Bye bye Lesotho....

Only 3 days left in Lesotho now – I go to a Student and Twenties weekend this coming weekend, which is in Bethlehem (about 30mins from Clarens), there will be people coming from all around the region so it should be exciting. Then I’m in Clarens for 4 weeks. I am looking forward to moving onto something new and seeing a different place but I will miss the people here and the church.

So highlights of this week…..

Went on a hike in Malealea – which is a mountain village about 2 hours from Maseru. It is such a beautiful place with INCREDABLE views, we went to a place called the Malealea lodge where they have things like 2,3,6 hour hikes, donkey rides etc. Me, Mark and Outi went on a 2 hour hike which was one of the most adventours things I’ve done because we walked up the edges of these very high, steep, rocky mountains – and I only tripped up once….are you impressed? (I was slightly scared at some points but I enjoyed it)

Sunday morning meeting – Steve Oliver came and spoke at City of Joy this Sunday and it was a brilliant talk. I felt God’s spirit on me so strongly all through the meeting and then he spoke on Mark 1:35-39 – I’ve never really thought much about these verses but they are actually very important and powerful when you really look into them. Steve’s talk was mainly based around the question ‘Will you go?’ (will you go where God calls you to go) I’ve heard many talks on this but the response has always been ‘If you feel called to other nations’ but I never have felt called to other nations so I’ve never responded, but when Steve asked us if ‘We will go?’ I felt God said I needed to respond to this – so I did. I’m excited to see where God is taking me and I’m now ready to listen. Something else Steve said was that we should be patient, wait for God to speak to us about this and get stuck into are local church whilst we wait, I felt like this really spoke to me – If I don’t hear from God about my future during this trip (which is what I was really hopeing for when I left) its fine I will just come home and get stuck in to Jubilee again and wait.

Do you know what was also incredible about this is that only 2 days before I had written a prayer to God that he would speak to me here in Lesotho and then 2 days later he did.

It was amazing because I think God is slowly breaking a lot of my fears, I never thought I would handle another nation but I’m here, I’m coping really well with the heat, the cultural differences and I’m really enjoying it. I’m out of my comfort zone and I like it! I’m either stronger than I thought or God’s strength is in me……I think it’s God!

 

 

 

 

Now, Just Now and Now Now…..

You’re probably wondering about the title – well its something funny I have learnt here. If someone says to you I will be over ‘Now’ that means they will be over in the next few days, ‘Just Now’ – sometime today and ‘Now Now’ – I will be coming in the next few minutes!!

 

So week 2 in Maseru…….

It’s been a lovely week, the start was quite chilled - I spent a lot of time reading.  I’ve started to read the Bible – cover to cover, which is going well and through Genesis God has spoken to me a lot about trusting in him and being patient. I’m also reading ‘The Time Travellers Wife’ – very interesting!

 

I helped at Bokeletsa Bana a bit, went to a training session that Outi is leading with the girls on tackling HIV, we had a prayer meeting on Tuesday morning (which they have every week) they prayed a lot for Ha Makhoate. We had family group (small group) which was great – the leader asked Outi if she could do a short talk/testimony on hearing God’s voice and having the courage to bring it in church, the funning thing was he asked her on the spot – that’s how things work here, very spontaneous. She did brilliantly though and we had a great time of response at the end.

 

The weekend was the busiest time of the week – On Friday we went to Ladybrand (which is in South Africa not Lesotho) to help with a school there. The couple that lead the church came from Clarens, they do the school/club every Friday and it’s for the poorer children in the area and its brilliant! The kid’s singsongs, learn about God, play games and they feed them to. Mark also helped with setting up a vegetable patch. It was so enjoyable, this couple work so hard (with not much help) and it was nice to go and support them for the afternoon.

I also brought some traditional SA food there – A meat snack called Biltong, its salt dried meat.

 

That evening I went to Gus and Becky’s for some more traditional SA food – Pap (maze – it’s like porridge and mash potatoes) and Boerwors (some kind of sausage)

Gus and Becky are such a great couple and a huge inspiration. They are a young couple from Buxton with a small toddler (Gideon – so cute!) who moved here a few months ago and they are here for 2 years. They have got so stuck into the church and with such enthusiasm – I know I’m going to learn a lot from them.

 

On Saturday I did a talk for the youth group – I did it on Mary and Martha. It was a really interesting to do a talk with a translator because its something new, in some ways quite difficult because you have to be precise (which for those of you who know me well know that I find that hard! HA) but in other ways it was good because it gives you time to think about what you are going to say next. It was good to see them all respond at the end of the talk.

Sunday we had church and once again the worship was amazing – I heard yesterday that the church had been prophesied over about being a church that would be characterised by there worship – which is so true. Then a few of us went on a spontaneous trip to Clarens because there was this lady who was doing a session on prophecy. It was a great evening, what I enjoyed most was when she asked us to find someone we didn’t know and pray and asked God for words for each other……this scared me imensly but I did it and the picture I got for this lady was right!! This is so encouraging because I’ve never done anything like that before, and I need to do this more often to break through my fear!

 

So before I say bye for another week I thought I would do what Jen asked and talk a bit about how I’m feeling here…….

 

I’m having a whole range of emotions here the main ones are… I feel excited about what God is doing here, and what he is doing in me – I don’t feel worried about things as much and I’m taking every day as it comes which is really out of my character because I’m someone who likes to have a plan and you can’t really here. I feel helpless and upset when we go and visit people in the poorer areas – I don’t speak there language which also makes it hard to talk to them and I feel completely and utterly blessed by God…..he has given me such a great life, family and friends!

 

Ok I will stop now.

ByeX

 

 

 

 

Dumela (Hello in Sesotho),

So I’ve been in Lesotho for just under a week now (and it took me 26 hours to get here!) and I have got so much that I could talk about. I was trying to think about what I will put on this blog as there is so much to write about. So I’m going to put my first impressions down.

 

Weather

Something us British people always like to know about……

The weather is so weird here the days are lovely  - they are mostly warm/hot (I haven’t got sunburnt yet so that’s a success!) but then as soon as the sun goes it gets quite cold. I am wishing I brought another hoodie now.

 

Maseru

I was quite overwhelmed when we were driving through the city on Wednesday, it is SO different from England/Worthing and I knew that this would be the case but I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was. One of the things that I noticed first of all is that there is such a mixed standard of housing all next to each other – from a small tin shed to a very large brick house. There aren’t that many tar roads so a lot of the roads are dirt roads which is interesting to drive on……very very bumpy. The taxi drivers are funny – they beep non-stop for no reason, and safety on the roads and in the vehicles isn’t number one. The mountain views around Lesotho are beautiful. I think that I’ll leave it at that for now.

 

Basotho People

There are a few things I’ve learnt about the basotho people already:

 

• They’re gentle and happy people even though a lot of them are living in very hard conditions.

 

• They take each day as it comes, they don’t really plan ahead much or worry about tomorrow. 

 

• Most of them are very calm and relaxed. Everyone seems to move at a much slower pace here!

 

The Church

I’ve saved the best till last! I’m trying to work out how I’m going to explain this to you and I think the best way is if I mention some of the things they do:

 

1. Visiting in Maseru East – Some of the ladies from the church 2 or 3 times a week go to some of the poorer houses (tin sheds) in this part of the city and visit people in need. These people are living in such hard conditions (I will mention some in more detail next time) and they need to see the love of God.

 

2. Bokeletsa Bana in Maseru East – The same ladies (Nkoti, Pinky, Jemina, Tsepiso, Molier, Outi and Cheryl) and Becky, an English lady who has just moved over here with her husband Gus and their baby, run a school every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoon for the poorer children in the area. They teach them life skills, play games and they learn about Jesus. These ladies have such servant hearts and are great inspirations!

 

3. Ha Makhoate – This is another part of the city where they have recently started a church service on Sunday afternoon. Mark and Gus and a couple of guys from the church are building the church evangelist a house with money raised from Becky and Gus’s church back in England. Letsema (church evangelist) was living in quite poor conditions.

 

4. Sunday morning service – They are gathering about 100 people now, they are so joyful when they worship – dancing, conga’s, etc. It’s so great to see what God is doing in this church and I can’t wait to learn from these people.

 

 

I think I will leave it at that for now and I will try and go into more detail next Monday (Monday will be my blog day over the next 7 weeks).

 

Bye (don’t know bye in Sesotho)

 

P.S. one last thing yesterday me and some of the girls went for a picnic and then Becky some of us on a 10minute driving lesson! I drove a truck for 10minutes….not on the main roads on a training area! Apparently Becky said I have good steering!!

Travelling!

So I leave today on a exciting and scary adventure! Its been an odd week this week my emotions have been going crazy particulary this weekend. I'm am feeling excited, nervous, happy, scared and a bit sad, but I know that God has got something planned for me in this trip and I can't wait to find out.

So where am I going and how long for.........

1. South Africa.

• Lesotho for 4 weeks helping the church in Maseru.
• Clarens for 4 weeks helping the church there.

2. South of India

• I'm meeting Lucy in Chennai and we are travelling around the south for 3 weeks. We are definitely going to Kerala and Goa.

3. Sydney

• We will be in Sydney for 1 week. No plans yet - see what happens when we get there!

4. New Zealand

• Staying in Aukland for 1 week with friends and then flying to Christchurch, hiring a car and travelling round the south island for 2 weeks. Then flying back to Aukland to spend 2 weeks there with friends (Christmas and New Years).

5. Boston and New Hampshire

• Then I leave Lucy and fly to Boston to spend 10 days with Liz.

So thats my trip and I will be blogging as often as I can.

I was thinking this weekend what do I want to get out of this trip - there was lots but 4 things stood out.

1. To grow more in my relationship with God. I always want to grow in God and I want that to be the most important thing of this trip.

2. To be more adventurous. I hate that I hold back on some things because I get worried about what could happen and I hope this trip changes that which I think it will.

3. Tackle my fear! This is a huge one for me and something that I have been working through with God over the last few years but I think God is going to work through this whilst I'm away.

4. To see what God is doing in other nations! this is so exciting.

Right well I think thats it for this post! I will hopefully post something in the next week or 2!

Bye for now x