Swazilan Update - August 8th

Hello all,

We are having the best time here. God is working greatly through the missionaries of Children's Cup here in Swaziland. They have such a loving and giving heart. One of them (Charles-the crazy young one) when telling us what they're doing here said, "Just giving them Jesus, man. Just giving them Jesus."

I must tell you a little of our challenging journey.

We got on the plane RDU right on time.

We taxied to a place near the runway...and waited for over 2 hours. The word was that there was a storm in DC and the Dulles airport was shut down.

We finally flew to DC and as we were nearing our terminal we saw the South African Airways plane loading on another tarmac.

Naturally when we got off our plane and found gate 32A the plane had already taken off. We left 2 1/2 hours late and missed our flight by 20 minutes.

After working for another 4 hours to try to get to Africa by another route, we finally took a shuttle to a hotel for the night.

Saturday, when we should have been landing in South Africa we were actually taking off from Washington DC. Actually only 15 of the 31 of us were taking off. The rest had to wait til 11pm that night for a flight to London because there were no more seats.

The first group arrived in Johannesburg Sunday night, hurried to a bus(minus on member who didn't have the required visa and flew on a small plane), ran out of gas, got on another bus and made it to the border 10 minutes after it had closed. The guards that were leaving were not so sympathetic. We found a nearby place to stay, missed dinner and finally drove into Swaziland Monday by lunch time.

The second group left London and made it to Swaziland by 6am Sunday and drove to Swaziland in time for a late lunch.

We all then drove to a nearby Care Point and had an amazing time with about 300 precious children. We played with them, helped feed them and hugged them. They love to be loved, and we loved loving them.

As you look over this rough account please make a note of the fact that we missed a meal. The children that we have seen at 6 different centers are fed a very simple meal once a day usually just Monday through Friday. Few have shoes for the cold nights of winter. Things here are very different, very hard and yet there is hope. Hope for the children that are able to come to a Care Point or Mercy Center to get food for their bellies and the message of a loving Jesus.

We look forward to working in cement and enjoying lunch with the child that we are sponsoring tomorrow (Thursday).

We look forward to working on crafts and sharing in games and a Bible story on Friday.
We are looking forward to having a very fun day with these children Saturday morning then having a meal with all the missionaries and their families.

We most look forward to hearing stories for years to come of how God is changing the Kingdom of Swaziland through the changed lives of these precious children.

Thank you for your continued prayers for us and especially these children. They are so ripe for all God has to offer them.

We love you,

Steve & Debbie Turley
And the Christian 107.3 Mission of Mercy team