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 ~

Washington D.C.

On our return trip to Lesotho in August we stopped in Washington D.C. to visit Wendy’s sister and brother-in-law.  It was my first visit to the U.S. capital city.  What I saw left me both fascinated and unsettled.

The U.S. Capital

Washington Monument

My first impression was amazement at the size of some of the monuments.  The massive pillars and huge stone blocks caused me to wonder if America sought to imitate the grandeur of empire that was Rome.  

Jefferson Memorial

Library of Congress

A tour guide at the Capital building later commented that the American founding fathers had been purposeful in pursuing this Roman link in establishing the American “republic”.  The founding fathers purposed to follow the republican model of Rome and that vision came to be reflected in the grandeur of buildings and monuments and the many quotations in and on those building, monuments, and elsewhere.

Interior of the Capital

Quotations and references - drawn from enlightenment thinkers, biblical authors, ancient Greece and Rome, as well as more modern figures – adorned the architecture and statues; quotations extolling freedom, equality, liberty, and reason.

I paused and wondered. Is there today a similar commitment to the lofty ideals expressed?  Are these same ideals revered today, even thought about?  The stairs of the Lincoln memorial were strewn with joggers running its stairs, and other exercisers doing push-ups or step-ups. Not really an environment conducive to reflecting on “government of the people by the people for the people”.  Traffic roared past a quiet little park honoring a poet’s work reflecting on life.  The wealth of accumulated wisdom reflected in monuments and building seemed lost on even Washington legislators, caught up in partisan politics, who daily walk under and past great thoughts and ideals but seem incapable of acting on them.  Or, maybe likes hordes of others, they no longer bother to notice them.

Lincoln Memorial (early morning before the hordes)

Great and noble thoughts that inspired a nation have become ordinary.  Just as we too often take for granted our material blessing in the west, it seems we may also taking for granted our various heritages of freedom and commitment to human liberty, equality and dignity.  Our heritages risk becoming lost amidst the din of populations preoccupied with the pursuit of excitement, spectacle and excess, … if not happiness.  We, in the west, are wealthy in so many ways, yet seem oblivious to what we risk losing if we lose connection with our roots. 

~ Benno ~

Good Times in Canada

Our time in Canada was not all contemplation and reflection. We enjoyed wonderful times with family and friends. Below are some of our memories, and I regret that I could not include pictures of you all.

Near the beginning and the end there were birthdays to celebrate.

My mother, at 80, is an awesome example of someone

who lives each day to the full.

In mid-August, Wendy and I got to hang out on our birthdays with some very special guys.

I did say special, didn't I, ... in many ways.

Hiking is always part of any trip back to Canada. This year was no different.

This little hike looked easy, but was more than I expected ...

... and, I think, more than my hiking buddy expected.

I couldn't forgo taking this shot of him. It made this old fellow feel pretty good to be still standing while this youngster was on the ground. (But in fairness, I should add that he had just completed a rotation of night shifts at his work.)

There was no outdoing these two, however, on our hike into

the Myra tunnels and trestles on the old Kettle Valley Railroad.

With Wendy's sister and family he were able to get up into the ice and snow. A three hour drive, followed by an hour on their quads, left an easy two hour hike to the top.

Taking every precaution to cut the morning chill we would

encounter riding the quads.

Our destination.

On top.

Our travels also took us by sites of past hikes and rekindled old memories. We drove the Icefields Parkway south of Jasper, and stopped at the Athabasca Glacier. It was an interesting moment for me. Whatever the cause, the glaciers of the Rockies are retreating, and the majestic glacier I once explored is considerably shrunken, and in retreat; more than 100 metres back from when I had last visited in the 1980s.

But looking up at a familiar peak (below), I still felt the sense of awe and accomplishment I experienced when I reached the top some 25 odd years ago.

Mount Athabasca

Below are a few more of the many memorable moments and folks that were part of our travels.

Two delightful sweethearts we had last seen when they

left Lesotho with their adoptive parents.

The littlest merman???

Driftwood denizen.

Don't mess with those prairie gals!!

A forest friendly.

Trying hard to appear "not so friendly"?!?

Cowboys.

Fishing derby fun.

Extreme bocce action.

Red Deer's very own, Masotho Man!!

Prairie belle.

And one more, our sons - from sea to shining sea. We were so grateful to be able to be together with them though it was brief. Jared only returned from a field expedition in the high Arctic with the Geological Survey of Canada on August 7, and we managed one weekend all together. Now, they are scattered again, from sea to sea - Dylan back to Nova Scotia on the Atlantic; Jared in the Vancouver area on the Pacific; and Byron somewhere in between, currently Quebec City for a training course before returning to Wainwright.

Them's my boys.

~ Benno ~

Charity

During our trip back to Canada I was reminded anew of how blessed I am. How is it that, due to nothing that I ever did, but solely as my seeming birthright at being born in a place like Canada, I have so much? How I have taken for granted blessings that others only dream about. I have become habituated to what I have and I view them as common, even with distain. In light of this abundance of things and opportunities I was challenged to consider my lack of generosity and charity towards others.

Charity can transcend being concerned for and responding to the physical needs of others. My lack of charity has been my diminished generosity of goodwill to others. How is it that surrounded by so much, I am sparing in my goodwill to and consideration for others.

Life consists of daily interactions with other people. Sometimes I am irked by the behaviors, past or present, of others. It is not that I display ill will towards them (at least not knowingly) as a result, rather, my tendency is to be misery in extending them goodwill. As a result, in the midst of plenty, I withhold what should be so easy to share. Absurd isn’t it.

Another aspect of my miserliness is the times I fail to express gratitude and appreciation to those whose lives enrich mine. My life is filled with individuals and families who truly bless and enrich my life and my experience. I know how I appreciate kind words from time to time, and I am sure others are not a lot different.

This summer I made a point of trying to bring a more gracious and open attitude to the many people with whom I crossed paths with, whether it was a family member, friend, store clerk, stranger, even the driver who may have cut me off. I didn’t always succeed, but where I did I experienced a more deeply satisfying connection with the other.

Many years ago I watched a video featuring a fellow named Dewitt Jones. I was struck by an idea, included almost as an aside in his presentation. He stated “I find I’m approaching the world from an attitude of abundance rather than scarcity, from cooperation rather than competition.”¹ We have an abundance of material things in our western world. I wonder, might it not be an even better world if I, and others, sought to make goodwill and gratitude equally abundant?

~ Benno ~

1 http://www.dewittjones.com/resources/seeing_the_ordinary.htm

Work

One of the joys of our trip home to Canada was the opportunity to walk with, listen to, and share ideas and thoughts with friends and family members. Early in our time in Canada we met with a friend over breakfast in the beauty of her back yard. During the course of our conversation she make a statement. One of the first tasks that God set before mankind was the opportunity to work. However, she was not referring to the “by the sweat of your brow” curse that so many of us can recite. Rather the opportunity to work, our breakfast hostess pointed out, was God offering mankind the opportunity to join with Him in stewarding His creation.

The second chapter of Genesis recounts a summary of creation. Here is recorded the observation that creation included “no man to work the ground”. God’s response to this void was to form man, to create a living being, whom he “put in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” God offered mankind the opportunity to share with him in caring for and enhancing his glorious creation. One writer has offered that mankind was initially placed in the Garden “to be stewards of the garden and function as God’s Vice-regents.”¹ As mankind fulfilled this responsibility, God walked with him in the garden. Somehow work is intrinsic to our well being and dignity as beings, created in the image of God.

In the midst of the Great Depression of the 1930’s President F.D. Roosevelt declared …..

From the F.D.Roosevelt Memorial in Washington D.C.

Maybe this ethic or world view of work providing us with moral worth and dignity as we join with God in stewardship of His creation, has been a blessing of greater worth than we realize or imagine.

Those countries, Canada included, whose histories include some form of this ethic seem to have thrived and been blessed, despite our tendency to pervert stewardship of God’s creation into exploitation. The same author who referred to our roles as vice-regents offers that the traditional African mindset, or worldview, has yet to transcend the curse of “by the sweat of your brow.” He offers that this mindset that work is a curse², especially for the African male, may be one of the factors at the root of Africa’s seemingly intractable brokenness, hopelessness, and despair.

Awed and overwhelmed with how much we have in Canada, I reflected upon our friend’s words and Lesotho’s stark realities. I was intriqued by the possibilitiy that whether we acknowledge God or not, to the degree that we individually or as societies live out God’s ways, we are blessed, and in Canada, beyond measure.

~Benno~

1 Miller, Darrow L. et al, Hope for Africa, Samaritan Strategy Africa Working Group, 2005. pg. 20

2 Ibid. pg. 41

O Canada

I have been away from writing for a long time. First it was getting things wrapped up before heading back to Canada, then it was traveling, and finally it has been being out of the practice of writing. I will try to get back into the practise.

Our trip home to Canada felt different this time.

Western Canada is an incredibility beautiful place, and not just the landscapes. We landed on July 1, and the Alberta prairie was wall to wall green. The roads as we drove from Calgary to Red Deer to Ponoka were wide and smooth; maintained and effortlessly channeling the traffic. As we drove through Red Deer and Ponoka - the beautiful houses, the flowers and lush green lawns, the absence of garbage – I simply soaked in the sights with wonder. I am so blessed. What twist of fate, of happen stance, of God’s undeserved grace, that I was born in the time and place that I was. As I observed and benefited from the vast infrastructure of roads and avenues and services I thought, “May I never complain about paying my taxes again.” I truly receive so much in return.

I attended to certain business matters that needed consideration. Invariably I received helpful and courteous service, (courteous even from the one agency telling me they could no longer be helpful). Clerks, officials, receptionists, whomever, volunteered help and information so that I could make informed decisions and choices. If I remotely approached a sidewalk, all traffic ceased and I was beckoned to cross. Friends, family, acquaintances, welcomed and hosted us with open and gracious generosity. I am blessed beyond description.

Throughout our time and travels we met young people we had met in our past. Invariably they were driving a nice vehicle. They owned a house. They were beginning a family. They had jobs and careers, and many, on the side, had started businesses. They live in a land of opportunity, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Today, weeks later and back in Lesotho, as I write and reflect back on what I experienced in Canada, I am again humbled and awed and overwhelmed. I come from a land of incredible wealth and opportunity. Truly, I am blessed beyond measure to be able to call Canada, “home”.

~ Benno ~

Mariha in Lesotho

The rains have finally let up, and we are enjoying some of the glorious days that mariha (winter) in Lesotho can bring. Bright sunny days; cool yes, but great for going for a walk.

Wendy and I have found a way through a nearby village that does not feel like we are walking through peoples houses. Village areas can be quite intimate. Running water tap means running, or walking, to get it, and it is not uncommon to see women in their pajamas or house coats walking to a nearby tap. With houses that have only one room the visiting takes place outside. So when we walk through a village area we are often walking through a men’s card game or gambling session. Or women doing the family laundry. I am often uncomfortable, feeling that I am wandering through someone’s private space. So when we can find a way through a village that actually follows a road I no longer feel like an intruder. At any rate, on the other side of this village, is a mountain, and a most enjoyable hike it is.

The mountain from our house.

Once through the village we only meet curious folks wondering why two lekhooa (white people) are clambering over the rocks and picking their way up a small trail. The mountain, like so many in Lesotho, is actually a plateau, and on top is a planted forest of gum and pine trees. In this land of few trees, I love the wind sighing in the pines up top - a reminder of home, and warm sunny days wandering along forest trails in the mountains of Alberta. The flat terrain up top also allows one to wander away from the plateau edge and there amidst the trees, the sights and sounds of the city recede; a place to relax, reflect, and let time stand still for a moment. I find it a wonderful place to spend a warm and sunny winter day.

Another mountain seen from our house that is also a fun hike.

Back down in the city and in our house winter is another matter. I have previously mentioned that the warmth of the shorter winter days is not sufficient to drive the cold of the winter nights from the houses. Our living space consists of two rooms that we keep heated, the kitchen and the bedroom. So the open space of the mountain top also provides a welcome respite to the reduced space down below.

Early morning frost, mariha in Lesotho.

Looking forward to summer in Canada, before returning to Lesotho for spring.

~ Benno ~