RR team Update - Monday, July 14th

This is a quick update because it is late and I’m tired. Sunday after church we drove to Mahamba and spent the night at the Mahamba Gorge. Mahamba is a city on the border of South Africa about an hour and a half southwest from Manzini. It is where the first Methodist Church, or any church for that matter, was built in Swaziland in the 1800’s. The first school in Swaziland, which is a Methodist school, was built near the Methodist church. The land in that area was given to the Methodist church. On the property is an area called the Gorge. It is very rustic and very beautiful. The Methodist church allowed the community to build chalets on the land. The community manages the gorge area and 25% of the profits come back to the Methodist church. To quote Richard Bosart: “It is Gorgeous!”

We had a Braai (barbeque) for dinner of hamburgers topped off by sa’mores – Swazi style (no graham crackers, so we used cookies). There is no electricity at the Gorge, but there is plenty of water and they have propane hot water heaters. Bedtime came early because of the cold and darkness. Then we got up early and hiked the mountain. The path was marked by rock piles. We didn’t follow them on the way up and blazed our own trail. (Yes, it was a little scary at times.) But we found them near the top and made sure to follow them very carefully down the hill.

About 10:30, Rev. Margaret Dlamini, superintendent of the Mahamba circuit met us and showed us some of the projects in her circuit. I think the group had a good time and learned a lot.

Pictures:

1. Braai – Leigh, Kelly, and Steve with Karyen a volunteer from the Order of Christian Services who manages the Gorge.
2. One of our Chalets.
3. Leigh and Anthony hiking up the mountain/hill that eventually overlooks the river that runs through the Gorge and over into South Africa.
4. A view looking back towards the chalets about halfway up the hill.
5. A view looking back towards the top of the hill.
6. The rock path markers – our Ebenezer’s for the day reminding us to always look to our Rock, our savior and our redeemer for the right path.