I just finished my tenth month of the Race in Mokhotlong, Lesotho and it was definitely not what I pictured when I thought about Africa. I had no clue before I came to Lesotho that it actually snows there. Surprise! It does. In fact, we were delayed in traveling from South Africa to Lesotho because the roads had a layer of snow on them and that made it too dangerous to travel. Lesotho has lots of mountains and it is gorgeous, but it is rural and rugged. There were horses, donkeys, and sheep everywhere! It was so fun! Many of the people in Mokhotlong are shepherds or farmers and some of the shepherds literally spend their whole lives outside taking care of the animals and don’t even get the chance to go to school as children. The people are tough and resilient, but at the same time they are very kind.
Ministry last month was lots of public speaking. We went to the local hospital every morning and gave a short devotional and prayed for people. Twice a week we got to help with a soup kitchen, where we would give an encouraging word from the Bible and then we had the opportunity to serve the people their meal. We spoke at a little computer class. We preached at church every Sunday and gave our testimonies. Once a week we would go to the local prison and share with the people there. We spoke at youth group, and we did a women’s ministry for the pregnant women at the hospital. It was a lot! When we weren’t speaking we worked in a garden that the church has to feed the children at the orphanage/school that it runs for the community.
I loved playing with the kids from the school! They were so cute! I taught them how to high five and do knuckles and they thought that was the greatest thing in the world. Whenever they would see us coming they would all run up to us and give us a high five. 🙂
The ministry that we did for the pregnant women was super fun as well. We jumped rope, shared a word of encouragement from the Bible, and then we gave them a spa day and washed their feet and painted their nails. We also got to pray for all of them and their babies. I could tell that it meant a lot to them that we would take the time to really see them and care for them.
Prison ministry was very impactful and we could really see God moving there. The inmates were so excited that we came to see them that they did a welcoming song and dance for us the first time we came. We would worship with them in Sotho, and then we would share a word. Their hearts were so open to what we had to say, and 15 men became Christians while we were there!! Praise God!!
But none of what we did this month would have been possible without the help of our faithful pastor friends translating for us and Elijah, Ma Blessing, and Joseph for taking such good care of us and making sure we had everything that we needed.
Last month was challenging for me personally and with ministry. Because I am so close to going home it was easy to think about it a lot and I started really missing my friends and family and just the convenience of everything at home. The average temperature in Lesotho at night was around 50 degrees. Which wasn’t frigid by any means, but we did not have any heating in our house and the bathroom was outside about 100 feet from the house. Again, it wasn’t terrible and I was very thankful for real toilets and we even had hot water most of the time for showers. It just wasn’t super comfortable and it made it really easy to miss home (did I mention that there were rats constantly running around the kitchen and in the ceiling every night?) As for ministry, I have grown a lot in public speaking since I have been on the Race and I can share my testimony or a Bible study/word of encouragement without doing any preparation (I would prepare if they told me ahead of time, but usually as we were walking somewhere one of our hosts would say “so which one of you will be sharing the Word today?”) I still don’t enjoy speaking, and it takes a lot of effort for me, but God has continued to be faithful over and over to give me the words to say and the courage to say them.
Now this one day I was preparing for my little Bible study/encouragement and I started thinking about the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. I love the story of Joseph and how even when he is going through major trials (getting sold into slavery and being thrown in prison when he didn’t do anything wrong) he keeps his faith in God and continues to serve with excellence. He goes from being a slave to being the second most powerful man in all of Egypt in 13 years. But it took 13 years!! In Romans 5:3-5 it talks about how going through trials builds perseverance which leads to character which then leads to hope and all of that builds our relationship with God. Joseph’s character didn’t grow overnight, and he would not have been ready for the responsibility of running a country at 17. But he continued to trust God and he was faithful in whatever position he was put in. In Romans 8:2 it says “in ALL things God works for the good of those who love Him.” That was true in Joseph’s life and I believe it is true for my life as well, but how many times do I moan and groan when I am going through a trial for even a short amount of time instead of taking a step back and trusting that God will somehow use it for my good? The answer is a lot, but thankfully my character is starting to grow more and more and it is becoming increasingly easier to trust God. So anyways I was geeking out about all of this, but there was so much information that it was too long to fit into a 5 – 10 minute encouragement, and then my teammate suggested to my horror that I should preach on Sunday.
I had never preached in my whole life and my first instinct was to freak out and say no. Sermons are a much bigger deal than just giving a little encouragement, and it was going to be our last Sunday and our hosts had assured us that the church would be packed. Everything in me wanted to say no and have one of my teammates that is more gifted in public speaking do it. But God had already giving me all of this stuff to talk about and I couldn’t very well just ignore it. So I did it. And guess what? People fell asleep in the middle of my sermon!!! Now the congregation was kind of set up for failure because by the time I got to speak church had already been going on for at least three hours, but it is like that every Sunday for them so they should be used to it right? Apparently not… but again God was faithful in giving me the words to say, calming my nerves, and helping me stay focused in spite of all the distractions. I kept praying and saying “even if this is for one person it is worth it so I will keep going.” After church several people came up to me and thanked me for sharing which was super sweet, but what made my day was when one of my teammates told me that there was a guy that was listening to me intently and was even taking notes about what I was talking about. God gave me my one with an unknown number of bonus ones thrown in. 🙂
I am still looking forward to going home, but I am going to make the most of each day that I have left on the Race and continue to step into the things that God is calling me to do because I know He can do more than I can ask or even imagine. Who knows? I could be like Joseph and be the vice president one day. Haha
In Him,
Heidi
