Disclaimer: I wrote this blog and never posted it… Sorry for all of my readers! I have another one in the queue. You’ll have some more reading soon.
So, I’m not in Zimbabwe. I’m in the “Mountain Kingdom,” Lesotho. That little country completely surrounded by South Africa on the map. Zimbabwe was showing some unrest following widespread protests to gasoline price hikes, leading to a shutdown of the country’s internet and various human rights abuses by the government. So the call was made for us to be rerouted. Now, the 8 men from our squad are now some 6200 feet above sea level ministering to shepherds, and teaching English at the local school.
This is my last month in Africa. When we first showed up, you could have told me it was Nepal with the countless peaks, and gloomy weather that welcomed us. We spent our first few days here huddled in the common room with coffee and card games. Once ministry began, the sun broke through, and I’ve been applying sunscreen consistently.
Life here is simple. Men either shepherd, farm or work some form of construction. Women keep the home and children in order. There is no utilities out here. Electricity is gathered by however many solar panels the family can afford, water is gathered from communal taps, pit toilets are the only means of relieving oneself. Many of the local homes have rock and mud walls with a thatched roof. Those who are better off enjoy CMU block structures with tin or steel roofing.
Though simple, it is also very raw. Many of the families we talk to have lost several children. Farming on the terraces of the surrounding hillsides are completely dependent on the rain that given year. The local communities struggle with alcohol and drug use, particularly the younger generation. Many men go off to work in the diamond mines of South Africa to make a living, a number of them are never heard from again. Though many children attend school, few have an kind of opportunity to pursue something apart from what their parents do. We often see 7-8 year olds tending the herds in a kind of indentured servitude.
Even though many people would profess to know who Jesus is, and Lesotho is a largely Christian nation, it’s only a label. As zealous as some of the local churches may be, they struggle mightily. The Dutch Reformed Church no longer holds services. The Catholic Church only gets a priest once every few months, and services are held in a classroom in the lower part of the valley. Many men cannot make it to church because they must tend to their flocks. The vast majority of Christians here view their faith very transactionally, asking God for prosperity and protection for their families. I can’t blame them, as I mentioned, life here is very raw.
So it’s quite the task to go out, and share about a faith that doesn’t take care of all of your problems in this life. We wander and hear the stories from shepherds who haven’t had a day off in 8, 10, 15 years. They can’t make it to church. They live in almost complete solitude, particularly in the months when the snows force them to live in small huts in valleys several days away from their homes. It’s easy to get them on board with God as Creator, and Jesus as His Son, Savior of the world. But offering a relationship outside of what they can “get” from this being is difficult. The problems people face here are REAL. We’re talking food, water, shelter. There isn’t a safety net if they don’t make it. They need real solutions in their lives.
Like I said, I cannot blame them for this mindset. It’s the most natural one they could arrive at. Yet, as humans we naturally focus on everything going wrong in our lives. Even if everything is okay right now, eventually something will happen. For the people here they might lose a cow, the rains might not arrive, their health might fail, their house could fall down, a family member may die. If they only see God as present in the good times, when the bad times come they will abandon Him and fall into ways of the flesh. What is one to do?
We encourage gratitude in all times. To recognize the bad things that happen, and to bring them before God in supplication, but to understand there is a Promise greater than the realities of this world. Pain, death, loss are not good things but they are temporary problems which pale in comparison to our hope for eternal salvation. It sounds trite. It sounds like an intellectual solution to real world problems, but it is a reality I have a great faith in. Life will have times of bliss, and times of pain. This is reality, but we also have a choice how we experience life. Do we build up a lens of being a victim, or searching for the silver lining (that is, God working in the fringes)? So, in all things we encourage gratitude, to find God working in their lives. To approach Him as something other than a problem solver.
This changes from person to person. It might seem very little is going well in someone’s life. They might be so focused on the bad, they’ve become blind to the good. All we can do is point and encourage them in the promises we have been given. After that, that’s God’s work. We cannot radically shift the lens of each person we meet, bundle them up in some Scripture, and send them out to further proclaim the Good News. We don’t play the role of savior, we are simply doing our best as God’s hands and feet, spreading His message. Hopefully we provide an occasion for some people to see and hear God in their lives. Perhaps they will enact some real changes in how they act or think. But again, that is God’s work. So we persist, for His glory not our own.
Prayer Requests: This has been an incredible cap to Africa so far, and will likely go down as one of my favorite months. As a team (and I’m guessing as a squad, no idea how the girls are doing over in Swaziland) it can be easy to focus on what’s next. Prayers for everyone to be fully present and living into this incredible place, ministry, and the relationships they have at hand would be appreciated.
