The opposite of love is not hate.

Thuli says "Happy Valentine's Day!"

There are only six more days until Valentine’s Day, and I would guess that many of you will be celebrating this weekend.  We too are celebrating love, but in our own unique way. This week we are learning that “Jesus wants to be our friend forever”.  Throughout the Emseni campus you can hear the question being asked, “Who loves me?” with a loud and definitive answer “Jesus loves me!!”   The Kids Club for our younger Emseni children activities include making a beautiful Valentine’s Day card for each Auntie/Uncle and teacher (shhhhh… don’t tell them!!).  The older children are studying 1 Peter 4:10-11 and learning that they should treat others the way they want to be treated.  What a simple concept, and yet one that seems to be so hard for us adults.

Love can heal. Love can soothe. Love can calm. Love can bring forgiveness.  And what about the opposite?

I once heard it said that the opposite of love is not hate, but rather it is indifference.

OUCH. 

Perhaps it’s not always easy to love our family or our friends, but we do it anyway. I don’t think many people would claim to actually hate other people, but have we become indifferent to others outside of our own circle?

Each week thousands of people read my blog or comment on my social media posts, and I know that many people do care, but I often wonder how many people are simply indifferent.  It’s not that you hate what we are doing, or don’t like what we are doing, perhaps you are just indifferent to it?  Maybe you think that if you stay at arms-length, you can remain neutral or even safe?

Today I would like to tell you about another brother and sister duo who need sponsorship.  Their names are Samuel and Samantha and they are biological siblings.  I can’t share much of their early months of life publicly, but I can tell you that their Samuel’s father was an illegal immigrant to eSwatini and we do not have any knowledge of Samantha’s father.  Their mother did not live in a homestead, nor did she have a place to lay her head at night, therefore each child was in danger from the time of their birth until they were placed with us through the Police and Social Welfare. 

Samuel

We currently have 9 sets of biological siblings (not including 11 sets of twins). If those children arrive at the same time, they are often very bonded because they were often left alone together. In the case of “Sam” and “Sama” (as they are called here) they arrived two years apart and don’t know each other at all.  Either way, we are very intentional to make sure that all biological siblings spend time together every week, see each other at church and always celebrate each other’s birthdays.

Samantha

Sama turned 4-years-old last week and you can see the sweetest photo of the two of them below. Each child gets to choose a “friend” to walk out to their “growth stick” to get their annual measurement taken. Sama chose her big brother Sam – what a beautiful and meaningful moment that was for us all.

Will you engage with us today and sponsor one of these children, or choose another one on our website?  Would you consider sponsoring a child on behalf of a loved one this Valentine’s day and give the gift of love and life at the same time.

In the US please click here.

In Canada please click here.

Live from eSwatini … love one another.

Janine

Another break in on Project Canaan AND they tried to poison the dog.

August 11 Blog

Last Saturday night we had another break in on Project Canaan, but this time it was at Amber and Kenny VanWinkle’s house.  The VanWinkles are long term volunteers and were offsite visiting friends when the thieves cut through the burglar bars at their home, went through their whole house and stealing laptops, iPhone, TV, a wedding ring and some personal family treasures.  Their Jack Russell dog (Yebo) was in the house, but clearly did not deter the burglars.

This was as devastating to Amber and Kenny as it was to us when our house was broken in to back in June (http://janinemaxwell.blogspot.com/2017/07/our-home-was-vandalized.html).

We are quite certain that it is the same thieves and we are quite certain that it’s an inside job, meaning that people whom we know, trust, love and employ are directly involved with both break-ins.

We have hired a private investigator who is infamous in Swaziland.  His name is well known and as he says, “When a snake heads towards the monkeys, the monkeys will scatter”.  There certainly has been some scattering on the farm when this man started showing up on the premises to investigate.

Two nights after the break-in (with a 24 hour guard assigned to their house) the thieves came back and put rat poison in Yebo’s water bowl that was in the backyard inside their gated area. We are told that rationale was to scare us all in to calling off the investigation, but it will not be called off, we will NOT be afraid, and Yebo was smart enough to point it out to Kenny.

We are working with several experts on elevating the security all over the property, but won’t share any of those details here as many of our employees read this blog. Suffice it to say, things are changing at Project Canaan.

This morning my Facebook page popped up an image from five years ago. It was a photo of our first nine children, in their pajamas all sitting on a change table.  I went down to Saturday’s Kids Club and the Oasis and we re-enacted the photo of our first nine.  The kids squealed in seeing themselves as babies and loved crawling up on the bed to get the updated photo.

Levi, David, Caleb, Jeremiah, Emmanuel, Anna, Joshua, Esther, Miriam - 2012

Levi, David, Caleb, Jeremiah, Emmanuel, Anna, Joshua, Esther, Miriam - 2017

I sent both photos to Kenny and Amber to encourage them and remind them why we are all here.  While fear continues to want to keep a stranglehold here at Project Canaan, LOVE is so much bigger and SO much stronger than fear. I am sharing them today with you to show you what the love of Jesus looks like.  Look at the hope and joy in the eyes of our children now.  My heart is full.

We are told that the greatest commandment in the bible is to “love one another”, even when it’s hard. Today, and every day, we choose love.

Live from Swaziland … I choose love and I will not be afraid.

Janine

Stop having sex!

I have been stewing about how to write this blog today without completely offending my Swazi brothers and sisters, but still speaking the truth in love about “fatherhood” in this beautiful Kingdom, on Father's Day weekend.

When the topics of sex, incest, rape or abuse come up, I seem to snap pretty quickly, and often lash out verbally to anyone in listening distance.  Last week I was told that a young woman whom I care for very much (who has a baby already) was having a sexual relationship with another worker.  I quickly pulled her in to a room and asked her what she was thinking?  I reminded her (not that she needed reminding) that she already is a teenage mother and is living in a country with the highest HIV rate in the world.  I asked if the guy was worth it, then left a long, pregnant (pardon the pun) pause.  She eventually said, “no”.   My final words to her were, “STOP HAVING SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE!" 

But the truth is, these men are telling these young women how much the love them. “Love” here means “sex”.  If someone says, “I love you”, it means “I want to have sex with you.” 

Everyone wants to be loved. This is not a Swazi phenomenon.  God is love.  The bible tells us so and I believe that it is the greatest of all human emotions, so why shouldn’t it be okay?

One of the ways that a Swazi woman shows a man that she loves him is by having children for/with him. They are his property (and so is she if they actually marry), but this “possessive” relationship has provided a sense of security to woman for generations, in a country where women have very few rights of their own.  Sadly, there is no law that prevents a man from forcing his wife to have sex with him, even if she knows he is HIV positive, drunk or covered in STD’s.  But I will say that the domestic violence police are working hard to educate men to not beat or sexually abuse their wives, while lawyers are working to create laws that make beating and marital rape illegal.

When we receive a baby through Social Welfare the child typically comes with a health card.  The health card is their “identity card” until we get a birth certificate made.  MANY (most?) of our babies have no fathers name on the card.  OR, worse than that, the fathers name has been changed several times.  It always hurts my heart when I see the name crossed out and another one, or two, written in. 

But here’s the good news.  These babies (and all of us) have a heavenly father whose name does not get crossed out, ever.  Our earthly fathers may abuse us, abandon us,  be too busy for us, put their jobs before us or whatever their faults as human beings may be. But Jesus is always there.  He will never leave us nor forsake us. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us exactly what our heavenly Father has in mind for us. He says, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

As we continue to live and serve in Swaziland, my prayer is that we can help disciple, and model what love between a man and a woman looks like. Both Ian and I were blessed to be raised in families with a loving mother and father and we have done the same for Spencer and Chloe. It doesn't mean that our marriage or our parenting has been perfect, but we have learned to "err on the side of grace" as Ian often says, and that has worked well.  We can't "fix" the problem here, nor are we here to judge, but we are here to encourage, educate and love.

 

Cooking class in Thailand with the family. 

As we all celebrate Father’s Day this weekend, please pray for hope for all who are suffering around the world.  We will be praying for you too.

Live from Swaziland … happy Father’s Day to Ian Maxwell: father to 2 + 123=125 children!

Janine

PS – if you want to give your dad a special gift this Fathers Day we are looking for Smoke Detectors for our children’s homes from our Canadian friends and help to buy a Tire Changer from our friends in the US. 

Swaziland to Taiwan - we are all the same, just different.

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It’s Saturday morning and I am in South Africa on my last leg of an 11-day trip to Taiwan.  While it was a wonderful trip visiting old friends and making new ones, there is no place like home and I will be home soon.

The past eleven days has been spent raising money through the 2^nd 100 KM Walk for Water campaign with the students of Changhua Senior High School and other students from Canada, Japan and the United States who joined in.  It was encouraging to see so many businesses join together with students from around the world to help us with funding for the water dam at Project Canaan.  I also enjoyed the opportunity to share about Heart for Africa with the teachers and students from Morrison Academy and applaud all they are doing to serve the Lord and point their students to a life of serving Him. 

I hesitate to attach those first two paragraphs with the rest of the thoughts on this blog so please know that these two topics are not connected in any way other than geography and time. _____________________________________________________________________

Now a few other thoughts from last week.

On the surface, Taiwan and Swaziland appear to be vastly different worlds. Taiwan is stacked high with people living in densely populated high-rise buildings, tens of thousands of motorcycles and food being cooked up and down every street you see.  The opposite is true of Swaziland where 90% of the people live in rural homesteads, walking is the primary mode of transportation and food is scarce due to drought, poverty and unemployment.

One of the similarities of the two nations is the kindness of the people.  I find the Taiwanese and the Swazi people to be kind, gentle, polite and very loving.  There are people in both countries whom I would consider dear friends and those who are family to me.

But on this trip to Taiwan I discovered another similarity and one that was unexpected, and disturbing. 

While sharing with people about the challenge we face in Swaziland with the increase in “baby dumping”, I learned that there was a challenge in Taiwan of a similar, but different nature.  It is abortion.  A couple of women working with Pregnancy Crisis Centers (which are few) told me that it is reported that 90% of all single women who get pregnant have abortions, and many of these women have multiple abortions in their lifetime. It is a growing problem and the total estimated numbers are staggering as women continue to be educated, enter the work force and have options that weren't always available to them.

Unwanted pregnancies are not a new phenomenon and neither is abortion or child abandonment, but the growing awareness of these things must bring us all to our knees in prayer for the mothers, fathers and babies.

If you read my blog dated May 23, 2012 you will know that I am adopted and that my birth mother was 15-years old when I was born in 1963.  As we continue to receive babies in Swaziland who have been dumped I am reminded daily of the gift of life that I, and our new babies have been given. Once again I give thanks that my birth mother chose life for me.  Now I have the opportunity to help others choose life.   

I am thankful that I have the opportunity to meet people all over the world so that we can share our challenges with each other and pray for each other. People are people no matter where you go.  We all have struggles in our lives, in our families and in our communities.  We live in a world full of pain and suffering, but we must remember that there is a God who sees all (El Roi) and loves us through our pain and in spite of our sin.  For all of you who are followers of Jesus and who read this blog, please join me in praying for the children of this generation all around the world, that they will rise up to be strong leaders for righteousness and show love towards others.

Live from Swaziland … I arrived home on the top of the mountain at Project Canaan in Swaziland and am thankful.

Janine