Musings from Graceland

"SWEET" NEWS ABOUT ANNA AND HER TEAM

Tonya Wallace and her family have been serving with AIM in Swaziland for the past few weeks. She and her husband Doyle have been leading a one-month long "Real Life" team. This past week was their last week of ministry. Tonya wrote a great blog post detailing what that was like for her personally and for the team in general. On Friday, she included a bit that made this mama smile and get teary eyed.

Here's the whole account of their last Friday in Swaziland. The bit about Anna and her team is at the end:

Friday, June 26

Today was the hardest day. It's the last day at the carepoint. Time to say goodbye. We had a party! Autumn and Kelsey baked six cakes, and we bought some vanilla pudding. We also bought the gogos and mages lots of cleaning supplies and serving items to help with the cooking. Doyle brought the speaker and iPods, and we danced and sang with the children. It was so much fun. Then David Crowder "O Praise Him" started to play, and the team started to cry. Nesepo wouldn't let me go. She held on and we danced and sang and I cried. All of the kids stopped and looked at us. We were laughing and crying at the same time. The emotions were too much. And to add to all of this, Sarah is sick. My Sarah is running a fever. She begged me to let her go to the carepoint. She couldn't miss the last day, but we could tell she wasn't her usual spunky self.

We were to meet Julie at 4:30 at the AIM office so our team could buy Timbali purses. It took a long time to get everyone in the kumbis. No one wanted to leave the children. Our team was crying. The children were crying. I thought Sam was going to just put her twins in the kumbi with us. Those two little girls were sobbing as they walked home. They kept turning around and waving to Sam. We finally got everyone in the kumbis, and all of a sudden, some of the ladies started screaming with excitement. Staci and Edie came crashing out of the kumbi to see their "favorite" children. Lolo and Little Buddy hadn't been there all day, and they showed up as we were leaving. Staci and Edie held their babies and cried and cried. It was such a gift to them to be able to say goodbye.

The team bought lots of purses and agreed to take some back with them to sell in the states. I filled up two suitcases full of purses. 100 bags. I loved those purses before I came to Africa, but now that I've met the gogos and mages who make them they're even more special to me.

We decided to have a braii (Southern African cookout) with the Ambassador team. We ate good tonight! Grilled chicken, rice and salad. Elysa -- your daughter Anna asked God to bless the food and gave thanks for it, and she got to be the first one to eat. She's a sweet girl!

Aww-w-w-ww!

I surely do love and miss that girl. But reading Tonya's blog, and the other posts from those finishing up their month, makes me realize just how quickly time will fly. In less than 3 weeks, their team will be typing up their last blog posts and heading home.

Til then, I pray that their days will be full and rich. I pray that they'll see and experience and hear every thing God desires for them. And I pray Romans 8:28...that ALL things will be used for their good, to make them more and more like Jesus.

To read the entire blog post about the REAL LIFE team's last week in ministry, go to:

http://09sw0529rl1.myadventures.org/?filename=final-week-in-swaziland

This is a photo of the Doyle family with their team while they were still at the AIM training base.