Missions Update: Linda Swanson
To our Metro family,
Kevin and I recently returned from Maseru, Lesotho, in southern Africa where we served a Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) team. Thank you for sending us with your prayers and financial support to care for them!
Lesotho has the 2nd highest percentage per capita of people infected with HIV. The people who live in the mountains are very isolated and impoverished. The MAF team – both Lesotho nationals and staff from the US – uses aviation to provide pastoral (medical, educational, and community development) care in the mountains of this tiny kingdom in southern Africa.
Here are some facts about Lesotho:
The nation is about 100 miles wide and it is just a 40 minute flight to Johannesburg, South Africa where we fly on our way to Lesotho
A Lesotho person is called a Masotho
More than one Lesotho people are called Basotho
They speak the Sesotho language
Though HIV/AIDS is a serious threat to the people of Lesotho, they are winning the war. Fewer people are becoming infected and fewer people are dying from it. This is news to celebrate!
MAF has a program to help Maseru pastors work in the mountain villages. Twice a month, a team from MAF – along with a few pastors – spends a week in a mountain village. This, too, is news to celebrate!
Our trip had three purposes:
We were privileged to meet with three of the US staff couples (2-3 times each) to do the Enrich marriage assessment with them. What a joy to hear their hearts of love and care for each other and their marriages.
We also met all day on Saturday for a spiritual enrichment time. It was very rich!
Besides this, we have several meaningful one-on-one conversations with the staff. They really let us into their hearts as they shared difficult details of their lives and work. Precious!
We are home again and back to our day-to-day responsibilities. Kevin is serving as the Associate Superintendent of the ECC’s Central Conference. I’m picking up my spiritual direction conversations with missionary and ministry leaders around the world, Metro friends, and others. Kevin and I know many of you pray for us as we serve and we’re so thankful. Without God equipping us, we would not be able to do all He asks us to do.
I’m also preparing to speak at a Thrive retreat in Brazil in April, Metro’s Women’s Retreat in May (YAY!), a retreat for Scott and Christina Kwak’s team in Asia in September (which Kevin and I are leading together), and a retreat for missionary women in Indonesia in November. These retreats require a lot of spiritual and logistical preparation. Your prayers would be so appreciated!
Your sacrificial giving to Metro’s Christmas Offering helps support my work and sends me to do what God has given me to do! I feel so honored and privileged to come alongside God’s people in a way that helps them be all He dreams for them to be.
– Linda Swanson