Posted in
poverty by Morgan McKeown on 10/5/2009
I
got the news the other day that Maswane (pictured below) died.
At age 19,
her life here on earth is over, stolen by AIDS. She desired to tell
her story and let the truth be known. That's why I'm writing.
Our first day in Swaziland Pastor Gift told us about Maswane and asked
if we would be willing to go pray with her. When she was five years
old she was raped which is how she contracted HIV.
She was raped again
when she was seven and has never once consented to sex with a man. One
of the men who raped her has died, and the other is free; he escaped to
South Africa. Her virginity as well as her life has been brutally
ripped away.
We pulled our van up to her families compound. As I ducked from the
bright day into the round stick building, it took a second to pick out
figures in the dim light. The smell of rotting flesh and smoke
permeated the air; soaked into everything, burnt my eyes and saturated
my clothing. Maswane was too sick to sit up, she was on a one inch
thick mattress and lay shivering under a light blanket.
She was wrecked by AIDS, her skin cracked and calcified, open sores all
over her frail, bed ridden body. In place of what once was smooth dark
skin she had charred dry scales. It was one of the hardest things I
have ever seen. Nineteen years old and dying by no fault of her own.
Soon after we entered she started whaling in agony, her piercing
screams filled the hut. Seeing her writhe in pain and hearing her tortured
scream was heart wrenching. We all started to pray and she was
visibility calmed, her body stopped shaking and slowly uncurled while
her breath deepened again.
As we prayed I felt God saying, "This is my beautiful daughter, see how
lovely she is!" Then God reminded me that there would be no tears or
pain in heaven, and that he had prepared a beautiful place for her.
Maswane labored to tell her story, to be known and to make known the
evil that has robbed her life. Despite that evil, her spirit was
strong and her beauty captivating. She fought to shine the light of
exposure in a horribly dark place.
Some of my mission teammates and I got to go back to visit with her and to
deliver a new thicker mattress and some warm blankets. We sat with her
for a few hours, and filmed everything, her story, her spirit, her
hopes and dreams, her truth and reality. She loved the camera and
understood how exposing the truth was the key to bringing change to
future generations in Swaziland.
Some day I'll get to see Maswane in heaven; we will get to laugh, dance
and run. We will get to talk with no language barrier, and maybe she
will show me around the beautiful place that God prepared for her.
Morgan is from San Diego, CA. She returned in November 2007 from traveling to 11 countries in 11 months on a mission trip.
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