The Swaziland Book Project

We are blessed to have "Rejoice," a young man from Swaziland, living in our home through the end of June. Rejoice has shared with us that access to print media, especially books, is very limited. It's very difficult for a person to get a library card, and libraries are hot, crowded and inadequately supplied. He would like to build a personal library to share with others in his village. We would like to help him by gathering these books and shipping them to his home in Swaziland.

Below, you'll find a list of specific books that Rejoice would like to own as well as a few suggestions from me.

If you would like to help Rejoice build a library, there are several ways you can help:

• You can send any extra copies of these or other appropriate books that you might have;
• You can locate any of these books through Amazon or some other book dealer and have them sent to Rejoice here at our home so that we can compile batches and send them to Swaziland;
• You can donate money to help others locate and purchase these books for Rejoice as well as postage to ship the books;
• You can donate or suggest other books that you feel would be of interest to Rejoice. If there are books that you feel are important for a person to have in their personal library and you have additional copies of those books, donations of those would also be appreciated.
• Once monetary donations have been made, you can help locate copies of the books Rejoice has requested.

If you would like to help in any of these ways, please contact me at books4thoksATgmailDOTcom (replacing the words with the appropriate symbols). If you would like to donate specific titles, please send me those titles so they're not duplicated by others.

Thank you for helping with this project, and I welcome you to spread the word to others you think might be able to help.

My suggestions:

Anything by C.S. Lewis
Pilgrim's Progress
Hind's Feet on High Places
A Wrinkle in Time
Anything by George McDonald
Anything by Max Lucado

Rejoice's List, according to his priorities:

1. Christian books

• Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life - Donald S. Whitney
• Spiritual Leadership - Oswald J. Sanders
• Spiritual Discipleship - Oswald Sanders
• A Biblical Theology of the Holy Spirit
• Planting and Growing Churches for the 21st Century- Aubrey Malphurs
• What everyone Should Know about Leadership and Church Structure- Denis Moses
• The Power of Prayer and Fasting
• The Spiritual Keys to Spiritual Growth
• Launch: Starting a New Church from Scratch

2. Business related.

• The Bankable business plan
• Start your own business 4th edition
• Bankable business plans for entrepreneurial ventures
• Everything start your own business
• small business start up kit
• excel for dummies 2007 or 08
• marketing for dummies
• public relations for dummies
• marketing tool kit
• competitive strategy- Michael E. porter
• strategic marketing management - Richard M.S. Wilson
• Financial accounting
• book keeping basics- Debra Rueqq
• starting and building a non profit- peri Pakroo
• cash flow for non profits - Murray Propkin
• quick books

3. Miscellaneous

• The 25 best time management tools and techniques- Pamela and Doug Sunhedem
• any book about writing resumes e.g. Expert resumes for managers and executives
• Job searching
• career guidance
• Beef and dairy cattle - Heather Smith Thomas
• Raising milk goats
• raising poultry

Note from Rejoice: "Please be informed that I would like to have any other suggested book that you think could be helpful in developing young adults and some teens into matured people who are well established in their faith in Christ Jesus. May God bless you as you are working on this book hunting process."

What Forty Looks Like

Here's what I am: 40. Here's when it

happened: yesterday. Here's what I did: went to the zoo. Here's what I had: fun. 

Last summer, we bought a membership to the Columbus Zoo, and we made good use of it. We visited several zoos within driving distance, including the Columbus Zoo. Problem was, it was Africa hot on the day we went, so we were only able to enjoy 1/3 of the zoo before we were forced to the comfort of our hotel room. 

That's cool, though, because we didn't know at that time that we'd be welcoming Rejoice into our lives. I thought it would be a great idea to go to the zoo for Sweetheart's and my birthdays, which are within days of each other, because we could show the zoo to Rejoice. Just a few days before we were going to go, before we had told Rejoice that we were going, we played an after-dinner game of I Never, a game where you try to earn tokens, pennies or pieces of candy by having never done some thing your opponents have done. It was then that Rejoice shared with us, before he knew of our plan, that he had never been to a zoo! 

So we took the day to go to the zoo. Here, for your enjoyment, are some of the photos.

A Day Hijacked

My day was hijacked. I boarded it this morning with a plan, a destination, and before I knew it, it was changing course and there was nothing I could do about it.

It wasn't a bad thing. Actually, it was quite a wonderful day, but it just wasn't what I had planned. I had intended to take Sweetheart for a walk before her piano lesson, but it turned out that I had to hit the pharmacy for my dad's prescriptions instead. That was okay. While we were there, we realized that it was St. Patty's day, and, being woefully without any wearin' of the green, we bought a pair of obnoxious green light-up rings, and Sweetheart bought the fabulous wig you see our lovely models Rejoice, Sweetheart, Bo and me wearing. Sweetheart sported her new do for piano lessons, giving her piano teacher a chuckle.

Rejoice is taking piano lessons, too, for the first time in his life. When I went to pick him up, the thrift store manager told me that the volunteer who was supposed to run the register that morning was sick and asked if I'd be willing to work. While we didn't get to take our walk after the lesson, either, Sweetheart and I enjoyed our time working at our favorite thrift store.

We left there and headed for home where my dad and Monet were waiting to go for a bike ride. Ohioans, can you believe how absolutely GORGEOUS it was today? I spent the rest of the afternoon working in my gardens. It was such a thrill to see little green shoots on the lilac I planted last year, and the hydrangea, and the bulbs that are coming up (my first bulbs, planted in the fall!). I spent a good amount of time clearing the dead stuff out of the perennial garden, where I found columbine leaves, fragrant catmint, the beginnings of lilies and irises, some brave lupine shoots, a tidy line of salvia, and little clumps of lamb's ear. The herb garden so generously cared for my chives, but also a clump of hyssop and some other green piles of something or other. We'll know them when we see them. Bard's garden is so full of good stuff it's almost hard to believe. And when I ventured into my veggie garden to check on the garlic and clear away last year's dead asparagus stalks, I found this year's shoots poking out of the ground. Asparagus! Soon!!! The line of garlic marching along beside the asparagus is reaching up even higher into the upper world than it was last I checked. Houdin spread the manure that was deposited there over the winter by a dear man from church who generously brought me a truckload of the black, strawy gold. I was surprised by how far across the garden the manure reached once it was spread. This garden is going to be the bestest ever yet, I tell you. The very bestest ever yet.

The Baby had ballet class, and I hoofed it over to a church lady's house to deposit Houdin, who spent several hours there raking fallen pine cones. He's trying to earn money to go to Honduras in TWELVE DAYS! It will be his first major trip, and he's very excited about it, but isn't anywhere near his financial goal. He and a group of men from the community are going for a little less than two weeks to build a home for a poor single homeless mom there. The land has been purchased and the money for the home is being donated. These nine or ten guys will go and do the rough work and then locals will finish the interior. Houdin is pretty stoked about the opportunity but still needs to come up with about $1000 to pay the group leader back for the ticket. The passport is in processing. Pray that it gets here in time! His plane ticket is already purchased!

After a great St. Patty's day dinner of reubens and potato chips, I read aloud at the dinner table from Sailing Acts, a book by Linford Stutzman about taking his sabbatical to sail the routes of the Apostle Paul. The kids don't know it yet, but Stutzman is going to be a guest speaker at our church soon. When I was finished with the chapter, Rejoice and I had a very good discussion about his family's history, the difficulty he had in making the decision and arrangements to come to the United States for this learning opportunity, his hopes for the future, and his plans for the remainder of his stay. He shared with me how difficult it is to get books in Swaziland, how the library is hot and inadequate, and how getting a library card is not an easy task, and I started cooking up a plan for him to be able to start his own personal library that he'll be able to share with others in his community. So many of the young men are having a struggle with depression due to idleness that comes from the very high unemployment rate and so many other battles. Rejoice really wants to be a leader, wants to make a difference in these young men's lives. I so wish I could do much more. Rejoice is such a giving and tender person, and I can see that he could truly make a difference in his community. Please pray for him as he thinks about his return to his home in just a few short months that he can be the change he really hopes to be.

And now, here I am, practically falling asleep at the keyboard, but I wanted to write about today, even if it was in snippets. While it didn't help my laundry situation, or my cluttered bedroom, I'm glad that today didn't go according to plan.

Not my plan, anyway.

::: music from the masses :::

Last night there was a lot of musical goings-on in the Today's Lessons household. It carries on today with Bard teaching Monet some chords on his new electric guitar, Sweetheart playing piano and The Baby singing silly-voiced opera amidst the scent of the eight cheesecakes Houdin is baking for a wedding shower on Sunday. While the busyness is going on downstairs, I thought I'd sneak away for a quick blog post to show you what makes this mama's heart sing. When I'm done here, it's down for a quick rest while listening to Fahrenheit 451 read by Ray Bradbury. Can you believe I've never read it? Quite thought provoking.

Anyway, enjoy the show, folks.

Name Meanings

This evening as we were sitting around the dinner table, Rejoice mentioned that he'd heard that The Baby had an interesting story behind her name. Sweetheart volunteered to share the story; The Baby was named after a relative, and her name is actually that relative's name spelled backwards. She also has two middle names, one for her great grandmother. The other is Joy. The reason is because I had waited so long for her to be born and was very frustrated by the waiting. She was coming later than we had planned, it had been a long and difficult pregnancy to begin with, and now the labor itself was drawn-out and painful. Soon after she was born, I spoke to my mother-in-law who said, "Weeping endures for the night, but joy comes in the morning," Psalm 30:5, and so, since The Baby was born at 6:00 a.m., Joy came in the morning.

Monet was named after an artist friend of ours who passed just days before Monet's birth. He also has two middle names which both have meanings. Each of our children were named very carefully and deliberately. Some appreciate their names. Others do not. But they can never say that we didn't care when we named them.

Rejoice went on to tell us about his name. When he was born, his mom was only into her seventh month of pregnancy. His father was working in the southern part of Swaziland and had to travel a long distance to get to the hospital and was quite worried about this fragile little premature baby of his. When he arrived at the hospital, he found that his son had been born and, while he was very tiny, he was healthy and without defect. He called his family and announced that everyone should be happy that the baby was born healthy! Rejoice! And that's where he got his name.

What does your name mean? How did you go about naming your own children? Did you settle on a name before your child was born or did you wait until you met the new little person? How do you feel about your own name?

@ 6:13 march morning

Early each morning, I rise with the sun, prepare breakfast for Rejoice and I, and then we brace ourselves for the late winter cold before heading to the van. I blast the heat (Rejoice isn't used to this weather. The coldest it gets in his part of Swaziland is fifty degrees), set the van to barrel up the rutted, bumpy lane and down the other side, emptying out onto our country road as the sun pinks the sky and the frost clings desperately to the hills and valleys. We have some of our best talks then, as I'm driving Rejoice to his daily job at the local thrift store, sometimes getting so involved in our conversations that I forget to respect the potholes. Lately, we've been watching in amazement the progress of an Amish neighbor's building, a shop for crafting end tables and coffee tables. In just a matter of days, the project has gone from moving some earth to a building under roof. Rejoice is intrigued with the building process. In his homeland, houses are made from cement blocks, often hand-made, and either steel, tile or thatched roofs. Seeing stick frame construction is new for him.

Along our drive, we see animals that dart hither and yon--a squirrel who isn't sure whether he's crossing the road or not, a herd of deer staring curiously at our passing vehicle, a groundhog waddling quickly into a hole in the bank. Sometimes we see large turkey vultures or crows on the road devouring a squirrel or groundhog that wasn't so lucky. Often, we'll begin our conversation, about Swazi government, or strange American customs, or rodeos or county fairs or polygamy or genetically modified foods, and find it difficult to stop talking when we reach our destination.

This poem, which I read for the first time today, reminded me of our morning drives.

@ 6:13 march morning
by Denis Dunn

driving toward the
morning sky

I must be attentive; the spring potholes
punish the wandering mind

crow gently rises
from carrion breakfast
to allow me to pass

the pine bough
of crow’s chosen perch
barely bends;
tho the bird looms large

the greens, the orange
the gleaming black death eater

what have these to do
with this shattered passageway

today this dark ice will melt
as orange brightens to yellow
& tonight it will freeze again

An Obsessive Interest in Swaziland

It's amazing how quickly one's interest is engaged in a thing when there's some personal element involved. For instance, if you would have asked me a year ago to tell you everything I knew about Swaziland, I'd have said, "Um...I've heard the name before." Other than that, I could not have told you anything. I'm being embarrassingly honest here when I say that I would not have been able to tell you what continent it's on. And I'm also being embarrassingly honest when I tell you that I wouldn't really have cared all that much.

After having been introduced to our Swazi guest, who I am calling Rejoice here on this blog, I became interested in Swaziland. Almost obsessively interested, you might say.

Rejoice is here as part of a voluntary exchange program where he is both learning about our culture and teaching us about his culture. He spends his days working at the local thrift store which is run by the organization that organizes the cross-cultural program. There, he is learning skills that he can take back to Swaziland so that he can better use his existing university education to secure a job, start a business and serve his country.

When I began grabbing snippets of time talking to Rejoice here and there before he came to stay with us, I became more fascinated with his culture, the struggles and challenges of his country, the uniqueness of the Swazi government and tradition, and the desperation they are dealing with as a result of the highest prevalence of HIV and AIDS in the world.

There are many things about Swaziland and its people that make it unique and captivating. Swaziland, a landlocked country that is surrounded by Mozambique and South Africa, is the only absolute monarchy left in sub-Saharan Africa. It's about the size of New Jersey and is home to 1.1 million people, 80,000 of whom are children orphaned by AIDS. It's estimated that over 100 children per month are stolen from Swaziland and Mozambique. There are reports, like this one from BBC News, of young girls being stolen and stockpiled for prostituion during South Africa's World Cup in 2010. The average life expectancy in Swaziland is 32, the lowest life expectancy in the world which is not surprising, since 42% of pregnant Swazi women are HIV positive, in addition to the prevalence of malaria, polio, yellow fever, cholera and more. The average Swazi lives on .63 cents a day and many of the people survive thanks to the World Food Programme. Because of these hunger and disease issues, there's much controversy about the fact that the ruler of Swaziland, soft-spoken King Mswati III, lives with his fourteen wives in relative luxury, his eldest daughter, Princess Sikhanyiso, attending a Christian university in California. While the people of his nation were starving and dying of AIDS, his attempt to use government money to purchase a private jet for more than double the annual health budget for all of Swaziland was thwarted.

And yet, there is so much about the Swazi culture that's appealing and admirable. Beauty, tradition and culture struggle against the push for democracy and technology. They're one of the only African nations to avoid civil war over the last thirty years. Rejoice, who had to endure many disappointments in life, specifically in his effort to secure a University education (Swaziland has only one university, and it's extremely difficult to get into), is so intelligent, well-spoken, Godly and respectful. His English is amazing, his grammar and handwriting impressive, to the extent that his mastery of the English language is superior to most of the American teens I know. He is grateful and conscientious, kind and thoughtful, has a wonderful sense of humor and a strong desire to improve himself through reading, listening, studying and gaining wisdom. He is mature yet childlike, knowledgable yet not opinionated. He has a firm grasp on the realities of his country, yet he's able to remain analytical about what he sees here in the U.S.

So here I am, an American woman approaching forty, who is learning about this amazing, controversial, heartbreaking culture for the first time in my life, and, in the process, learning much about myself, seeing American culture through the eyes of my new friend and short-term son. The questions he asks, like "Why are rabbits associated with Easter in the U.S.?" and "Why do children say 'yeah,' or 'what' when a parent calls them?" (which would be considered rude in Swaziland) or "Why do churches speak against gluttony as a sin yet have their outings at large buffets where so much food is present, eaten, and wasted?" are questions that lead me into a new or sharper perspective of who we are, what we have, what we take for granted.

On one hand, I feel that I should be ashamed of taking so long to care so much about Africa, especially, as a child of the 80's and a big-time teenage fan of U2, I heard so much about the plight of the African nations, but I also feel that this is the right time for me to learn. God is doing some incredible things in my mind right now, and I certainly welcome Rejoice as an instrument of that process.

Learning About Myself through Others

Have you ever noticed that when you think you're in a position to teach someone, or comfort someone, or change someone's life, you end up being taught, comforted or changed in ways you didn't expect? I've had this happen several times in my life, so I don't know why it comes as such a surprise to me that it has happened again.

The first time that I can recall this happened was when a very dear friend and mentor of ours was diagnosed with Leukemia at the age of 60. When we found out that this amazing, robust, artistic man had received such grim news and had immediately been admitted the hospital for aggressive treatment, my first thought was, "What can I possibly offer him?" I hadn't experienced such illness in my life. As a matter of fact, I'd only really had to go through the death of one family member, my grandmother, and I'd been too young to fully understand what was happening.

But here was a man who had been like a father to my husband, had welcomed him into his home during a particularly rocky time in his life, and had offered himself as a spiritual guide. He had seen us through no small difficulties and witnessed some of the ugliest moments of our lives. He had given us so very much. What could we possibly offer? So for quite some time--a week? a month? I can't quite recall--I resisted visiting him in the hospital. I felt so guilty, and yet I couldn't bring myself to do any differently.

It was just before Easter, and my two young children had been busily decorating egg-shaped cupcakes. They turned out so beautifully that I had an idea. The children and I would brighten our friend's day with a plate of these festive Easter cupcakes. So, on a warm Spring day, I loaded the children into the car, my belly swollen with the second trimester of pregnancy, and we made the trek to the hospital to see our friend for the first time since his diagnosis.

Reed was so vibrant, even in the final stages of his cancer, but one thing he absolutely could not do was eat. He had lost quite a bit of weight, and just the idea of food made him queasy. As a result, our cupcakes were useless and I, likewise, felt useless, too.

But as I sat in my awkwardness, desperately searching for something to offer my friend, reminding a four- and five-year-old not to touch that, and not to climb there, Reed did something amazing. He comforted me. He shared his thoughts, and his peace, and his joy with me, and he let me know that he was content with what the Lord was doing in his life, and that I should be, too.

I walked away from the hospital room that day in such awe that this man, who I had sought to comfort, had ended up comforting me.

Three months later, on the due date of my third child, I stood with Reed's wife and other loved ones as Reed took his last breath on this earth and stepped into eternity with God. As I stood there on that Thursday afternoon, my stomach tensed and hardened with early contractions. A week later, Monet would be born, and would be given Reed's name as a middle name. He, too, would become a gifted artist.

Once again, I find myself in a place where I have been unsure about how well I would be able to serve and teach.

Once again, I'm being served. I'm being taught.

Two weeks ago, we welcomed a young man into our home from Swaziland for a six-month stay as part of a international voluntary exchange program. Our guest, who I will call Rejoice because that's what his name means, has been such a blessing to me and has already begun to teach me so much about who I am, what I believe, and how my life affects the world and those around me. His politeness, eagerness to learn and amazing dedication to Christ have been sources of much introspection for me.

Over the next six months, I'll be writing about Rejoice, about welcoming him into our family, and about the amazing lessons I'm learning along the way.

Please help me to welcome Rejoice into the Today's Lessons family!