Pension Day and Food Parcels

Today was “pension” day in Swayimane when the older generation gets some money from the government. There was a big marketplace right outside where they picked up their money. I guess the idea was that people would get their money and then spend it right there.

It was really interesting to see how Swayimane changed on that date. Any other date, there’s nowhere where you can really buy much in Swayimane. At the market, there was everything from clothing to live chickens. Wellington and I were thinking about buying a chicken because Wellington said that that eating a freshly killed chicken tasted much better than anything else. He said that he would do the killing and cleaning, but in the end, I guess I just like to buy my meat already killed and nicely packaged and not worry about how it got there.

Tuesday was also the day that some families got their food parcels. Mildred needed some help unloading some of the food from her truck. I asked her who bought all this food and she said, “Metro Church in the States.” THAT’S MY CHURCH!

It actually was really awesome to see. Knowing that the money I gave to my church was actually being used for something tangible like this and seeing the food with my own eyes was a great feeling. While other churches spend their money on building bigger buildings or making their pastors rich (I know, I’m a little jaded), Metro feeds ten families from Swayimane every month. Pretty awesome! I would’ve loved to have met the families that we feed, but I wasn’t able to take part in giving out the parcels. Maybe next month…