Before we dive into this I just want to say thank you guys for helping me fund over $800 This week, that’s huge! It also means I only need a little over $500 to be completely funded. If you guys could please share this blog and keep my funding in your prayers it would mean so much. Thank you all for being so awesome!
Mohotlong Lesotho is one of my favorite places on this planet. It’s beauty is like none other and the locals were some of the kindest and most confident people I’ve ever met. I quickly became comfortable with the small town and often times I find myself nostalgic for that month I spent there. Looking back the comfortability I had here was a huge stepping stone that the Lord used to take me deeper into relationship with him. He showed me what the main principle of being a Christian looked like. The power that even the most simplest of testimonies can have to people who have nothing in this life. But most importantly, the Lord took the outcome of a horrendous tragedy and used it to answer more questions and draw me deeper into understanding of the grip sin has on the Earth.
Lesotho is where we started doing ministry that didn’t involve physical labor. We arrived and within two days our host Oliver was giving us the horses reigns on leading small groups and out reach programs in the community. It was really overwhelming for me at first considering how new I was to faith at this time, but it was so cool how the Lord used these scenarios to stretch me in new ways.
We spent several days a week doing hospital visits to give encouragements and answer prayer requests. As well as a short message and two testimonies every morning right after breakfast. There was also a lunch outreach program where we took meals to all the patients and shared the gospel with them. We spent a lot of time at the church and Christian school leading youth group and other small group out reach programs for women in the area. We spent time at recess playing with the kids and loving them well.
With all these new and unique forms of ministry the Lord was pushing me to rely on the Holy Spirit more and to be confident in the person he made me to be. You see this new style of ministry was really overwhelming for me for a number of reasons. Firstly I knew almost no scripture at all which made me feel under qualified to give messages. For the first time in my life I had to be publicly open about what I believed in and that meant being vulnerable to complete strangers. And finally I was comparing myself to other squad mates who had done stuff like this regularly back home. All these worries were overcome in really interesting ways though. The Lord showed me that as long as I love people well I will show them his light. I quickly learned that the main principal of being a good Christian is to just love the people around you unconditionally. So if that meant sitting with a burn victim who spoke no English in a hospital for an hour and just taking turns smiling at each other, that was exactly what I was going to do because that’s what the Lord knew I could do to invoke the kingdom. He also showed me to be content with where I was in my faith but to be willing to except advice and teaching from people with more wisdom. The Lord really softened my heart and gave me this desire to learn and be confident in what I was taught. Whether it was from squad mates or simply just reflecting on my past.
My favorite breakout opportunity we had was at the prison we visited once a week. Each Wednesday we went and worshipped with over 60 of the 100 or so inmates and shared a message and a couple testimonies with them. I wrote a blog about this already (prison ministry) but it’s still one of my favorite experiences of the race. I was asked to share my testimony in front of all these men and be a living example to them that the mistakes you make in life don’t define who you are in the Lords eyes. This was my first time ever speaking to a group about how the Lord worked in my life and it was pretty nerve racking I’m not going to lie. It went great though and the outcome was a kid about a year or two younger than me excepting Christ into his life. It was really humbling to see him recognize that just because he had acted on sin in the past and been imprisoned he still had the free will the Lord gave him to choose salvation and start to walk a narrow path in freedom of his past.
Now time to sink into something that was pretty difficult to witness and took some serious processing. I never really shared much about this when it happened because it left me a bit rattled and confused. I also didn’t have the words at the time to effectively explain what myself and 19 others had witnessed.
From Mohotlong it was about an 8-12 hour drive back to Maseru the capital of Lesotho. Most of that drive was through steep mountainsides and Valleys. It was such a beautiful drive and I was excited to experience it again and more than likely for the last time in my life. About 3 or so hours into the drive we took a rest break on the side of the road by this beautiful waterfall we had stopped at, at the beginning of the month on the way to Mohotlong. We spent about 10 minutes there and in that time a single van just like the one we were riding in passed us. Once we had gotten a good stretch in we loaded back up excited to finish the drive. We made it about a mile or two down the mountainside when we were greeted by the van that had passed us flipped over and ripped apart.
The two lane mountain road was completely blocked by the wreckage and we all quickly got out to see what was going on. As I was walking towards the van I was stopped by a blood curdling scream from one of the girls on the squad. I quickly turned back to see what was the issue was. This image will forever be burned into my memory. Right at my side was a man who had been thrown from the vehicle lying dead in the road. It hit me pretty hard and I went into this weird state of shock. Others on the squad quickly grabbed first aid kits and went to aid some of the people laying in the road who were still alive. It was very chaotic and a lot of us were just trying to figure out why God would let something like this happen.
We were on that mountain side for roughly three hours and in that time our group was able to load the five survivors of the 13 people involved in the wreck into trucks who were at the sight. they were rushed to a nearby hospital. I later found out that of the five we attempted to save two survived. This was one of the most horrendous experiences of my life. I had never seen so much death in one place in such a graphic way. The believed cause for this tragedy was drunk driving, seeing that there were broken rum bottles scattered about the wreckage.
I didn’t understand why God would let something so terrible happen to his people. I was confused, I didn’t understand why if God had a plan for all of our lives, that why something like this could be the outcome of it. These questions were quickly answered at our squad debrief before we moved on to India. Our leadership team were able to sit with us and answer these hard questions like why God would allow his own people to die, or where was he in this situation.
What I took away from this was that God is in charge but not in control of the world. The world was given to Man when the Lord created Adam and Eve. He gave us the free will to make our own decisions in life, such as choosing to abide in the Lord or living a life of this world. When Man sinned for the first time we gave rule of the world to Sin and since then we have been on a journey to return to perfection in Christ. Since the world is ruled by Sin and we have free will people are able to make selfish decisions such as drinking and driving. It’s not the Lords plan for people to make these decisions and die, that’s just man acting on free will. The Lord doesn’t choose to harm any of us and he cannot be tempted by sin so to have a mindset that it was him that caused this tragedy is just silly. It was the drivers own choice to drink and drive and it’s just really unfortunate that it took so many of the people’s lives around him.
I’m at peace with the situation and my thoughts and prayers have continuously gone out to the people and families who were impacted by the wreck. I pray that they understand that it wasn’t the Lords fault but the Sin that still inhabits our world.
