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The young seminary graduate has never seen a Star Wars movie, but she doesn’t shy away from adventures, especially missions-related ones.

Erica Zeiler received a master of divinity at Denver Seminary and served with two area churches for a decade before discovering Adventures in Missions through a Google search in 2009. Later that year, she headed to Africa on her first mission trip: three months in Swaziland.

“I picked Adventures Swaziland out of several mission choices due to the needs—its physical and spiritual poverty,” she said. “It’s one of the poorest countries in the world and has the highest HIV rate.”

English is a primary language there, along with siSwati, though Erica says the general literacy rate is low but growing: “Most adults can’t read but high-school students can.”

Erica led teams on short-term trips with Adventures Swaziland until 2011, when she sensed a call to make a two-year commitment. She stayed with the organization beyond that term, until the end of 2014.

Mostly Orphans and Grandparents

Swaziland is a kingdom, an absolute monarchy, with the crown’s wealth set in steep contrast to its people’s poverty. The tiny country is landlocked between South Africa and Mozambique. Erica describes the western region as more scenic, while the southeastern area (where Adventures Swaziland operates) is desert-like—flat, hot, and dry.

“It’s a peaceful, non-threatening country that has always been open to having outside groups come in to help,” Erica said. “And things are getting better because of the concentrated effort over the last 10 to 15 years. But the struggles of the country are layered: the HIV/AIDS crisis, extreme poverty, drought conditions for 20-plus years, and the struggles of the local church.”

AIDS seriously affects the Swazi people, whose life expectancy is around age 50. At least 35 percent of its more than 1.2 million people are under age 15. Many children are orphaned, and households are often led by the oldest sibling. “Because of HIV deaths, there’s an age gap,” Erica said. “The 20- to 40-year olds are missing. It’s mostly orphans and grandparents in Swaziland.”

Open to Truth

The “church” in Swaziland includes nearly 85 percent of the population, according to Operation World. But its Christianity is blended with African customs that include polygamy, witchcraft, and ancestor veneration. Christians are typically nominal, characterized by a lack of holiness—living no differently than unbelievers.

“The siSwati-language Bible didn’t even come out until the late 1990s,” Erica observed. “The country is open to spiritual truth, especially in rural, less-served areas where the conditions are desperate.”

Adventures Swaziland supports 10 neighborhood care points to provide daily for thousands of children. These locations offer food, clean water, education, discipleship, and access to healthcare.

Erica joined a staff of eight Westerners and 30 nationals at the ministry base in the southern town of Nsoko. Her coordinator role involved regular visits to all of the care points, traveling dirt roads for up to two hours in various directions.

Three-fourths of Swaziland’s populace is rural, and Erica compares their conditions to America’s settlement days: “Many extended family members live together on a homestead handed down to them. Maybe half of homes have electricity, and most families rely on community water wells. Though cell phone use is growing, there is no Internet, and no communications to distract them. The Bible may well be the only book a family has, and they treasure it.”

Seeing an Opportunity  

In that setting, Erica could easily see the potential influence of a good book. She had previously become familiar with TGC International Outreach (IO) after attending TGC conferences. And even though biblical resources are not a focus of Adventures in Missions, she seized the opportunity to secure some.

When a mission team from her Colorado church visited Swaziland in 2013, they brought boxes of IO Packing Hope resources she’d requested: ESV Global Study Bibles and Who Am I?: Identity in Christ, a discipleship booklet by Jerry Bridges.

The team distributed the ESV Bibles to Erica’s English-proficient students, like Nokwanda, who now has her first Bible. “And it’s probably the first book she has ever owned,” Erica said.

They provided copies of the Bridges’s booklet to a group of women ranging in age from 40 to 50, mainly widows, who studied it with a missionary. “This was life-changing, making them more confident in their witness for Christ,” she said.

The team also distributed 75 copies of Who Am I? to three youth groups for study and evangelism. “It offers nominal Christian students an understanding of a new creation versus behavior modification,” Erica said. “Non-profit groups only focus on abstinence without the spiritual aspect of sexual purity as a heart desire. But this resource helps young people to realize they can rely on the strength of the Holy Spirit.”

Further Adventures

In 2014 Erica married Mxolisi Myeni, a Swazi national she served with in ministry. “Dating isn’t common in the Swazi culture, so we went from being friends to being engaged,” she said. “We did our premarital counseling over Skype and had our bilingual/bicultural wedding in Swaziland.”

She returned to the U.S. with her husband in June 2015. Viewing things in the West from his fresh perspective, she sees how much we take for granted. “He was in shock,” she said.

The couple is now getting plugged into life and ministry in Denver, but Erica says they plan to go back and forth between their two countries as God leads and provides.

“In Swaziland, we hope to do more home visits, evangelism, and equipping the church,” she said. “And we’ve already made plans to take copies of a new IO resource, Prosperity? Seeking the True Gospel, when we go back to visit next year.”

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
But the Gospels are historically reliable. And the evidence for this is vast.
To learn about the evidence for the historical reliability of the four Gospels, click below to access a FREE eBook of Can We Trust the Gospels? written by New Testament scholar Peter J. Williams.

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