The highs are high and the lows are low

So many crazy things happened this week that I will attempt to share some highs and some lows in bullet form so you don’t have to read all day.

Highs:

·      Our friends at Global Medical Relief Fund have agreed to help the young burned girl I blogged about last week (http://janinemaxwell.blogspot.com/2018/09/5-day-old-baby-girl-burned-in-house-fire.html) and she will start her journey to healing in January! THANK YOU ELISSA!

·      Our friends Eileen and Joe Habelow (along with the support of Mount Hope Christian Center, Belmont) have agreed to host the young burned girl and her guardian for the next 2-3 years of surgeries and procedures to restore her to body, mind and soul to health!  THANK YOU HABELOW FAMILY!

·      After a 4.5 hour drive yesterday we welcomed home our 198^th baby. She was left for weeks at a time with strangers. She is 20-months-old and is the size of a 9-month-old. She has the saddest eyes and doesn’t make a sound, but she will be loved back to life by my amazing team of Aunties.

·      We celebrated EIGHT birthdays this week, including Ian, Robert, Bernice and Moses’ today! It’s a good cake week.

Lows:

·      During a celebratory lunch with my Khutsala Supervisors I witnessed a man with a rifle shoot a dog a right in front of us. I assume it was a wild dog, and obviously unwelcomed. We heard a shot, then a yelp! yelp! yelp! as the dog ran in circles (I think he was hit in the hip), then another shot and the yelping stopped. The man returned to the lunch table and finished his lunch.  The rest of us lost our appetites.

·      We had another late-night office break-in, this time with weapons involved.  A spray of buckshot scared the robbers from trying to cut their way in to the safe, then Ian and the boys chased the four masked men in to the bush, while Tricia and I guarded the open office. Lots of damage, but nothing stolen.  We will not be afraid, nor deterred from the work the Lord has called us to.

·      We had a big storm that brought water in to our house and blew out two transformers, a DB box at the egg barn and one of the tunnel roofs at the Greenhouse. 

·      I learned that in Swazi culture, if a man pays Lobola (payment of cows for his bride) to her family, then he “owns” her womb, and any child that comes out of.   If the payment is not paid, then her womb is only being “rented”.

This was a discouraging week for me and I appreciate the prayers of friends around the world. Some days/weeks are just harder than others.  But He is my strength and my shield and as our children sing “If God is for us, who can be, who can be against us?”  He restores my soul through their voices.

Live from Swaziland … time to go make French toast for my favorite birthday boy.

Janine

If you would like to sponsor this new baby, please click on one of the links below:

In the US:  https://heartforafrica.secure.force.com/pmtx/dn8n__SiteDonation?id=a0v1A00000Ja4x0

In Canada: bit.ly/ProjectCanaanChildrenAngelCA