Friday, September 15, 2017
Greetings From The USA!!!
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Happy New Year 2017
Our Dear Friends & Family,
We are now a week into 2017, and as our New Year has begun, our family wishes to say a huge "Thank You" for your continued love and support as we serve here in Swaziland!
We crossed over into 2017 at our awesome place of fellowship here in Swaziland: Healing Place Church (or HPC). It was a great time of fun, fellowship, thanking the Lord for His faithfulness in 2016, & seeking His face for 2017.
The vision the Lord gave our family for last year was: "Compassion, Discipleship, Catalyst!". It was a vision of focus, where the Lord was shaping our work into these 3 categories.
Compassion: We as a family are called to compassionate ministry - to show the LOVE of Jesus in tangible ways to people that are suffering. We want offer His Hope, not just in words, but also in action. We are engaged in compassionate ministry at a few different locations, but our main work is @ the children's ward in the Mbabane Government Hospital. Our goal is to consistently minister there at least once a week. I'm so thankful that we were able be there nearly ever week in 2016!
The hospital is never a fun place to be admitted, and that's definitely the case here in Swaziland. When looked at with human eyes, the hospital can seem a very depressing & rough place - the facilities are not the best, the level of care much lower than someone in the Western world would be used to, less access to needed meds, & it doesn't always look, sound, or smell good. Mothers & Grandmother's need to live with the patient who is admitted in order to care and see to their needs. It's not uncommon to have a child admitted for 1 month. Recently, we knew a pair of twin babies that both suffered burns...they were admitted for nearly 3 months!
It's hard to live at any hospital for a length of time. It's hard to see your child suffering and you feel like there is nothing you can do. It's hard to see other parents (maybe even the one in the hospital bed next to you) lose their child, and you wonder "What's going to happen with my baby?" Again, when viewed with human eyes, things can seem hopeless, & death can seem to reign in this place.
But that's where God comes in! He has sent us to be a light in the darkness! Where death seems to reign, we choose to speak the reality that "Jesus Christ Reigns in this place!" Where there is suffering, he uses broken vessels like us, to be a conduit of His LOVE & Compassion. To be an extension and representation of His heart that says "I love you & I am with you in this suffering."
Really what a privilege it is to be an ambassador for Christ. I am totally unworthy, but yet he still uses me to shine His Love.
What do we do at the hospital? Obviously, we pray for supernatural healing for the precious kids, pray for their caregiver, and speak the words of hope of the gospel, and words of comfort. But this ministry is also a ministry of presence. We spend time with the children and their caregiver. We endeavor to be a listening ear. It's hard to be there, and so we want them to experience that someone is tangibly with them in this (& more importantly the Lord is with them). We also believe that we should come with something: so we always bring some fruits to hand out, some gum and sweets, and as we can provide, small toys and/or crayons and coloring sheets. Our goal is to share & show the love of Jesus, practically help, encourage, and bring joy, leaving a smile on someone's face.
This ministry costs us about $20 dollars a week. There were 3 times in 2016 that we didn't go because we simply didn't have the $20 to buy the supplies, & it's our passion that we need to have something practical to bless the patient. If it wasn't for our friends, family, & KAC for supporting us we could not do this.
Please keep this ministry in prayer! Along with Zwakele & myself, we have 3 wonderful ladies as part of our team, who are dedicated week in and week out. Please pray that the Lord would continue to use us as a source of His awesome love, hope, & comfort!
God bless you!
In our next blog we will continue to share about these areas of vision and where we believe the Lord is taking us!
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Merry Christmas from the Brock Family in Swaziland!!!
As I write this, on Christmas Eve, it's about 90 degrees Fahrenheit here in Mbabane Swaziland. We have a full house of family visitors. There are 12 of us squeezed in our house, but we are happy to be together, and looking forward to celebrating tomorrow! We will all go to church in the morning, and then head back home for a great BBQ!
Thandeka is 5 but turning 6 this February, and Busani will also be celebrating his 2nd birthday in February!
One of my favorite things about Christmas this year has been doing an Advent Countdown with Thandeka. Reading a couple Bible verses each day and then discussing the significance of Jesus birth. It's been such a joy to see Thandeka so excited to do the Advent every day, and for her to tell me how it's been the same as what she is learning in Sunday school! Gods awesome love for us, freedom from sin, and Jesus being the light in the darkness are just some of the talks we've had.
I'm just so thankful that Jesus the light of the world chose to come to us, to be Emmanuel: God with us, humble himself to enter this dark world, show us the way and ultimately giving up his life for us, and then conquering death...all because he Loves us and wants to have relationship with us!
"The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned." ~ Isaiah 9:2
I am so thankful the Light of the World has come! May He continue to shine His light through us as his children and ambassadors in this dark world! Again, Merry Christmas! Thank you for standing with us this year as our family serves Jesus in Swaziland! May you have a wonderful holiday season, and may the Lord bless you in abundance!
Dennis, Zwakele, Thandeka & Busani
Merry Christmas from the Brock Family
It has been such a long time since we have posted to this blog. However, we have just discovered an app that we can download to our cell phone and post updates. So we now plan to dust this baby off and post regularly! This first post will be the test! Here we go...
Brock Family
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Joy, Pain, & some GREAT News
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| Some of my students & myself from the Expository Preaching Class. |
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| Nokuthula laughing with Zwakele behind her. |
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| Zwakele talking with the pastor and his wife. |
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| Thandeka being silly with the pastors wife! |
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| The solar powered talking siSwati Bible. Thank you Caroline McGraw for the donation! |
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| Old & New: The old house on the left and the new one going up in the back! |
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| Taken about 2 weeks ago, the new house nearly finished! |
Well just today (the 27th August) we received a call that the house is totally finished! Praise God!! We are so happy that the family will be able to enjoy a new safe place to live in. Thank you so much KAC for your sacrificial giving to this family! We will get a picture of the completed house posted soon!
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| The team and a group of Swazi's walking on Day 1. Notice the police escort! |
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| Day 1 finished! |
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| The team brought a huge quantity of soccer jerseys that were given out at care points. |
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Sunday, April 20, 2014
HOME, HOPE, & HAPPINESS
Dear Friends & Family,
Happy Easter!!!
We hope you have had a weekend full of reflecting on the costly sacrifice of our King. And Praise God for this Sunday morning!! May you have a wonderful Sunday celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ!!
The Lord has given us a new ministry home in YWAM Swaziland. This has brought us much joy and happiness. We are part of a great ministry team! Below is a picture of our staff.
The YWAM Swaziland staff is composed of 3 families from Brazil, a family from Holland, a man from Nigeria, a young Swazi guy, and a Swazi Couple who run a home for orphaned children. The YWAM Swazi base is located in the capital of Mbabane, up on a mountain that overlooks the city. Below is a picture of the beautiful view from our headquarters.
The property of the base is nestled between an older township community known as "Zone 4," and a new property development called "Lomkiri." In both communities there are a lot of opportunities for ministry, in some cases literally right next door.
Zwakele & I are now involved in a bunch of different ministries. All of the YWAM staff have to put in some hours every week helping the base. Monday mornings I usually work about 4 hours with our director handling communications for YWAM Swazi. We currently are working on our new website, building it up, and adding content as we can. You can check out our new website @ www.ywamswaziland.org . We really have a severe challenge with communication at the moment. In January we lost our internet ability at both the base and at all of our residences. It is a long & complicated story, but we have been trying for months to get another internet service provider. We are now dependent on internet cafe's again which can be extremely slow and impossible to download or upload any pictures/content.
Part of our Partnering with God along the theme of HOME has been helping those in need of proper shelter. In February Jon Schuerholz the pastor of our home church, Kenmore Alliance visited us. It was an awesome trip with a lot of encouragement for us and much work for the Kingdom of God.
One day we did home visits in the rural area surrounding Pigg's Peak (North West Mountainous part of the country). We visited a widowed mother who currently had 3 children staying with her. The four of them lived in a 2 room stick & mud house. The inside part of the walls are decaying and water is surfacing from somewhere underground. This makes the floor of the inside constantly wet and even muddy at times. So Pastor Jon decided that we would construct a new concrete house for her. Below is the picture of the house they are currently staying in.
HOPE – The Resurrection of Christ Jesus displays the only true HOPE for mankind. Some of the ministries we now are involved in are all about declaring the love & hope that are found only in Christ. Will you please stand with us in prayer for these ministries we are involved in.
HAPINESS
Being in Christ's will for your life brings joy! We are so thankful to be in this new season of ministry. Our families desire is that wherever we go we want to move with Jesus' purposes, love, and compassion. We want to be conduits of His joy to those around us, carrying His light into dark places. Whether its the government hospital, the township of Zone 4, or the rural areas, we want to minister Jesus' love and bring joy to people. When people meet us we want them to encounter Christ. Thandeka Grace is now 3 years old. She is growing and speaking both Siswati and English. It has been such a joy to take her with us as we go out to minister. Below she is holding the hand of one of the children for whom we are building the new house.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Storms & The Light of The SON
We also are not saying goodbye to the children or caregivers of the SLC! This is very important for us! We will still lead the House mothers & Aunty’s in a weekly time of worship, bible study, & prayer. We have assured them that we are still committed to them & their well-being, and are there for them if they need anything. We also will be spending 2 afternoons a week at the SLC working with and spending time with the children. We are so glad that we will continue to be in their lives!
As we move over to YWAM in January nothing will change in terms of how we raise and process our financial support. People can continue to support us by donating directly into the offering at Kenmore Alliance Church, or by giving online at KAC's website: http://kenmorealliance.com. In both cases the support must be indicated that it is for the "Brock's in Swaziland." We also will continue to use this blog to communicate our updates. Also, look for both Zwakele & myself on Facebook as we often upload pictures on there or share prayer requests.
For the King,
Dennis (for Zwakele & Thandeka)



































