"Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life.”- 1 John 5:12

Over the last few months I’ve been a part of a missionary ladies Bible study in Manzini. We’ve been reading through the book of 1st John and discussing it each week. This Bible study is a breath of fresh air for me, and it is life giving! It’s so wonderful to meet with other foreigner ladies, hear their testimonies of what God is doing in their lives, and be a part of a community that’s so easy to relate to. Lately life has just been going at full speed and doesn’t seem to stop, and it’s been hard. I was so encouraged this week as I read from 1 John 5:12, reminding me that I HAVE LIFE BECAUSE I HAVE THE SON! Sometimes I am so discouraged because I live away from family, my mom isn’t around to help when the baby is sick, I’m not there for the birth of my nieces and nephews, and life in Africa is just extra hard sometimes. But while I was reading 1 John this week I was encouraged that my life is full, and lacking nothing, because I know Jesus.

God has been so good to us, and we have lots of things to be thankful for! When we first got back from the States, I was really worried about going back to work because I didn’t have a babysitter to watch Simo while I was working. Through some of the missionary ladies at work, I found out about Zodwa, who lives in a small town close to my work place. I’ve been able to pick her up on the way to work, then she watches Simo at my work place.  She is wonderful, and Simo absolutely adores her!

Simo and Zodwa

We’re thankful for the jobs that God has given us. Mapile was really busy in October and November wrapping up the school year at the Bible College. There was also a missions team here from Pennsylvania that came to do Pastor's Camp at the Bible College, as well as other ministry. Pastor's camp happens the week of graduation, and all the alumni are invited to services and seminars at the Bible College. 

I've also kept busy out at Project Canaan, where we now have 174 kids!

Mapile translating for the Bob Croft at Pastor's Camp 

Mapile translating for Angel (Part of the missions team) at Mphosi Church, the church we used to pastor when we were first married

Simo and I were busy in the back of the church while the service was going on at Mphosi

Simo playing with Ed, one of the members of the team

The Bible College had graduation on November 4^th, and there were 5 students that graduated. It was a fun time of celebrating with them as they accomplished their 3 year diploma. Mapile had plenty to do through that season, trying to keep up with all that goes into graduation and students leaving campus.

The five graduates

Simo at Graduation - you can see Mapile sitting up on the stage if you look closely

Shortly after graduation, we were able to switch houses on the Bible School Campus! We had been staying in an upstairs 4 room flat (bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, living area), and we got to move to a house that is bigger – it has 5 rooms (an office, 2 bedrooms, bathroom, and combined kitchen/living room). It’s been so great because now Simo has her own bedroom! She is sleeping better than she ever has before, and that means we are also sleeping better than we have in the past YEAR!

The new house!

Mapile standing in our driveway/car port

Simo in her bedroom while we were getting settled

We're also thankful for the church family that God has given us. We have been attending Liberty Church in Manzini, a new church plant. We've loved being involved there and having a church family to connect with. 

Mapile often plays a part in the service, either speaking for the welcoming time, or offering, or a prayer time..

Oh yeah, that’s right, Simo also turned ONE YEAR OLD on Nov 1st! She is such a joy to our family, always keeping us busy and making us laugh. She finally figured out how to crawl at around 11 months. She recently started pulling herself up to a standing position. She’s not interested in walking at this point, because crawling is still so much fun! She loves music, dancing, and clapping. She’s got some rhythm already (which I’m sure is from her Dad, as I have none!).

Simo on her first Birthday

She often gets herself stuck in awkward situations

We’re also thankful that God has helped us to raise some finances to help with extra costs of things like fencing our land, car stuff, and saving for travel expenses. If you’re interested in helping to support us go to https://www.thecause.org/partners/the-vilakati-journey/.

In other news, we do live in Africa, and after we moved to this new house I started getting a lot of bug bites! They were definitely not mosquito bites, and we kept wondering what they were… until we figured out that they were eggs from a putzi fly!! This is disgusting, but the fly lays eggs in wet clothes while they are on the clothes line, and when you wear the clothes the eggs burrow into your skin and hatch into small larvae worms. While this is extremely gross, I’m encouraged that we know what the bites are, how to prevent them (making sure clothes are properly dried), how to treat them, that it’s nothing serious as far as sickness goes, and so far Simo and Mapile have been free of them. I’ll spare you the pictures on this one. 

Thanks for your continued prayers. We really appreciate them!

Praises:

-          For Zodwa, our wonderful babysitter for Simo

-          For our new, bigger house

-          For God’s abundant provision in our lives

Prayer Requests:

-          Homesickness – I’ve been missing my family a lot lately

-          Health – besides my putzi fly issues, Simo has also been more sick lately than usual with fevers and feeling miserable

-          Settling into our new home – it’s a lot of work to move! We are still sorting through things and figuring out how to put our house together

-          That we’d live our lives in a way that pleases the Lord! It’s so good to know Him!

Here we are visiting at the Fakudze's house - Mr Fakudze is the principal of the Bible college

We went to a harvest party for Halloween, and Simo just happened to have this cute outfit!

Driving lessons

Christmas decorations have been up for a month now (at least!) in the malls, thought we haven't decorated for Christmas yet! 

“Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts" - 1 John 5:21