Transitions - "In Between Places'

We are into our fourth week back in Lesotho. Our trip home to Canada is a fading, but still most pleasant memory. Now it is back to life in Lesotho.

Wendy was back into her work immediately. She is into her third week with students. Last week she came home saying how much she loves her work and her students. She knows it will get busy and hectic in the days ahead, but she has not let that dampen her enthusiasm for her students. The Poetry Club students are already in full swing and have held their first fundraiser and short performance. Wendy is hoping to take some of the club members to a poetry festival in South Africa later in the year. Her students are eager and getting an early start, both with fundraising and performing. I think Wendy’s poetry in her last blog entry was, in part, keeping up with her students.

My transition is a bigger adjustment. Not an adjustment to Lesotho from Canada, but an adjustment from working with an established NGO, to working with a fledgling organization. William Bridges, writing about transitions, talks about the ‘in between place', when you have let go of one trapeze but have not yet secured the next one; that in between place with just the ground (or safety net) below you. I think that is where I am right now. I have let go of the past but the future is not here yet, at least not in the structured way that I am most comfortable with.

I have tended to work best within a defined structure. Within that structure I could tinker and dream of what ‘could be’. Yet tinkering within a structure, moving from ‘what is’ to what ‘could be’, is another in between space, a space where I often felt apprehensive and uncertain; a place where I have relied on others to help me through. So I find myself in an in between place that does not play to my areas of confidence and I am missing my friends, colleagues, and supporters who in the past came alongside to help me through the in between spaces. To say I feel a bit tentative and uncertain, maybe a bit lost even, would be accurate. It sure would be nice to have some of my Bridges’ books on transition, but since I don’t I will have to remember the words of Kevin Burns, who suggests that when confronted with uncertainty, ‘trust the process’.

There are committed bo’me who are part of the project. I am not alone, and I need to relax, breathe more deeply, accept that for the moment I am in an in between place, and trust that with the support of others I will get though this transition to.

So, where is the project I am part of at? Upon our return to Lesotho, I found that the temporary ‘office’ we had hoped to use for our project was no longer available. Then, one of the students was over and asked to use my computer. I watched her with some amazement. This is a young woman who has only had access to my computer a few times each month for the last year or so. Yet, this day she sat down and with no assistance from me was searching the Internet; using it to find information she could use in a presentation she would make at her school. I was reminded how resourceful people can be when given opportunity, but also reminded of how limited are the resources that the schools here have. Access to the Internet offered this student a wealth of information that for most students was beyond their reach.

Another student was over on another day to photocopy course material for one of her courses. Schools often do not have enough handouts or books to go around and students often have to share or make do without. Because I had a copier this student could copy someone else’s handout and have her own information to work from. Yet our home is so out of their way, inaccessible for the students in our project. They must walk kilometers to our house, or spend precious financial resources on taxi fare. So without an office and seeing the students' needs, I began to dream. What a resource it would be, to have a centrally located, accessible office/classroom/study hall (with internet access) for the girls we are assisting to continue in school. So while I am still in this in between space, I am tinkering in a big way. With the support of our leadership team, I have started to search for a place to house The Mustard Seed (Lesotho) Society.

In a country where finding any place is primarily by word of mouth it will not be easy to find what we need, and I need to trust the process, or more specifically, trust God to lead us to the right place. My ‘dream’ is a place where we will have one room for an office; a second room as a study hall/classroom/meeting space where the girls would have computer and Internet access; and a third room to be set up as transitional shelter for girl orphans in temporary need of a safe place. This third room would also serve as storage for a lending/exchange program for baby clothes, blankets, etc, that we envision for single mothers. It is a dream that is way bigger than me, but really not that big for God.

So, if now and then you happen to wonder how I am doing back in Lesotho, maybe just add a little prayer for me as I traverse my transition period, and also that God would provide a location that is central, secure, and is accessible to things like water, electricity, and telephone.

Thanks,

~ Benno ~

P.S. We have registered our name, have submitted our constitution for approval, and are hoping that shortly The Mustard Seed (Lesotho) Society will be a registered legal entity in Lesotho.

Mark 4:30-32 .