Swaziland Mission Trip - Blog by Mark Hackett

It's hard to believe that July is already over. Heart for Africa had a really busy month, with volunteers starting to arrive on July 4th. Through the month we had approximately 400 volunteers arrive here in Swaziland coming from the United States, Canada and Taiwan. The big event was Litsemba on July 23rd where we had upwards of 20,000 people come to the Somhlolo National Festival of Praise. The children were all given a blanket, bible, beenie and a juice as they entered the stadium. The beenies were made by people from 200 nations around the world. King Mswati III attended the event and arrived in the stadium with his motorcycle escort and surrounded by the Swazi Secret Service. The guest speaker of the event was Stehen Lungu of Malawi who gave me his camera and asked me to take pictures of him and the King. I ended up right in the front of the stadium with the press and even was in a photograph with the King in the Swazi newspaper. The King gave a powerful speech himself, declaring that the only solution for the prosperity of Swaziland is Jesus Christ. His speech was more of a sermon to the people and children of Swaziland. I don't think there is any other place in the world where you will hear the president or king or ruler of a nation speak about the need of Jesus in their nation.
We had volunteers going out to 30 churches during the 4 days before Litsemba, planting community gardens at the churches and conducting Vacation Bible School with the children. We had a mobile dental clinic that inspected and cleaned the childrens teeth. We had a medical team that just left yesterday that treated people that came to the churches. So as you can see, July was very busy touching the lives of thousands of Swazi children and adults. The last group of volunteers leaves on August 4th.