{"id":781,"date":"2010-12-03T08:03:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T08:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-5-changing-the-story-in-swaziland.html"},"modified":"2010-12-03T08:03:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-03T08:03:00","slug":"advent-day-5-changing-the-story-in-swaziland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-5-changing-the-story-in-swaziland.html","title":{"rendered":"Advent Day 5: Changing the Story in Swaziland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Growing up, you may have taken for granted those areas where you played as a child. Playgrounds and athletic fields blend into the surroundings of our everyday life. <\/p>\n<p>But in Swaziland, a playground rises from the desolation like a beacon of hope. It is one of the signs that the community is changing by valuing children, and providing them with places to play. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not uncommon to see a newly finished playground swarmed by so many kids that it looks as though it might not hold their combined weight. <\/p>\n<p>But it does. <\/p>\n<p>And that support is a metaphor for what HopeChest is doing to Change The Story for children at Bheveni, and around the world. <\/p>\n<p>Thank you Danielle Brower and company for all that you are doing to make sure the kids of Bheveni grow up strong and healthy.<\/p>\n<p>To support the Bheveni CarePoint, visit Danielle&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/donate.hopechest.org\/site\/TR\/Events\/TeamRaiser?px=1007500&amp;pg=personal&amp;fr_id=1030\">fundraising page<\/a> and make a gift to support them today!<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Day5.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/104\/import\/Day5.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"text-align: center;margin: 0pt auto 20px\" height=\"531\" width=\"360\" \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Growing up, you may have taken for granted those areas where you played as a child. Playgrounds and athletic fields blend into the surroundings of our everyday life. But in Swaziland, a playground rises from the desolation like a beacon of hope. It is one of the signs that the community is changing by valuing&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-swaziland"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Advent Day 5: Changing the Story in Swaziland - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-5-changing-the-story-in-swaziland.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Advent Day 5: Changing the Story in Swaziland - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Growing up, you may have taken for granted those areas where you played as a child. Playgrounds and athletic fields blend into the surroundings of our everyday life. But in Swaziland, a playground rises from the desolation like a beacon of hope. It is one of the signs that the community is changing by valuing&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-5-changing-the-story-in-swaziland.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-03T08:03:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/Day5.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Davis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Advent Day 5: Changing the Story in Swaziland - Red Letters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-5-changing-the-story-in-swaziland.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Advent Day 5: Changing the Story in Swaziland - Red Letters","og_description":"Growing up, you may have taken for granted those areas where you played as a child. Playgrounds and athletic fields blend into the surroundings of our everyday life. But in Swaziland, a playground rises from the desolation like a beacon of hope. 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A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}