Massive storms Part 2: Parasites and guns

If you haven’t read last week’s blog, you might want to start there as this is part two of that story. When I wrote my blog last Saturday Ian was feeling well again and we were going to take a day together to do some shopping, have a nice lunch, get a pedicure and then finally a date night. We spent the morning at the local craft market (one of my favorite places in any country), booked a pedicure and then headed for lunch. Suddenly my tummy wasn’t feeling well and I was starting to sweat. We all know that feeling, and Ian had just finished feeling that way for three days, so we quickly headed back to the hotel. I had a parasite, there was no doubting that with ALL the signs and symptoms included. I crawled into bed with a fever and Ian had to go out and get more medication as he had consumed most of what I had purchased.

 

Due to Covid restrictions in South Africa, pharmacies close at 3PM on Saturday and he was struggling to find a store that was open. He finally found one Dis-Chem pharmacy across the city and headed there to get my desperately needed imodium (now you know the real problem). On his return Google Maps brought him back to the hotel through downtown Joburg – not a good part of town, but he didn’t realize where he was until it was too late. He was stopped at a red light when a gang of 6+ men came up and banged on his window with a gun. His head swung to look at them just as the gun holder started to cock it. Ian says the man was high or drunk, or both, and it slowed him down a second so Ian hit the gas and squeezed in between two taxi/vans known as “combi’s”. As he wedged his way between them the light turned green and he took off out away from the men.

 

He arrived back in the hotel with medicine in hand, but quite shaken. Joburg is known for its car-jackings and violent crime, and if you recall in last week’s blog that was MY greatest concern as I was driving around the city trying to accomplish what we had gone to do. Needless to say, date night was off and we couldn’t wait to get back to our quiet mountaintop in Eswatini.  A day after we got home the border that we cross was closed again for several days and we were so thankful that we weren’t stuck in South Africa any longer than we needed to be.

 

So why did all that happen? We were looking forward to a much-needed break, had fun plans in place and then illness and fear took over. Meanwhile back at Project Canaan the hail storm raged causing damage that we are still trying to repair, destroying crops that are beyond repair. I’m not going to lie and say that we weren’t discouraged, or exhausted by all the craziness of the week, but I can say that we quickly right-sided our thinking and chose to look at the good side and the protection that was provided.

 

Ian wasn’t shot in the head and robbed of his car, wallet and life. We were able to get Imodium and the parasites that I am convinced came from the hotel food have left us. We did have a nice 14-hour drive in the car together seeing the beauty of the South African countryside along with the wild animals at the gas station (ostrich, rhinos, zebra, kudu, bushbuck and impala to name a few). 

 

 

We were able to support many local stone and wood carvers so that they can feed their families again and feel hopeful for the days and weeks ahead. We weren’t “needed” at Project Canaan during or after the storm, and while it is always nice to have mom and dad around during a crisis, our team is incredible and handled it all with professionalism and intentionality. No person or animal was hurt during the storm – everyone was protected. 

 

These beautiful Rosewood utensils will be for sale with our charcuterie boards soon!

Yesterday was payday in Eswatini (everyone only gets paid once a month) and that means it was a half-day of work. People leave work at 1PM so that they can all rush to the store to buy food for the next month. Many of them have little to nothing for the last 7-10 days of the month as their pay just isn’t enough to get them through, especially with so many mouths to feed in each homestead. We see it as a long weekend because we get a half day, plus weekend, with a relatively quiet farm. This weekend we will go for long walks with the dogs, sit at the amphitheater and watch for our neighborhood crocodile, take a nap, go to the soccer pitch with the kids and then enjoy some wonderful home cooked food and call it a date night. How much more could we ask for, really?

 

James 1:2-4 in The Message bible says,

 

“Consider it a sheer gift, friends,

 when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.

 You know that under pressure,

 your faith-life is forced into the open

 and shows its true colors.

So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely.

Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed,

not deficient in any way.”

 

May all of the tests and challenges that you are facing this week be allowed to accomplish the work that they are designed for.

 

Live from Eswatini … resting.

 

Janine

 

Massive storms this week - what do you do in a storm?

 

I feel like we have been hit with by many storms in the past week or two. First there was our own Covid-19 scare, which sent us all into emergency mode. While in the midst of that crisis baby Prosper’s mother came to us with a belly full of puss from the C-section, requiring an emergency trip town to be opened, cleaned and then sent back to us for medical care and a lot of TLC. After two weeks of care she returned to the hospital to be closed up. Now for the real emotional and spiritual healing to begin.

 

Ian and I really needed a break and while the borders to South Africa aren’t open for tourism (third wave about to hit us here), we were able to cross to visit our Zimbabwean stone carver friends in Johannesburg. Artisans all over Africa have suffered terribly as tourism is their only source of income and all tourists have stopped touring.  We were first approached by some literally starving artists in Eswatini, begging for our help. That gave us the idea of commissioning them to do beautiful hand carved jacaranda wood products that we can ship to the U.S. and sell on the Khutsala website to help them feed their families, and support Artisans of Eswatini, not just Khutsala Artisans. That product will be available at www.khutsala.com in August.  Since we were going to ship a container we thought we could buy and send some stone carvings to help those friends out too. So we paid $116 for Covid-19 tests, booked a nice hotel and left Eswatini while we still could.

 

Then the second storm hit. Ian got really sick the second night in Johannesburg with a very high fever and head ache.  OH NO!  Was it Covid? I automatically assumed that it wasn’t (I’m an optimist and we have been SO careful), but now-a-days we have to assume that it is Covid and seek testing and treatment. Ian could hardly walk, but he got up and into the car and we headed for medical attention in downtown Johannesburg, a city that we don’t know well and that I NEVER drive in. THAT was a long day. Hospitals here are in Covid crisis so only allow people in who are being admitted. Travel clinic wouldn’t see us without an appointment, which was impossible to make as they don’t answer their phones. So we ended up at a laboratory for blood work. Our doctor in Eswatini also suggested to test for malaria as high fever is a sign of that.

 

I am happy to say that both tests came back negative and Ian crawled back into bed for the next two days while his body fought off whatever needed fighting. Being in a foreign country, in a city that is not the safest from a crime standpoint (lots of car jackings) and the South African strain of Covid-19 made for a perfect storm for me. I am not a worrier, but what if it was Covid and I was in the same room as him? How will we complete the work that we had to do while here? How long would we be stuck in South Africa with an unknown illness? But the Lord kept reassuring me and reminding me of Joshua 1:6 “Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.”

 

Not only was He reassuring me in my fear, but reminding me of why He has us in Africa in the first place.  Why on earth should I be afraid during this storm?

 

Then there was the literal storm on that was raging at the same time, but this one was back on Project Canaan. In a period of only one hour an angry storm ripped through the property causing a lot of destruction and fear. Marble sized hail pelleted the ground and piled up like small snow banks and remained in six inch chucks 12 hours later (IN AFRICA!). Here is just a small part of the reports we received from our Managers:

 

·      Estimated that 2 inches (50mm) of rain fell in 20 minutes taking our dams back up to their fullest ever with both dam spillways were overflowing again, but no damage to the dams.

·      There was a power surge on the power lines that fried the control board on the generator so everyone on Project Canaan was without power until that was fixed many hours later.

·      2 electrical poles fell at the dairy

·      Lots of trees fell on the electrical fences around PC and are still being removed and repaired

·      Water reservoir tank cover at the lodge was shredded by the wind

·      Greenhouse down pipes were blown from the gutters.

·      After getting the power up and running they discovered that we were out of water (278 children and 100+ adults with no water) and are still working on solving that issue today

·      An estimated $50,000 in damage to crops and fields, but no animals died

·      Almost all the shade netting at the schools and all children’s campuses were torn, shredded or destroyed

·      Damage at our house to the roof, lots of trees down, but house-sitter Nokwanda and the puppies are all okay.

·      Water seems to have come in to closed doors, windows and roofs all over the property

·      No people were hurt, and everyone prayed for protection through the storm

 

 

And in the midst of this third storm Ian and I were safe and sound in a hotel in Johannesburg while the rest of our incredible team on Project Canaan managed through the crisis, no doubt prayed as they went and then the sun came out. I can never say enough good things about our staff and volunteers at Project Canaan. I will give a big thank you to Denis in particular as he is the Maintenance Manager and is responsible for organizing and/or fixing all things that break. Walter our head Electrician is always there to fix any and all electrical problems and works tirelessly to keep us with light and clean water. Thank you to all the other people who helped at each and every step of this storm. We love you all.

I have attached photos throughout so that you could see a bit of what happened at Project Canaan, but be sure to watch the video at the end where Farm Manager Maganda shows us the ice chunk from hail at the greenhouse the day after the storm.

 

 

It’s Saturday morning and Ian is up and feeling much better. He will have some breakfast and then off we go to run all the errands that we had planned for the week. 

 

God is good, all the time and we give thanks in the knowledge that He is with us during the storms; surgical storms, Covid storms, fear storms, driving through Johannesburg storms or rain and hail storms

Joshua 1:7 goes on to say, “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.”

 

Live from Johannesburg … thankful for our hope through the storms of life.

 

Janine