It will be missed ...

We are in the midst of moving again. Our time in our current house has come to an end, and we are moving on to another place. The house that had been home for the past year has left us with many, many wonderful memories. The house was near to down town and very accessible, and it provided a never ending string of visitors.

Together with them we enjoyed the house and the yard.

It was a place of fun and many memories.

No house was truly home unless Wendy had had a batch of her students over for a meal.

And no such meal was truly complete until Wendy had had her guys in the kitchen helping with the dishs.

Spring time peach blossoms. We will miss the peach harvest this year. We almost missed the apricot harvest. One young woman was enjoying green apricots and we had to shoo her away from the tree so that we could enjoy some ripened fruit.

The swings always drew attention, and action. The garden behind provided lots of work, but also fresh veggies.

The grape arbour was a cool place to sit and relax, out of the sun,

and in season, the grapes were great.

Wendy often thought the yard was too big to manage, but these guys were enjoying the space and an opportunity to kick about a ball.

The yard also provided a great place for a braii (barbecue) ...

... and for water fights ...

... which the dogs unwittingly got in on from time to time.

Night time shenanigans.

There were those who would just 'drop in', but

who never hesitated at an offer for something to eat.

But in return, they offered to wash the car, now and then, ...

... if you call this washing the car.

Most of all, I think they dropped in just to say hello and to share their lives with ours. We have been so blessed.

So while we will miss very much our past home, I just need to believe that as we move to a new place, there too, God has a purpose and plan for us.

~ Benno ~

Aversion Therapy

There was a time when I was accused of practising hiking aversion therapy on family and friends. Someone would ask to go hiking with (Uncle) Benno and I would pick out some enjoyable, little, hike. 'Enjoyable' and 'little' however, being very subjective. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm often resulted in less than enthusiastic interest in doing any more hikes, at least not with Uncle Benno. Now Wendy has taken on the practice; only she sets them up on the first hike.

Wendy has a group of students that have formed a hiking club - a way to work off their activity hours, a requirement for their IB diploma. She took a small group of them on a delightful little hike up a mountain here in Maseru. They had a wonderful time. It took six hours going as slow or as fast as the students wanted, and sprinkling in long relaxing breaks. Wendy and her hike must have gotten rave reviews as the interest in the next hike was off the chart with way more students interested than she could possibly take. If only they had known where she was taking them! Or, maybe she was just wanting to thin future ranks.

Wendy's crew, 28 students, and our goal,

... the peak left of center.

She picked Thaba Machache. A difficult eight to nine hour climb with significant elevation gain. I was along for technical support (technical support that was lacking as it turned out). We hit the trail at 8:00 a.m. The first ninety minutes or so we followed trails over pleasantly rolling terrain, past numerous little rural villages. Then the trail started up, ... and up, ... and up, over a rock and boulder strewn trail. The rest breaks began to almost equal the hiking time, including an extended break assisting one girl with leg cramps. Undetered, we continued on.

Weary walker, "Aren't we there yet?"

After the boulder strewn climbing there followed a short easy stretch. Then, it was onto a narrow little path, and up, up, up again. This was where the technical support became confused. At a critical saddle he led right, when the summit was left. It was disappointing to have not reached the real summit, after all the effort expended. However, in hindsight we may not have gotten everyone down if we had tackled the real summit. As it was, it was getting past 2:00 p.m. when we reached the top of a lower summit, and a few of the hikers didn't make it that far.

The summit we reached was the third bump in the distance.

Tired, ... with sore feet, at the top.

The trip out was the usual struggle to keep those "still going strong" connected with those "tired and weary". Pretty soon we were strung out with more than two kilometers between the front runners and the stragglers. Wendy tried to find a middle position and I brought up the rear. I had a number of very weary walkers with me. What had been an enjoyable stroll in, over rolling terrain and past quaint villages, seemed an interminal trudge out. One student started experiencing severe leg cramps and another simply ran out of blood sugar. Luckily someone still had most of a chocolate bar and by coaxing them to get some sugar into their systems and to drink the last of their water we were able to continue.

It was 6:30 p.m., and the sun had set, when we finally straggled out to the where the others were waiting. While some in my group were vowing never to go hiking with Mrs. Fath again, some of the earlier arrivers had found their second wind and were dancing to the beat of music blaring from one of the taxis.

Line dancing after almost ten hours on the trail.

Along on this trip was a guest hiker - an intrepid, 69 year old world trekker, whose trekking has included routes in the Himalayas and the Andes, as well as the Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea. His comment on Wendy's little hike, "I have never been so knackered at the end of a day."

I told Wendy she owes it to her squad to take them on a gentle and enjoyable trip. They have earned something less daunting, and more enjoyable.

Resilience. Three weeks later there were students asking,

"When is the next hike, Mrs. Fath?"

~ Benno ~

"Doing my Duty" - Reflections

"Doing My Duty" was a difficult blog entry to write. Today some random thoughts and reflections subsequent to writing it.

Some days after writing, I was still arguing with God and a piece by Elizabeth Elliot. She wrote that while to some "it is a very bad thing to question God. ... [it] depends ... on whether it is an honest search, in faith, for his meaning, or whether it is a challenge of unbelief and rebellion."1 Humph, I thought, God is able to deal with even my moments struggling with unbelief and questioning. Somehow though, my contemplation of her statement led to a feeling of conviction - I need to live out in my life what I was accusing God of not doing.

I was accusing God of being distant and remote, not near and supportive, as I struggled with failure and disappointments. But where had I been when the Mustard Seed girls were struggling? I was discouraged and had distanced myself. I wallowed in self pity and was neither near nor supportive of them.

Job ... I thought. I would check out Job. He had been through a lot. He questioned God. What I learned about Job was that, when confronted by God, Job responded, "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. ... Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know."2 God's plans, his intentions, in his timing, are too wonderful for me to grasp.

Later, I was reading a bit of the Stephen Lungu story. In 1962 Stephen was an angry, violent, young black man in a township near Harare in what was then Rhodesia. On 14 May 1962, with members of his gang, he had entered a missionary tent meeting armed with petrol bombs, bent on destruction and mayhem. While his gang members did do their best to create mayhem, Stephen Lungu met God amidst the mayhem and confusion. He left, transformed.

Thirty years later, having preached all over Africa and around the world, Stephen Lungu was called as a last minute, guest speaker at a Methodist Church outside of Durban in South Africa. That evening, as he was relating his story, the church service was disrupted by two little old white ladies. Leaving their seats, they approached the pulpit and pressed an old Bible into Stephen's hands, open to a page where in faded, hard to read ink, were the word's "14 May 1962 - Lord Jesus, will you save one gang leader tonight."3 One of the old women explained, "We were housewives in Durban. But we knew about the Dorothea Mission's meetings in Highfield Township outside of Harare, and so we were praying. We asked God for a gang leader."4 Thirty years later, God had arranged for them to meet with his answer to their short and simple prayer.

In response to this 'reunion', Stephen Lungu wrote, "Each one of us is called to be a witness to Christ, and so each one of us will find ourselves helping in someone else's faith chain. God will use you, in no matter how small or indirect a way. Your prayers, your faithfulness in doing your bit, are all that matters."5

Another day, ... listening to the pastor of our local church. He talked of seeds. We are called to sow. Some seeds produce a harvest within weeks, he noted, and then the harvest is over. Other seeds, and he used the examples of a grape vine and an olive tree, need to planted and tended, a scion grafted on, and then, maybe five, six, seven, years later, the first harvest. But the harvest, like that of those Durban housewives, continues for years, and decades; sometimes even generations.

Yes, there can be, there will be, discouragements and disappointments, but I need to hang on to Stephen Lungu's words. My prayers, my faithfulness; doing my bit - 'doing my duty' - is all that matters. What God will do with my bit is something I may never know nor understand, something that may be "too wonderful for me to know".

Thank-you to those of you who have been doing your bit, whatever it may be, to help me along my faith walk.

~ Benno ~

1 Elliot, Elizabeth. On Asking God Why. Grande Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell, 1989 (pg. 18)

2 Job 42:2,3 (NIV)

3 Lungu, Stephen with Commes, Anne. Out of the Black Shadows. Oxford, UK: Monarch Books. 2001 (pg. 236)

4 Ibid (pg. 236)

5 Ibid (pg. 238)