Joe
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As I sit here at the kitchen table, I feel as though I’m facing a hurdle by looking at my computer screen. I sit here wishing I was once more able to return to where I left a piece of my heart. Why is it that we can so desperately wish to be somewhere we are not? I suppose the work of truly sitting down to reflect is in part to blame. Once the words are written and thoughts explored, a chapter of my life I didn’t even know I needed will be closed. I am glad to know that is only partially true. I thank God for the pictures, memories, and relationships I will always be able to hold on to, but most importantly, to share.
First off, I want to be sure to direct all of what I have experienced in the greatest of thanks to God. If it were not for His guidance and provision, my trip to Eswatini, Africa would not have been possible. I have to catch myself from taking some of the credit because it simply is not mine to take. God’s presence from His whispering to pursue this trip to the incredible work He is doing through The Luke Commission is indescribable. Of everything I learned through this trip, I pray I continue to walk through life sensitive to His presence and to have the wide-eyed wonder to notice.
Last school year, my advisor approved me to apply for visiting with The Luke Commission (TLC). Because of my Intercultural Studies major, I am required to participate in a mission study abroad. Trevecca plans a few of these internships to place those of us in the major on a 3-month visit to a foreign culture. However, because I also feel called to the medical field, my advisor and I looked for a different trip. A friend of mine on campus heard we were looking for another option. She recommended talking to her cousin, Katie (another peer and now good friend), who for her last few years of high school lived in the country of Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland). Her parents, Brian and Missi who I got to know on the trip, had come on staff with TLC about 7 years ago. TLC is an organization that “takes free health care and hope to the most isolated and underserved populations, in partnership with the Swazi people and the Ministry of Health.” As we were discussing this as an option, I felt a tug, but I wasn’t completely sure. God had provided the opportunity to begin saving for my internship, so I wasn’t worried about the money. However, I was a bit worried about going on my own. This would be my first trip traveling alone internationally and to arrive in a place in which I knew no one and much farther from home than I had ever been before. My friends, while they would be going for a longer time, would have fellow school peers to experience the trip alongside. I was also concerned with my knee since I had just had an extensive surgery a few months prior. The one element these last few sentences have in common is they were all excuses.
Fortunately, I had the chance to sit down with Katie to hear about her time in Eswatini with TLC, and after talking with her, I could not have been more at peace to go. At the beginning of January, my application to TLC was in. My prayers of asking God where to go were being answered, and now I just had to wait and continue raising funds. In February, I learned I had been accepted to go to Eswatini during the end of June through July. I was given the option of going between 2 and 4 weeks. My schedule was open, so I opted for 4 weeks, and I am so grateful I did. I began searching for flights, renewing my passport, and putting out a post to finish raising funds. By mid-March, almost all had been prepared, and I could not wrap my mind around how faithfully God had provided, especially in the form of another student from Trevecca going. My now good friend, Paige, had also been feeling called to go, and she quickly listened to God’s whisperings to apply. I am so, so grateful God did not send me on my own. While Paige and I only met a couple times very briefly before leaving, I could not have picked a better person to have traveled and experienced Eswatini and TLC alongside.
The time to leave was quickly approaching as my summer began. I was glad for graduations, parties, and babysitting to fill the time. As for preparations for the trip, I spent a lot of time in prayer and some journaling, and then it came time for finalizing. (And thank you Mom for the help in packing!)
After a quick late lunch with my family, I was dropped off at the airport and met up with Paige, and we were suddenly hit with the reality that we were actually on our way.
The route we traveled was Nashville to Washington, DC; DC to Frankfurt; Frankfurt to Johannesburg; and then a shuttle from Johannesburg to Eswatini. Overall, our airtime was 20 hours to get to Johannesburg and a 4-hour shuttle ride to Eswatini. In reality, we spent about 45 hours total traveling from being dropped off at the airport to arriving to our room. The only hiccup we had in our travels was the delay of the entire Nashville airport for a passing storm, which had us rushing to our Frankfurt flight with less than 10 minutes to spare before departing the gate!
To give some context, the country of Eswatini is located in southern Africa, not to be confused with the country of South Africa, which we did land in when we flew into Johannesburg. Eswatini is a small country landlocked by Mozambique and South Africa and is less than half the size of Tennessee. When we left Johannesburg, we traveled east for about 4 hours (which included crossing the border for another new passport stamp!) until we arrived to the center of Eswatini near the city of Manzini. There were similar road systems… think interstates and highways, but they do have right-sided vehicles, so they drive on the left side of the road. Eswatini also has several, mountainous dirt roads we later traveled on.
While it was summer in the US, it was winter in Eswatini, so temperatures during the day ranged from 60 to 90, while the evening lows were usually around 40. Some of the staff were wearing sweatshirts and leggings. I was told that during their summer, it can be difficult to sleep at night because of how hot it gets. Needless to say, I was grateful for such comfortable weather.
We were in need of a shower, food, and sleep by the time we arrived to our room at 8:30 on Saturday evening (Eswatini is 7 hours ahead of Nashville time). At 8:30 Sunday, we went to our first church service at TLC’s hospital. They set up chairs in the middle of a 20-bed ward and worship alongside those who are sick and suffering. Between singing, testimony sharing, preaching, and praying over the sick, church each week was one of the highlights of my trip. (If you would like a feel for what some of the songs were like, look up “Yawa Imbewu by Zaza MokhethiI” on YouTube.) I feel that I am called to work in the medical field, and while I will not be able to always explicitly express my faith, the atmosphere of church as experienced at TLC is what I want to bring. Church was usually around 2 to 3 hours, and afterwards, one of the international staff took us out for lunch and conversation about how the trip was going. We shared some life-giving conversations at these meals and enjoyed some yummy food.
Our weekdays were spent assigned to a variety of tasks on campus. Each morning we went to prayer circle with all the staff available on campus. My friend Katie had shared what this would be like, but because of the growth of TLC, I was not expecting to share prayer circle with several hundred other people. It was amazing that each day the staff would all gather together to sing, read Scripture, pray, and recite TLC’s mission and vision as one. I will list TLC’s creeds below because they truly reveal the heart and spirit of TLC:
TLC Mission: To deliver compassionate, comprehensive healthcare bringing spiritual and physical healing in the name of Jesus Christ to the most isolated and underserved populations of southern Africa in collaboration with local communities, government, corporate, and non-profit partners.
TLC Vision: To end the isolation of underserved communities to quality healthcare.
TLC Creed: We seek to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to lift up the sick and the suffering, to bear their burdens in love with kindness, patience, and compassion, to bring hope, help, and healing to those who have the least access to care and treatment. We commit to unity, excellence, and teamwork in every endeavor, every assignment, and every opportunity to serve. We seek to preserve life, provide relief to the suffering, and to share the hope of redemption and restoration today and every day as representatives of Jesus Christ.
TLC Core Qualities (5 C’s): In order of primary importance: Calling, Character, Culture, Chemistry, Competence
TLC DNA:
- Teachable Spirit Looks for Solutions
- Committed to Unity
- Dedicated to Every Last One
- Not About Me = Servanthood
- Attitude of Gratefulness
As I said earlier, we were assigned a variety of tasks on campus. We would typically work from 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday (and until 3:30 on Saturday). Some of our jobs included shadowing several nurses in TLC’s on-campus hospital, clinic, cervical cancer screening room, as well as working computer data entry. We also had the opportunity to participate in TLC’s mobile hospital a handful of times. I found these days especially moving because we were trained to help triage and do vitals on TLC’s VIP’s (Very Important Patients). While these tasks are essential to the mission of TLC for being able to medically serve Eswatini, it also gave me the opportunity to meet and interact with many people. The goal of TLC’s mobile hospital is to travel to the more rural areas of Eswatini to provide medical care to those who do not have easy access to doctors or medicine. The outreach is always set up at a school, so students, as well as their families and the surrounding community, all have the chance to be seen. Over the years, TLC has created a seamless system for caring for their VIPs to give every person the opportunity to be prayed over, seen by the doctor, counseled, and given the chance for medical services such as family planning, cervical cancer screening, male circumcision surgery, and vision testing. It was simply incredible to watch how each patient is cared for with the greatest attention. Between 200 and 500 patients can come through the mobile hospital site on any given outreach day. TLC usually has 3 to 4 outreach days planned each week, as well as maintaining a stationary clinic on TLC’s main campus. On the day of an outreach, two rounds of busses leave from campus; one at 5:30 and the other at 7:30. Paige and I had the chance to leave at both times, so we were able to see what set-up of the mobile site looked like. We even got to help set up the surgery room! Each location we traveled to was different, ranging from 30 minutes to 2 and ½ hours away from campus.
On campus during our visit, Paige and I had the unique opportunity to witness the removal of eye patches from cataract surgery. (We also were able to witness a cataract surgery in process! But I almost passed out, so we won’t talk about that.) I say this chance was unique because normally the US doctors who come to do cataract surgeries are scheduled to come 2-3 times a year for TLC’s planned surgery week; the surgery week is so big that TLC takes a couple weeks prior to coordinate all that needs to be done for several hundred VIPs to arrive and receive surgery. However, a small cataract surgery weekend had been planned because a US doctor was able to come in July, so about 40 patients were contacted to come in and stay on campus for a night to receive care. Through TLC’s mobile hospital sites, TLC asks VIPs diagnosed with cataracts for contact information so they can let them know when a doctor is available. TLC also provides free transportation, meals, and sleeping arrangements along with the free surgery. TLC’s campus is named the “Miracle Campus,” and after witnessing the joy of restored vision for so many people, I can attest to the miracle workings of God so truly present, and for that, I am thankful.
My favorite day of the entire trip though was when I was individually assigned to go on a home visit. TLC sends a small team to care for people in need that are 1 to 2 times a week to visit the elderly, as well as to follow up on the young men who have had surgery at a mobile hospital site. I’ll quote directly from my journal about this day:
On Wednesday (July 10), I got up around 5:45am and was down at the offices around 6:30. Only 4 other women and a driver were going, so we loaded up and were off. About 1 and ½ hours after driving on the interstate, a road, and a mountainous dirt road, we stopped. We were looking for the local pastor and a woman to help show us to all the homes. After a little searching, we had them. The dirt roads can be in poor condition, some similar to the roads in Haiti. They were full of potholes from the rain, and we were often traveling at an incline. I felt fine for part of the day, but my body, especially my head and stomach, felt beaten up by the end.
We went to several homes, seeing between 1 and 6 people each time. They were often elderly, having not been able to go to outreach when it came to their area. The poverty is extreme here with many people living in a 1 to 2 room house/hut. They were all so appreciative though (and excited to have visitors in their house)!
We would all enter the home, sing a worship song, pray out loud over the house/people living there, and then proceed to care medically for the VIPs.
I lost count of how many people were seen after 15. It was interesting how some families were able to express their gratitude. Many pumpkins and avocados were given to the staff, pastor, and woman traveling with us.
While I did not take any pictures on this day, one image that will stay with me is looking at the house of one of the women we saw overshadowed by 2-3 large avocado trees.
I did not get back to campus until around 6:30 that evening, but I learned on this day that the spirit of worship and prayerful attitude we entered each person’s space with is what I desire to bring when I interact with patients (but really all people for that matter).
There are so many more stories that could be told. While it took a bit longer to write this than I first anticipated, I am humbled once more by my reflections of my time in Eswatini. I praise God for all He is doing throughout this world, and I pray I leave my life open to His invitation to participate in the daily miracle of life surrounding us all. It is incredible to me that my visit to The Luke Commission has already come and gone. In a word, my time there was moving. Thank you for reading, but more importantly, thank you for all the support and prayers. I appreciate them more than you know.
Love,
Jenna Swann
P.S “Oh yes I thank you Lord for the days of my life”
