It is past due to provide a couple of updates on what the Mustard Seed is doing. The last few months have been relatively quiet really. The school year is up and running, and our focus has been on implementing some plans that we had developed earlier. Things will get busier in the next couple of months as we will be winding up the society's fiscal year, and begin the process of planning for the next school year. But here is a bit of information on some of our recent activities.
Cherish Camp: This was a four day workshop we held at the beginning of April. Eight of our girls attended, actually seven of our girls. The eighth was someone from the community who was invited by one of our girls who was so excited about what she learned the first day she had to bring a friend, who has become a Mustard Seed associate.
Girls here face very similar challenges to girls anywhere I guess. They too have needs for acceptance and belonging, and they too have hormones and all that that entails. The focus of the camp was to invite the girls to accept themselves for the special creation they are in God's eyes, that they are valued and loved and complete in him, and that He has a plan for good in their lives. The workshop then invited them to make choices that would build positively on the special creation they are. It was a timely topic.
A number of our girls are struggling, like adolescents anywhere, to discover who they are and what they want. Then there are peer pressures, some good, but too many encouraging them to follow I life of living for the moment. But in the context of Lesotho, living for the moment, even briefly, often has life-long consequences from which it is difficult to recover - extreme poverty, abuse, illness, disease, and no hope for a future. Second chances are hard to come by, here. Our desire is to see our girls develop a dream for their future, a dream that will help them made better choices. One girl wants to be a lawyer, and I have been inviting her to picture herself in her robes before a magistrate. A more concrete dream that hopefully will better enable her to assess whether her choices are helping her move towards that dream or getting in the way of her dream.
Rapt attention for the facilitator, Ruth.
Food, part of any workshop, ...
... as is fun.
With their completion certificates.
One four day workshop is only a start however, and recently we got the girls together for a Cherish Day. Under the guidance of 'M'e Lerato, one of our Masotho board members, they talked about what they had learned at the workshop, how they were applying what they learned, and the challenges they faced in making wise choices. They had fun, but were also serious about seeking to encourage and support each other to choose wisely.
Maths Tutoring: A second major activity we are implementing is providing the girls with extra help with their Maths (here it is 'maths', not 'math'). It has been hit and miss to fit the tutoring sessions into their lives, but we are making progress, and now during the winter school break we are holding what we are calling Maths Camps.
One of Wendy's former students is working with a number of girls for four hours a day for four days, reviewing what they learned in the first half of the school year, and introducing them to some of the topics they will cover in the final months of the year. I am not sure how Maths is taught in the schools here, but most students struggle. It has been encouraging to see a girl, with some tutoring, increase her Maths marks from failing to passing grades and to see her joy and building confidence.
Meanwhile, God continues to provide and invite me to continue to trust him one step at a time. At the house we are currently in, and can stay in for another few months, we have been able to adapt space in one of the outside rooms into a classroom/meeting space. What a blessing this is. Our home is in a somewhat central location and this makes it much easier for the girls to get to this classroom than to the space we had used for a while. I continue to marvel at how God continues to provide what we need.
Ausi Moselentja: We still have not started building a little house for Ausi Moselentja and her family. Through some past work of 'M'e Lerato, Ausi is now living in an outside room at a near neighbor's, a room where she can have her three younger siblings with her, and where she can also cook. Now the family is not spread about with various neighbors with the place to cook at yet a another neighbor. I am having to trust that the roadblocks in getting started on the building of the house is in God's hand and in time, the right time, we will be able to move forward.
Ausi Moselentja continues to be source of inspiration. She has so little materially, she has so much in terms of responsibility, yet just knowing that there is some one thinking of her brings a huge smile to her face. If anyone has nothing it is she, and being able to bring a bit of encouragement and support into her life is good for the soul.
Thanks for your thoughts, and for those of you who pray for the Mustard Seed, thanks for your prayers. I also want to thank God for those who continue to provide funds now and then. Each day we have the resources we need to continue to serve girls here in Lesotho.
~ Benno ~
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