This blog is coming to an end…

 

On June 1,2011, I posted my first blog titled “365 Days and counting…”. It was the beginning of our journey to prepare to move to Africa.  Since then, I have posted 483 Blogs, and had 814,224 reads, but as the bible says, there is a time for everything.

 

But it is time for me to close this chapter and on May 29th, 2021 I will post my last blog on this platform.  Why you ask?  There are several reasons and I will try to explain them.

 

Part of the reason I was writing each week was to share with you what it was like living and serving in Eswatini. I wanted to share the complexities of living in a developing nation and added challenges of living in a kingdom with an absolute monarch. I wanted to expose you to the hardships that many Africans live with every day, while sharing some of the cultural difference that we encounter, without throwing shame or placing judgement. I know that sometimes I didn’t do that as well as I had hoped.

 

Some weeks I was looking for sympathy, some weeks empathy, some weeks financial support or to have people with specific skill sets help us with complicated situations. EVERY week I tried to invite you into the story of what God was doing in the tiny Kingdom of Eswatini so that you could see for yourself, even from afar, that Jesus is alive and well and very much an everyday part of our lives here.

 

I shared highs and lows, births and deaths, birthdays and anniversaries. I shared fires and floods, theft and betrayal, friendship and love. My prayer was always to leave you with a feeling of joy despite the hopelessness and the feeling of hope despite the despair.

 

The reason I am going to finish up on May 29th is because it will complete a full ten years of blogging and frankly, I am looking forward to taking a Saturday morning OFF! However, I will be a guest writer on Heart for Africa’s Share HOPE blog every now and then.

 

The other reason I am discontinuing my blog is that  my new book HOPE LIVES HERE will be published on August 1st, 2021 and is available for pre-order on amazon today!!! I wrote the book during the many months of lock down in 2020 when we couldn’t leave the country. The book was written to outline how Project Canaan came to be, how we do things, why we do them and also to answer the questions that are frequently asked. I weave those three things into my blogs, but the book has it all written in an orderly fashion.   (Canadians will be able to order this on amazon.ca, but I won't have the link until next week).

 

Our Boards of Directors and Heart for Africa staff have read the manuscript, and the general agreement was that while some of the stories are hard to read, reading them is easier than being the people living them. My job, my calling and my passion is to share real stories of real Swazi’s with the world so that they will not be forgotten. You may not want to come and visit, or you may not be able to do so (health, finances, pandemic), but you can still learn about this culture, try to understand a different way of life and pray for those in need.

 

Please join me here for the next five weeks as I wind down with thoughts from the past ten years and hopes for the next ten years. If you have a topic that I have missed that you would like me to write about, please feel free to email me at janine@heartforafrica.org and I will try to address your topic. In the meantime, please hop on over to the Heart for Africa’s Share HOPE blog where you can sign up to get a LOT of wonderful information, statistics and the “meat” of what we are doing here in Eswatini.

 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

 There is a time for everything.
    There’s a time for everything that is done on earth.

There is a time to be born.
    And there’s a time to die.
There is a time to plant.
    And there’s a time to pull up what is planted.
 There is a time to kill.
    And there’s a time to heal.
There is a time to tear down.
    And there’s a time to build up.
 There is a time to weep.
    And there’s a time to laugh.
There is a time to be sad.
    And there’s a time to dance.
There is a time to scatter stones.
    And there’s a time to gather them.
There is a time to embrace someone.
    And there’s a time not to embrace.
 There is a time to search.
    And there’s a time to stop searching.
There is a time to keep.
    And there’s a time to throw away.
 There is a time to tear.
    And there’s a time to mend.
There is a time to be silent.
    And there’s a time to speak.
 There is a time to love.
    And there’s a time to hate.
There is a time for war.
    And there’s a time for peace.

 

Live from Eswatini … I am so excited about my new book!

 

Janine