the True Love Waits presentation.

One of our responsibilities and our platform for coming to Swaziland was to present the True Love Waits program. We were required to go into the schools and meet with the headmasters and set an appointment to share the program with the students. The AIDS rate in Swaziland is amongst some of the highest in the world. This is an epidemic that is sweeping this nation and killing thousands. Our hope is that teaching the students what God desires for their lives and the choices that He wants them to make will cause the rates to decrease. We explain to the headmasters that the program is an AIDS prevention based on the Bible. We teach abstinence instead of safe sex. We tell them that it is an interactive program that gets the students involved. We get the students involved during several sections of the program by “acting for the purpose of learning.” Usually at the primary schools (1^st-7^th grade) it was very easy to make an appointment. At the high schools (8^th- 12^th grade) it was a little more difficult to make an appointment because their schedule was so busy. But most of the time we were able to make an appointment at every school.  The actual presentation takes about 2 hours to present with a translator and we even modified it so that it could be understandable for the Swazis.

The first section is called “My Dream Family” and it talks about the families that they dream of having. We tell them that God has the same desires for them to have loving, healthy, happy, and secure families just as they do.  We tell them that we are going to tell them how they can reach these futures dreams by making wise decisions now. The second section is called “The Multiplication Factor” and it shows how when two people have sex they become one for a lifetime. They give apart of themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually to the other person. We get the students involved by “acting for the purpose of learning.” We use a simple demonstration of taking a sip of water and spitting it back into a cup to show how body fluids are mixed. This is a very visual learning aid for the students because they are so surprised that they could potentially are connecting themselves to hundreds of people by having multiple sex partners. We also tell them that there are not only physical but emotional consciences for sex, and that this type of sexual activity will not help reach their dreams. The third section is called “What are the Choices” and it is talking about how condoms are not 100% effective. We also confront some of the myths about how HIV is or isn’t spread. Some believe that if they have sex with someone who is healthy that they won’t get sick. But we show them that you can’t tell that someone is healthy just by looking at them. Someone could look great on the outside but they could be sick. The fourth section is called “Beautiful Water, Beautiful Sex.” By using Proverbs 5:15-18 we show the connections between water and sex. How water and sex both bring life, but everything that they have the power of bringing life to they also have the power to destroy. How a flood causes much damage and how when sex floods outside of a marriage how it also causes damage. Since 70-75% of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, how it does not destroy us because God put it in boundaries. Just like God put water in boundaries, He also put sex in the boundary of marriage not to imprison us but to protect us because He loves us. The fifth section is called “What is True Love?” In this section we tell two different stories from the Bible to show what true love really looks like. We use the story of Amnon and Tamar from II Samuel 13:1-15 to show what true love is not and the story of Mary and Joseph in Matthew 1:18-25 to show what true love is. We show them what the ultimate picture of true love looks like through Jesus Christ. How God showed us what love really is by sending Jesus to die for our sins. And that even though Jesus was fully God, he was also human. Which means He grew up the same way we did, and His body went through the same physical changes that our does. And He never did anything wrong. He was perfect and yet He died for us. He died so that we can withstand the temptations we face every day. He gives us the strength to fight the temptations. And He gives the power to repent instead of just saying your sorry and we describe the difference. Then we talk about how God is the only who can heal a broken heart and who can forgive your sins. The last section is called “True Love Waits: Commitment Cards.” This is what the card says, “Believing that True Love Waits I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my country, my friends, my future, and my future children to remain sexually pure until the day I get married.” We tell them that this is a serious commitment and not a joke. And that is a very possible commitment to keep but only with God’s help. We also tell them that isn’t just a call to sexually purity but to a lifestyle of purity. To remain pure in what you watch, you listen to, you say and in every aspect of your life. This presentation is a presentation that is engaging and informative. Not only are we teaching the students but the teachers as well and usually they get just as involved as the students. This presentation is calling students to a commitment and it is changing Swaziland for the better.