There is a worship song I have learned while on the World Race, it goes like this:
I will lean not on my own understanding.
My life is in the hands of the maker of heaven.
I give it all to you God trusting you to make something beautiful out of me.
And I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open.
Something that God has been teaching me on the race is to walk with my hands wide open, willing and ready for anything. Coming to Lesotho has been a perfect time to practice this. Lesotho is a brand new country for the World Race and my squad gets to be the first squad to explore this new territory. Because of this we really had no idea what we were coming to when we left Swaziland for Lesotho. So I have climbed this mountain with hands wide open and in my first week this is what I’ve found:
Sometimes 24 passenger buses can’t make it up the mountain
Lesotho sits in the midst of the Drakensberg Mountains and our ministry site this month is at 2,700 meters (about 8,000 ft). Thus in order to get to our ministry site we had to go through some steep mountain passes. At a few points on our drive through the mountains our bus stalled and we had to get out, give the bus a push, and walk to the top before getting back in. This is all part of the adventure of exploring a new country.
Blessing on top of blessing
When we finally got to our ministry site at 10pm we found blessings on top of blessings. Our hosts had prepared a wonderful meal for us, we found rooms with mattresses and warm blankets (no tents for us!), and our hosts speak English making it really easy to communicate and build relationships. Every day I find myself feeling more and more blessed by these people who live in a small village atop a mountain.
Sometimes ministry looks like throwing stones
This month our main ministry is building a children’s home for AIDS orphans in the area. 1/3 of the building has cinder block walls built up and there are trenches to outline where the rest of the building will be. On our first day my team was pointed to 4 piles of rocks and told to put them in the building, so we spent all morning and afternoon chucking rocks through the windows. Mission accomplished, all the rocks made it in the building and we had a great time doing it.
I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open. I have no idea what the rest of this month holds but I want to continue to live with hands wide open being ready for whatever happens.
Prayer requests:
It is very cold here (around freezing most days and even colder at night), pray for health and the ability to stay warm in a country where insulation and heaters don’t seem to exist.
Strength and endurance as we do manual labor this month, pray for no injuries and quick recovery for sore muscles.
Strong relationships with ministry hosts and others we come in contact with. This is going well but since we are the first World Racers to be in this country we really want to leave a good impression on the ministry and people here.
Full funding by July 1st I’m $2573 away from being fully funded. Pray that this last little bit comes in by the final deadline.
