I’m haven’t been the type to blog about the particular ministries that I work with on a monthly basis, but for the sake of my supporters back home, as well as future Racers who are looking into what “manistry” looks like, I wanted to detail a little bit of what this month in Lesotho has looked like.
We first learned about the opportunity to do manistry at our debrief before month 10 in Swaziland. Needless to say, the men of our squad were mostly ecstatic to finally get this opportunity, while the ladies of the squad were forlorn at the thought of losing our presence… that’s what I’m telling myself at least.
Personally, I had been eagerly waiting for manistry ever since I first started to get to know the guys on this squad. Fortunately I was on a squad of men who didn’t fit the bill of what I thought a typical male Racer would look like. I assumed I would be with a squad of guys who only loved to play the guitar all day, read Joel Osteen books, and seek out any opportunity they can find to try to prove the presence of the Holy Spirit to anyone who’s watching. Fortunately this was not the case (at least with the men that we have remaining) and over the course of the year, I’ve been able to learn a lot from the men I’ve served with, and they’ve inspired me not just to be a harder worker and a better man, but a stronger Christian, and leader for my community and future family.
Taking all these things into account, I knew I would be in for an awesome month, and I haven’t been let down by our month together in the remote reaches of Lesotho (if you’re unfamiliar with Lesotho, it’s that blob in the middle of South Africa).
We arrived here at the end of April, only to find that our location had no electricity, and all power would only be coming from solar energy, as well as the occasional generator.
Since then, we’ve been sleeping on mattresses covering a cow-dung floor; we’ve only had sunlight until around 5:00 pm, since this is the start of winter here; although daylight hours are mostly pleasant, our night temperatures can dip into the high 30’s; and we have to plan and strategize for every ounce of solar power that we can muster… all while the majority of our girls are living it up on the beaches of Cape Town and Jeffrey’s Bay.
All these things aside, this will probably go down as my favorite month of the Race.
I’ve been itching to do manual labor for the whole year, and we’ve had a few instances of light labor in a handful of countries, but for the most part, I’ve been unable to get my hands dirty for a solid month of work. In that respect, this is just the month that I needed to finish the Race. For the last 2 months, it’s been something of a struggle to find work at our ministry sites. While we’ve had great contacts, they haven’t exactly had loads of work for us to do, and I didn’t want to go home with the feeling of having gone the final 3 months without truly doing much real work,
And to the credit of our ministry, Africa 4 Jesus, they’ve made out like bandits in having 9 hard-working men come to their ministry this month.
We’ve dug trenches, buried a septic tank, built a new bathroom, started work on a new church awning, constructed a fence, and discipled to the local villages… all that with one week of ministry still remaining. Sadly, we’re going to put to shame the amount of work that almost any other team could do here over the course of a month. No offense to the women of the World Race, but putting 9 strong young men together at one time will dwarf the amount of work that any coed World Race team could ever muster.
If you haven’t picked up on my subtext, what I’m saying is that this month has been awesome, despite being our most isolated and comfort-free month of the Race.
In our free time, we’ve had time for lots of adventures, and the bonds that I’ve formed with these gentlemen are priceless. I can’t say that I’m surprised that it’s been a great month, because I knew that I loved every man here, but nonetheless, I can’t express how thankful I am that I’ve been able to have this be my final month of the Race.
So friends and loved ones who are reading this, I’ll be home in just a couple short weeks, and praise God, I will be plenty rejuvenated after this final month of the Race, and I can’t wait to tell everyone about what the Lord has done in Lesotho over the last month of our Race,
