I am...Phile Masuku! :)

Hello, friends.

I am writing to you as a new woman. I have received my Swazi name...and now I am Phile (Pee Luh) Masuku (Muh sue goo). Kim's name is Nomsa. :) We were given these names by our Babe (Bah Bay) and Make (Mah gay) [Father and Mother] here. We have been living on a homestead this week. In the mornings we must wake up and fetch our water and heat it for our bath. Luckily, our sister Kayise (Guy ee say) has been here to help us out - but she will be going to Manzini to work now so we'll have to get up and do things on our own! :) We have a working toilet,much to our suprise. Well, it somewhat works. We have to pour water in it to flush it but its definitely better than a squatty! We don't have electricity but our family does a little...but we mostly cook on a fire or on hot plates.

Tuesday we begin our formal language learning with our teacher Bheki (Beggy). We will have language learning Tuesday-Friday every week while we're on the homestead. The community we're staying in is called Mafucula (Mah foo *click* luh). Our Babe is the leader of a fellowship that actually meets in our home.

This morning we had to wake up extra early to go to the Umphakatsi, which is kind of like the elders of Mafucula...and they basically just welcomed us to the community and it was very nice.

We are learning way more language than we expected...pretty soon we'll probably be completely fluent in SiSwati. ;)

Our supervisors Wayne & Barbara have been so absolutely wonderful to us and we are thankful to them for letting us use their internet and welcoming us into their home. They give us a break from life on the homestead every week. :)

Some things you can talk to the Father about:
*Frustration in not being understood sometimes
*Cultural barriers that can be a source of dismay
*Our relationships that we are building with our family at Mafucula
* For us to find some people there so build even better relationships with
*And our relationships with the schools to get together some places to do TLW presentations!

I love you all <3

"My Face is on the Surface of the Sun" and other musings :)

Hello Dear Friends!

I am glad to be writing to you from my hotel in Mbabane. We are continuing our orientation until tomorrow (Saturday) then Kim and I will be heading over to Tshaneni with Wayne, our m*. We will spend a couple days with a lady who is an American follower, which is where we'll be living for the majority of our time in Swaziland. Then, we will move out into a more remote village with a fellowship leader and his family. Another leader will come up to teach us SiSwati four days a week. We got a crash course in Swati today and we went to the market to try to practice our skills which was...interesting! Surely, we will improve. Today has been the first day that we have actually learned any language so it has been fantastic because we can communicate a little. ;)

We have been doing mostly orientation and some touristy kinds of things the last couple days to ease us into culture before Kim and I move out into the bush and really start living :D

Some ways you can speak to Father on our behalf? Here we go:
*That our partnership would continue to grow and strengthen.
*That He would be putting people in our lives for us to raise up in Truth
*For the summer teams that are already sharing the TLW message and studying the Word
*That we would have a fantastic transition from being in the city to being in the bush...we're excited!
*Language learning & patience as this is a difficult language to learn

I love you all <3