do love that man and I'm surely blessed to have spent so many years as his wife.





Ain't we somethin'?

3 comments:

Karen Deborah said...

ya'll gettin as gray as us! we re having our 22nd anniversary this year and CONGRATULATIONS!

Karen Deborah said...

ps just read down a long way all the missions trip reports and photos, very touching and you have done an excellent job with the photos and stories. I was surprised at how much FOOD you guys had to eat, so it seems the food is there if you have money.

Elysa said...

Exactly, Karen. There is enough food if you can afford to buy it.

Swaziland used to be a wonderfully easy place to grow plenty of food. Big commercial growers such as DOLE raise lots of fruit there including delicious pineapple.

But here are some BIG things are going on:

1. There has been severe drought in certain regions over the last few years. So that's made it hard for a lot of the farmers who depended on their own gardens to have food to eat. Stuff just won't grow without the rain and they don't have the means to irrigate or pipe in water.

2. As more and more men and child-rearing age women are dying from HIV/AIDS, what's left behind is children and grandmothers. They're just not strong enough to raise enough food to live on...especially under drought conditions and when you consider that some of these women are raising 10, 12, or even MORE grandchildren, neighbor's children, etc. who've been orphaned.

3. Many of the hungry live in the cities where they don't have enough space to grow their own food...or at least enough food to live on. They moved to the cities hoping for jobs but instead, just found another nasty form of poverty.

It truly is a very sad, sad situation. I'm so blessed that I'm able to sponsor a child at the Beveni carepoint and Anna & Betsie's youth group is sponsoring a second. We can be assured that they'll be eating, getting an education, and learning about Jesus! :)