Mathekane

We were invited to join a small team to do a church building project in a remote village in the escarpment of the Lesotho mountains. So in early November we loaded up in a couple of little red and white cessnas and flew out with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) to Mathekane. It was about a 10 minute walk from the airstrip to the church site and clinic. The villages that lay on the edges of the valley were at least another half hour away. The scenery was stunning and it was so peaceful, devoid of the business and distractions of our big city, Maseru.

There was already a foundation so Nathan set off with the other 6 team members to build up the walls. It was a challenge because the time we spent there was limited, 4 days on the ground, and yet it rained every single day. Some of the rainstorms were so intense that our little tent just couldn't handle it and we were rained out. Fortunately we were able to squeeze into the 2-roomed clinic, which also served as our kitchen and worship center, with another couple who had come from the U.S. expressly to build this church.

While Nathan built the church I watched over the kids, washed laundry, and played guitar. This was the highlight of my time and it was a great opportunity for me to connect with some of the Basotho of that valley. I even took requests as we sang, danced and worshipped together.

Despite the rain, the team was able to get the wall of the church finished. All that is left is to put on a roof. We had an awesome time.

Ladies Retreat 2010

Every year the Christian women's community comes together for a retreat just across the north-western Lesotho boarder and have a precious time of seeking God and fellowshipping as sisters in Christ. I had the privilege of leading worship last year in 2009 and was invited back to lead again. I remember asking the Lord in January, "Father, what do you want to say to these women?" I never got a specific "word" but a couple of songs resonated in my spirit: David Crowder's "How He Loves" and, what I felt would be the theme of our time of worship, Kari Jobe's "The More I Seek You."

As I listened to and played these songs, I had a strong sense that the Lord wanted to communicate His deep, unending, extravagent love for these women. I shared this with them during the second worship set on Saturday morning, just before the speaker, Ellen, shared her message. When Ellen came to the front, she was tearing up as she shared that months earlier in her preparation for our time together, as she asked the Lord what to share with our group, the same message of Love weighed on her heart. Oh, how the Holy Spirit knows the Father's heart and eagerly tells us if we will listen! All I could think was, "God, You are so AWESOME!"

I set up prayer stations for that afternoon during "free time". In the chapel that overlooked the Maloti mountains there were about 7-8 different worship experiences for those who desired to spend time encountering God on a more personal and intimate level. On Sunday morning we has SUCH a precious time of worship and Holy Spirit started moving so powerfully among the women that I had to close my eyes so I could keep singing! As women were prayed for and as the Lord ministered to hearts, ladies began weeping and kneeling and I remember thinking to myself "I never expected this with this group." I saw a international, interdenominational group of women of all ages and life stages and forgot that we love and serve the same God who will chose to move as He wishes, regardless of our differences. I was humbled in that moment and repented of my lack of faith. I had such joy in my preparation of and leading worship for this time!

Finding Pekabridge

I had just finished an awesome weekend of leading the worship at the ladies retreat for Lesotho missionaries in South Africa. It was the end of the month and a weekend so towns were a bit busier than usual. As I was packing up to leave a friend told me she was going to try crossing the boarder at Pekabridge, in hopes to avoid the traffic and congestion at the larger cities and their boarders. So rather than praying and asking God for His guidance on the matter my co workers (and friends) decided to try Pekabridge. What could be the harm, right? We made the turnoff for the boarder and ended up on a dirt road. But we kept on trekking... we came to a small cluster of houses and one of the ladies in my car, Bonang, asked a couple of children if we were headed in the right direction. The said no, we must turn around, so Bonang got out of my car and went to one of the houses to confirm with an adult. Sure enough, they said to turn around. So we did, we headed back to the junction of the main road when the other woman in my car, Marethabile, had me hail down an oncoming truck because we couldn't find the junction that would take us to Pekabridge. The woman i hailed down told us that the people we just came from decieved us and that we were indeed going the right way. Soooooo, at the point where any sane person would just throw in the towel and take the main road, we turned back around, following our new directions with our hearts set on driving across the boarder through Pekabridge. We drove on the dirt road. We just kept driving and driving further north. I tried ringing my friend who suggested taking the new way to warm her about naughty people giving bad directions, not to mention the whole dirt road thing. We prayed that God would help us to find our way to Pekabridge. We just kept driving and driving and finally we're like, "We're lost, lets turn around and go back." We drove about 500 meters when a man and his wife drove up. I flagged them down and said "We're lost, Ntate. Do you know the way to Pekabridge?" He was ALSO on his way to Pekabridge and I only understood about half of what he said because at this point Marethabile was laughing SO hysterically, crying and falling over and the like, but I turned around and followed him. He was going to Pekabrige after all and we had prayed for God to show us the way. We followed him, driving and driving and driving. We were still headed in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go, and now the ladies in my car had a sneaking suspicion that this man was trying to save face and act like he knew where he was going, rather than admitting that he, too, was lost. We passed some game, zebra, ostrich, antelope. Cows, lots and lots of field. Finally, Oh praise God, FINALLY we approached something that looked like a boarder post. With a big red sign on it, that read "CLOSED." The Ntate driving indicated for me to pull up next to him and he said, "There is your Pekabridge. It is closed." No kidding. Next to the gate there was a sign that read the times, and the boarder post had closed at 4pm. It was 4:45pm. So the man suggested that I go to the next closest boarder up north. No way, i think, I am going to Maseru and I am praying for no queues. So me and my friends drove on another dirt road for about 5 minute when we get to the main road. No sign there indicating you can get to the Pekabridge boarder from there. We had driven about 30K out of our way. Praise God, when we got to the Maseru boarder we basically drove through, hardly anyone standing in line. I called Nathan about 5 minutes after crossing the boarder, on my way to drop off my friends, to tell him I was broken down. The clutch had died. Literally I would tap it and it would get sucked down to the floor and stick. Maybe out of fluid, who knows. So I had to be towed home. And thank God that didn't happen in the middle of "no man's land" on our Pekabridge adventure. So if you are ever in South Africa looking to take an eastern boarder post into Lesotho, go through, Botha Buthe, Maputsoe, even Maseru, but steer clear of Pekabridge. Unless you have a spirit of adventure. And you get there before 4pm.

On a side note, the friend who suggested Pekabridge didn't even end up going that way. She and her carload went through Maputsoe.

Prince Caleb

When we went on outreach to Botswana earlier this year we camped at each of the locations in which we ministered with the DTS students. My kids were actually amazing when it came to camping; very adaptable little guys. When it came to bedtime, we had to modify some of our "home" routine, one of which was story time. The flash light was too distracting to Caleb but then I couldn't read a storybook, which disappointed him. On the fly, I made up a story about a little boy named "Prince Caleb" and told one of his many adventures. Months later, the bedtime favorite is still "Mommy, please tell me a Prince Caleb story!"

Prince Caleb has had birthday stories, adventures with Thomas the Train, giraffes and other African animals, but no matter what Prince Caleb is up to, every story starts the same:

Once upon a time there was a little boy named Prince Caleb,
and he was prince of all the land.
His daddy was the king, and his mommy was the queen,
and his sister was the princess Adara.
They loved family and they loved God,
and God loved them and they were blessed.

Weeds

I have never been much of a gardener. I am the type of person who sees green in the yard and is all excited because the grass is green. Except that grass is just a yard full of weeds, posing as grass and giving me the illusion that I have a thriving lawn. (I know those of you who actually care for your grass are cringing right now.) Normally I am fine living in harmony with my low maintainance grass, but now I have a garden and the weeds that didn't bother me before are encroaching on my vegetables and giving me grief.

These are not the nice "oh look a weed, let me pluck up the roots and be done" kind of weeds. I pull one sucker up and, just when I think I've got it by the roots, I find that it is attached to a massive underground system meters long and entangled under the ground. If I pull the "weed" cropping up next to my baby broccoli then I run the risk of taking out the whole row of seedlings with the hidden monster weed firmly established beneath them.

One morning as I was contemplating this dilemma, Holy Spirit spoke to me about weeds. Often times the weeds (sins, bad habits, thoughts, actions) in my life are giving me the sense that everything is normal and even thriving, when in reality they are leaving no room for good fruit to grow in my life. They are even stunting the growth of the life giving elements God has already placed within me. I thought about all the effort, time, and care it took to properly pull the mega weed out without damaging the good crops. I had allowed weeds to run rampant in my yard and now, because of my inaction and laziness, I am reaping a harvest of killer weeds. Not something you want to put in a basket and tie a bow around and "bless" somebody with. So why am I so careless with myself? Why do I allow my heart to be decieved, why do I settle for less than the glory that the Father wants to bestow on me? This penetrated me so powerfully as I was looking over my little garden plot. It made me so thankful that as the Lord unveils my eyes to the weeds in my life He will also be the one to go to the very deepest roots of my sins and destroy them and, in their place, plant fruit bearing seeds of righteousness and life.

Planting

Today we will plant our first garden. We are a bit behind the Basotho; my friends in the mountains just informed me that their maize has germinated. We had come up with a plan to keep the dogs from digging in it. The dogs have decided to put craters all over the yard, but they had a particular interest in digging up the garden plots. Every night. Nathan finally constructed a fence around one plot so we will begin the joy of gardening today. It's a great day to do it too, since it is overcast...not too hot, not too cool. Even though I have a long history of plant killing, I am excited. :)