Faces

Many of the Mustard Seed girls were together recently for a Cherish Day.  They talked about challenges and temptations they face, they ate, and they played games together.  Simple little things, but things that bring them together and allow them to create their own little community.  

The food - after one Cherish Day one girl commented, her first time attending, that they even got fruit.  Something I take so for granted was a special treat for them.  At any rate, I thought I would capture the girls on camera so that you could meet, in pictures, many of the girls of the Mustard Seed.  So while they were playing at games, I was trying to catch a smile.

Getting a smile out of this one is never easy!

While these two ....     

... never stop smiling.

H'mmm, I wonder how my picture will turn out?

A chance to just be a girl, and a break from being a mom to her siblings. 

Do I want to play this game?

Similar to games we played, stay alert and in rhythm or get
bumped to the end of the line.  

Friends.

~ Benno ~ 

Making a Difference - In Small Ways

Sometimes I would like to be able to share stories of what great things God is doing at the Mustard Seed.  Yet, maybe it is in the little things that differences are truly made.  Over the last few weeks, a number of incidents have reminded me that it is in little things that the Mustard Seed is truly serving the girls that we work with, especially those who do not have an adult caregiver.

One of our girls lives at a mission in a village about a thirty-minute drive from Maseru.  Her school teachers have spoken of what they sense as her lostness.  She has aunts and uncles somewhere but their struggles are such that they have little to offer her and she, in a real sense, is abandoned.  It was a pleasure to visit her at school one day recently.  I was warmed by her delight and seeming joy that someone came to see HER. Someone came to ask about how she was doing in school.  Someone came to invite her to spend a day with the other Mustard Seed girls.  We do not get out to see her often, but it seems that when we do, she truly feels connected and part of something.

Another girl, faced with some medical problems, the kind a girl wants to talk with her mother about, was able to connect with her Mustard Seed big sister.  She had someone she could turn to, someone who appropriately passed the need along to me, so that we (the Mustard Seed) could get her to a medical clinic.  A young girl with no parent nor caregiver to turn to, but who had a Mustard Seed big sister that made a difference.

When people have a need here, the cultural practice in terms of asking for something, is most often, indirect.  It has taken me a while to realize that there is often more than just a conversation happening.  I am learning there are times I must listen for the request inferred in the conversation.  Recently one of our girls called.  She reported that on the same day she had a school exam and the need to take her younger brother to a medical appointment.  I am also learning that if I will listen patiently or just ask the girls how I might help, the girls will share a plan they have thought out.  She had a plan, and no, it was not for me to write her test.  She couldn’t get both things done on her own, but with a bit of outside support she had a plan to complete both tasks on the same day.  We confirmed my part in her plan, and her life is just a bit easier because someone was there.

Another family, another grandmother.  Her granddaughter has missed a year of school because there were no funds to pay school fees.   The grandmother is a poor woman, caring for three of her grandchildren, wanting the best for her granddaughter but not knowing where to turn.  I did my best to explain what the Mustard Seed could offer and what was needed to apply for the school bursary for orphans.  She was so grateful - during the next visit she had me sitting on a blanket to cushion the chair she offered, while she sat on the bare cement floor.  With the little direction the Mustard Seed was able to offer her, she is getting together the documents that will allow us to submit an application for funding and hopefully see her granddaughter in school.  She also has a grandson ready to enter high school, and while the Mustard Seed does not work directly with boys, the application process is the same, and we will make sure his application for high school funding also gets submitted.

A final example: the grandmother and caregiver of one of our girls recently died.  The girl is attending a boarding school.  She had no money to pay the transport to get home to her village to attend her grandmother’s funeral.  She had no one else to turn to other than the Mustard Seed.   We will make sure she gets home for the funeral, and a number of Mustard Seed members will also attend.  The girl now faces a much more uncertain future.  We will try to connect with other family members who might support her.  However, without the grandmother, it may be that the Mustard Seed will now become the primary source of support and connection for another girl.

When I am tempted to wonder if the Mustard Seed really makes a difference, these stories remind me that while it may be small things we do, and for only for a small number of girls, what we do is important to those we serve and truly does make a difference.  I want to thank each of you who have contributed in some way to the Mustard Seed.  Whether you have contributed words of encouragement, financial support from time to time, or a personal visit to Lesotho, together, as God’s hands, we are making a difference in the lives of girl orphans in this small corner of the world.  Thank-you.

~ Benno ~

Conversations

One of my delights as a father have been conversations that I get to be part of with my sons.  They are wonderful and caring young men who thoughtfully consider their world and their place in it.  Recently I have had some correspondence with one of them based on our reading of an essay written by Noam Chomsky¹. 

Chomsky raises questions about the disquieting efforts by the west to maintain economic advantage over other parts of the world.  Living here in Africa and on the edge of the Republic of South Africa a question that often comes to my mind is, “Had I been born in South Africa during apartheid, would I have opposed it or just accepted it as the way things were.”  Chomsky’s essay had challenged me to question my western ‘birthright’.  Should I be questioning how it is that I have so much, or do I just accept it as the way things are?  Am I part of a culture that has exploited others to my material benefit?  Below are a couple of exchanges between one son and I as we contemplated these issues.

“It leaves one to wonder.  Wondering about the course of history and whether we as Christians will be known in this stage of history as mere pawns or non-entities. …  Do we really yearn for another Kingdom and take the time to think through what it would entail?  Are we complicit in the great injustice of our time?  Yes.  Are we complicit of believing in a doctrine of scarcity and in so doing hoarding in excess and calling it "prosperity" to the detriment of others?  Yes.  Have we baptized competition and conquest as a noble and necessary means of human interaction rather than wrestling with the harder to enforce (because you can't!) doctrine of compassion, generosity, and cooperation?”

“A term that has come to my mind often, of late, a play on past references to 'godless communism', is 'godless capitalism'.  In the end, godless capitalism may be more insidiously suffocating and destructive to the Christian church than the ruthless, overt persecution of godless communism.”

“I'm looking for that conviction; to be willing to stand up to the gates of hell in defiance. To yearn for, trust in, and act out another Kingdom other than the one of the world. One of justice, righteousness, love, peace, hope, forgiveness, compassion, humility.”

Pastor Dan Cochrane at CrossRoads church in Red Deer, recently offered some similar thoughts².

“A lot of people get rich on the back of others. … The cry of people who’ve been exploited … God hears.” 

“As a Christian I must always be in a position financially where it’s impossible to live without trust in God.”

Do I have the willingness to hear what God hears and the courage to question my supposed birthright and how much of it is derived "on the back of others"?  Am I willing to stand for something different?  It is easy to talk the talk.  Walking the talk, questioning my birthright and being willing to live financially where I need to trust God, do I have the faith and courage to go there?

~ Benno ~ 

1 Noam Chomsky’s essay can be found at http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/201192514364490977.html 

2 Pastor Dan’s full message from 18 Sept. 2011 can be found at http://www.crossroadschurch.ab.ca/sermons/2011-09-18-FaithThatMakesADifference2.mp3

Down by the River

At the encouragement of a good friend, I have been again trying to take the first day of the month for a time of solitude and reflection.  In early October, rather than climbing a mountain, I took a drive on unfamiliar roads and found myself at a beautiful spot alongside a clear and quietly running river.  I thought that I would return in November, which I did.  But things were not the same.

I parked in a slightly different spot, tucking the vehicle in behind some trees for shade.  Then when I walked down to the river I found the river was dry.  (After the promise of spring rains, with three nice showers in late September, there has been only wind and dust and the word drought forming on the lips of concerned Basotho.)  Despite no water it was a quiet spot where I could enjoy the sun or the shade.  I had even brought a lawn chair and so set to making myself comfortable. The quietness did not last. 

Sometime that morning, either folks from a nearby village or travelers on the road had noticed my vehicle tucked in behind the trees and had became suspicious.  Or maybe they became suspicious of me clearing out some undergrowth to make a more comforable space to sit in the shade of the trees.  It also must have been a quiet day at the local police detachments. 

The first police vehicle showed up to investigate about two hours after I arrived.  They had received calls about a suspicious and possibly stolen vehicle.  The officers were good natured and polite and after a brief discussion they left me to my quietness.  I settled back into some reading.  About thirty minutes later I hear another vehicle arrive.  Another police vehicle it was, from a bit more distant detachment.  These officers too were polite and good natured.  They asked if I was not afraid being there alone, and insisted that I take the phone number for the detachment before returning to their vehicle.  As I turned to walk back to my chair in the shade, yet another vehicle arrived, with another two policemen, from an even further detachment.  They also had received calls.  Not once did any of the police suggest I leave or that I was doing something improper, mostly they just asked about what I was doing there alone.  Two groups took my address and phone number.  Back I went to my chair and back to reading in Proverbs.

The section I was reading made reference to being prudent.  As I was rereading the section wondering what I was to learn, my car alarm went off.  Most likely a fly bussing around inside had set off the motion sensor, I thought, but by this time I was beginning to think that maybe what I was to learn this day was to practice being prudent and maybe just leave.  I gathered up my things.  Back at the vehicle it had been just a fly or something such that had set off the alarm.  There was no one there. I departed in peace.

I will surely have to find the chief of the area before I return and make sure he knows I am down there by the river.  It is a beautiful little spot and when the rains come and the river is again flowing it will also be a great spot for a picnic.  But on this day, it was not the spot for me to read and reflect.

~ Benno ~

Weddings

It is spring in Lesotho, and as in Canada, it seems spring is wedding time.  We were invited to three weddings in October.  You don’t need a specific invite here.  You attend church and the invitation is to all who are there, as well as those interested from the community.  (How families plan for food I don’t know.)  In one case we actually did receive a special invitation card. There seems to be some expectation that one responds to the blanket invitation.  I was pointedly asked a couple times why I did not attend the one wedding that I missed.

Wedding in Lesotho vary, but like funerals here, many speeches by family and others are often part of the protocols, making for a long, sometimes very, long day.  Wendy and I both attended one of the weddings.  We know the couple well, the groom was a former student of Wendy’s.  He is also a current board member at the Mustard Seed.  We also had the delight of hosting a couple of his former classmates in our home who were back from university for the wedding.  Another thing about this wedding day was that we now share an anniversary date.  The day was our thirty fourth anniversary..

The start time on the invitation was 9:00 a.m.  The question is always, “So when will it really start?”  There is never a definitive answer.  Since we were helping with some small things for he set up, and being good ‘westeners’, we were there before 9:00.  Little things came up where something needed to be picked up, and someone’s transportation didn’t work so I was running here and there.  I was finally heading back to the venue at 11:20, and whom should I pass on the road, the wedding entourage!  I arrived just ahead of them with the guest with transport woes, and while parking they got back in front of us.  We didn’t have a seat for the bride’s entry, but we were there for her entry, even though we were two and a half hours late. 

Dancing the groom into the ceremony.

The ceremony ran it course, and included the aspects of Basotho weddings that I really enjoy.  These are not somber, down to the smallest detail, scripted events.  There is dancing in the aisles, spontaneous cheering and applause during the ceremony, more dancing and singing.  

The bride and groom leading a song.

By the time the ceremony had run its course, two and a half hours later, even members of the wedding party had run out of energy.  

There was a break for photos, we and the crew we were with headed off for ice cream, and then back for the reception dinner.  

Ready for the ice cream run.

By the time dinner was over it is getting late in the afternoon and things seemed to be winding down.  I left and drove one our entourage to their village before arriving back at home around six expecting to find Wendy there.  Nope!  She didn’t get home until about 10:00 p.m.  I had missed out on another two and a half hours of singing and dancing and speeches, after which Wendy had been driving individuals to there various homes before calling it a day.

The second wedding I was asked to chauffer the groomsmen to the venue and back.  So I was committed for the duration.  At a brief meeting before the wedding though, I got the impression the groom was determined run closer to schedule.  I never did get the official start time, but I think it was 10:00 a.m.  The bride and groom had both arrived at the wedding venue by about 10:30.  Unfortunately most of the guests were only beginning to arrive so the bride patiently waited in her car for about 30 minutes as a procession of guests passed by.  She finally was able to walk down the aisle at about 11:00.

This ceremony was more focused, and the fewer speeches entailed fewer words, much fewer.  Even with the dancing and singing in the audience all was wrapped up in about an hour.  Again I was taken surprized by the cheering and applause after each of the couple said their vows.  I can’t imagine such a joyous response in Canada.  

The wedding entourage dancing their way out.

Photos followed.  At the last minute I was commandeered to take photos as one of the photographers had failed to show.  The photo session was organized, and went quickly.

A quiet moment for the bride and groom.

The pre-dinner speeches were longer, but everything, including the after dinner activities and clean up, was wrapped by late afternoon.  I was there to almost the end, helping the groomsman load tables and chairs for transport before drving them back to the city.  Once we were all back in Maseru they sent me home while they did the last of the unloading. 

I was home by 6:00 where Wendy had spent the day marking and preparing for an expedition to Thabo Bosiu, a small mountain plateau.  The next day she was leading a group of about 60 students and teachers on a hike and weiner roast.  She had developed quite a following of hiking and weiner roast devotees, but that is her story to tell.


~ Benno ~