Lesotho: Back Home

I found our return home to Lesotho was a more difficult experience this time.  It is the dry season and the end of winter.  The hills, never verdant at the best of times, were brown and dusty.  Livestock had chewed the dry grass down to the ground and with no grass to hide it, the garbage seemed everywhere. The sky was filled with smoke; from heating fires, veld fires, and distance cane fires.  It was bleak and drab and dirty.  After the lush green and beauty of Canada, it was a rude welcome back.

But, as long as the earth endures, summer and winter, seedtime and harvest will never cease, and spring has arrived.  Even amidst the dust and smoke and dirt the peach blossoms had been heralding that winter would end, and the early spring showers arrived right on cue to settle the dust, clear the smoke, and encourage the green blades of grass pushing up from the parched earth.  The showers did bring cooler weather and a late frost the first week October, but now there is no stopping the arrival of summer.

Compounding the dust woes when we arrived was road upgrading that is occurring in the neighborhood.  The trucks and equipment added more dusk to the air, but the positive is that at sometime in the future we should have a tarred road right to our house.  With the dust came daily water outages as the road construction necessitated burying many of the water lines deeper under the road.  It has meant some adjustments, like making sure the laundry get started early, and planning what is on the supper menu so that vegetables can be washed before the water goes off in the morning.  Even when the water doesn’t come on until the evening, I am just thankful that at least it comes on, most evenings, and I find myself dancing a little jig of joy each time it comes back on, or when I find it on when I thought it would be off.

Despite the dust, and drab, and water woes however, I am back where I belong for this season of my life.  It has been good to reconnect with our Basotho friends and the girls of the Mustard Seed.  Through them God has again reminded me it is his work.  I am along to learn the lessons he has for me.  Things have happened and it wasn’t me.  In one area a church group has begun to meet weekly with the local Mustard Seed families to encourage them and help them to understand God’s desires for them.  A couple of our girls who had been making poorer choices are choosing better paths.  One is behaving very responsibly and has become a considerable support and help to her caregivers at a time when they had a significant need. 

Another young woman, one of Wendy’s former students, who has patiently waited on God to provide a university opportunity received a call the first Wednesday of October.  The bus was leaving for medical school in Zimbabwe on Saturday.  What a flurry of activity it was for her getting paper work and packing done, and goodbyes said.  But today she is realizing her dream as she adjusts to a new country and situation and back to being a student.  Our role in the lives of these, and others, has been little more that to just believe in them and walk with them.  God weaves the story.  And how he weaves.

The need for a men’s group has been on my thoughts for many months.  Working with the church we attend, a home group for men has been started in our house.  The second week a new fellow attended.  He was hurting and had contacted our church and been directed to our group.  He shared his hurt.  His marriage has failed.  He is caring for his two children and struggling with his small business.  As we talked more the next week, I learned that his wife is someone I know, the woman who three years ago helped me find a house for an orphan family.  She also attends our church.  I don’t want to presume God’s plans, but I wonder at what weaving of family reconciliation he might accomplish in this family, and in the family of another man who has attended.

How the next year unfolds, I do not know, but I know that I am back where I am supposed to be.  The women on the board at the Mustard Seed are dreaming God sized dreams.  The men’s group will lead who knows where. We will share with our Basotho friends good times and difficult.  The school year is winding down for our Mustard Seed girls, and we have another 4-6 applications to add to our number in the next school year.  Rude welcome back or not, I am looking forward to experiencing what God has planned in my life and the lives of others in the year ahead here in Lesotho.

~ Benno ~