102F in December?

I grew up in Northern Ontario, Canada, where the temperature was often -30F (-34C) in the month of December.  We would have to shovel the snow to get to our car, brush the snow off the windows and then turn on the car with the heat on high to warm it up and help melt the ice on the windows so it could be scraped off, all before driving anywhere.

Now I live in the southern hemisphere and it is summer now. Yesterday it was 102F (39C) and I was thankful to have air conditioning in my truck and a reason to be in my truck for a couple of hours in the heat of the day.  That reason was to go to town and pick up a baby at the hospital who had been dumped in a pit latrine last week and spent a week on antibiotics to ensure her health and life. I was thankful for the coolness of my truck, and thankful for the baby’s life, but found myself shaking my head at how bizarre my life has turned out.

It’s not just the temperatures that have changed to the extreme, but also my very existence.  I was born to a 15-year-old teenage girl and was very much an unwanted baby to her family. But I was a very much wanted baby to my adoptive parents who were unable to conceive.  As hard as that must have been on my parents, the Lord directed me in to their family, and the trajectory of my life changed.

Ian and I are now guardians for 217 Swazi children, whose lives have been directed in to our family, and the trajectory of their lives has changed.  We have received three babies in the past ten days – two of the three were found in pit latrines, and lived. I am thankful that adoption was an option for my teenage mother back in 1963 and that I wasn’t left in an outhouse, or a snow bank for a stranger to find me (or not).

Baby Leana

Adoption is not an option in the Kindgom of eSwatini, so these 217 are our children and we are trying to raise them to the best of our abilities and means (with an incredible team of 80+ caregivers) so that they can be grow up to be the best that they can be.

With that in mind, we did what any parent would want to do - we bought two pop-up swimming pools for these extremely hot days and yesterday was their first day in the pools for the summer season! It brought me such happiness to see the joy in the children's faces and to watch them all just be silly kids.  Many of our big kids also started life in the bottom of a pit latrine (outdoor toilet), or were abandoned in the forest or the side of the road, but today is a new day for them and hope has been restored to 217 precious children.

This week I was stuck by a line in the familiar Christmas carol “Oh Holy night” this week.  One of the verses says, “In His name all oppression shall cease.” What a wonderful day that will be when all oppression shall cease, and we will see Him again.

Live from eSwatini … baby it’s hot outside.

Janine

PS - check out the drone video from my Moving Day blog here!  (Blog link here https://janinemaxwell.blogspot.com/2018/11/65-children-must-move-today.html)