Deep in the mountains of Lesotho there is a small village called Agupé. This is the village that my team and I were able to serve. It is a small cluster of huts and cement brick houses that are draped hillside. Well, more like mountainside, especially when we would walk all the way up and all the way down a couple times a day. Although this village was covered in poverty, it was also so beautiful. There were pink peach trees everywhere, mountain views in every direction that seemed to be layered like a 4th grade paper collage project. There were goats, donkeys, sheep, and bulls all sharing the land as they followed their shepherds. Everyday at some moment during our walk I had to stop and sit in the beauty that was all around me. This village also had no electricity, no water, no bathrooms, no heat, and no roads. To get water one had to walk to a pump in the middle of the village, or sometimes just a stream. The bathrooms were deep holes in the ground with tin walls coming up on all sides for privacy. And people stayed warm by lighting small fires in their homes to the point that it was hard to breathe from constant smoke whenever I was invited inside. Also in the middle of this village was a store. This store was no bigger than the size of a trailer. In this store you could find all things you needed for life in the village. Yeast and maize flour (the two ingredients needed to make the favorited dish of “pop”,) hand wash laundry soap, potatoes, onions, small candies, and my favorite of all, makoenyas or also called “fatty cakes”- you get the picture. Also in this store was a young girl named Janet.
Janet is a 21 year old girl and is now a dear friend and sister in Christ. She runs the village store all on her own. Which means she pays the rent, does the inventory, goes into the city which is 3 hours away to stock the shelves, and also does the baking when they are selling the “fatty cakes”. On top of this she is raising her 4 year old son as well as helping to raise 3 other children in the village. She is also working as hard as she can and saving money so that she can go back to school and finish 11th and 12th grade. She is also an only child because both of her siblings passed away, and she moved to a whole new village when she got married and now is not near her family besides her husbands side.
What drew me to Janet at first was her smile. She has so much going on and has undeniably faced hardships but her smile seems as if it transcends it all. It is big and joyful and completely contagious. As I spent more and more time with her I also learned that she loves Jesus. At first I was conflicted, should I spend time with someone who doesn’t know the love of Christ instead? But as I looked around and talked with her more it was clear that she did not have many people in the village to lean on and live in biblical community with. I felt it was equally as important to pour into her and lift her up in encouragement, as it was to share the gospel.
Spending time with her in her shop, with the little ones and her cat ginger, was the highlight of my month. Me and two other girls from my team would give her scriptures and we would talk back and forth about the bible, you could tell not only that she loved it but that she had been craving it. Every time we would walk in she would grab her bible and say, “okay, what verse do you have for me today”. We would sing together, pray together, and laugh together. When it was time for us to leave Malealea I felt a small sense of discouragement. I did not want to leave Janet, who was she going to go to for scripture or for encouragement? But I was quickly reminded that the work that we do for the Lord is never in vain, and that He was looking after her long before I got there and will look after her long after I have left.
So to my sweet friend Janet who I already miss dearly, I pray that you would continue to walk with the Lord. That you would be a light on a hill and encourage others in the village. I trust with confidence in the Lord that He will provide and sustain you, and that He has a beautiful plan for your life.
~Katie
