Three days in Lesotho

So I should preface this by telling all that don't know- Lesotho is a country. I didn't know before I came to South Africa. It's small and exists inside of South Africa, like Swaziland.

We went there and like every new place, I perked up and just tried to absorb as much as I could. There are lots of people that live in South Africa and work there, and vice versa. People need to get their passports stamped each time they leave and return. You can imagine how quickly people go through passports that way.

So often here, things are so much the same but just that little bit different. Like, the lighting in shops is often much more dim (than the crazy burn your eyeballs fluorescent light in the States.) There weren't walls preventing anything interesting from being seen.

Anyway, we were looking for a petrol station and took a wrong turn. Boy, was that the most interesting wrong turn I have ever been a part of! We were in the midst of this market, with the shacks held together with tarp and rope and sticks and bricks on top of the tarp to hold the cardboard or tin slab roofs into place. The roads were uneven and some were just food, it's pretty common to see corn frying on little grills, and fruit stands. Men were standing around wearing balaklava's. I think that's what they are called-the masks that have holes for your eyes and mouth. It was late afternoon and not cold at all!

One booth had snake skins and birds hanging from ropes and random leather bits. It looked like nothing from an animal was wasted. Boxes and boxes were filled with what looked like bird nest material. I had no idea what most of the stuff was so I was straining my head to look. Then the few cars in front of us stopped and there didn't seem to be any way to turn around. I realized the radio was on, and I was missing out on the called out conversations in Sesoto, the language they speak there. So I turned it off and rolled with window down a little bit to just be a part of the world. A couple of nice guys motioned for us to roll down our windows and gave us direction about how to get where we needed to go. Thank you Lord for them. With people walking all around us, and with how narrow the street was, we were stuck!

The next few nights we stayed in a Pastor's house that has been empty for a few months. The lovely people there cleaned it all up for us. We were actually across the street from the residence of the American ambassador! I did want to say Hi, but I resisted the urge. We had such a blessed time there, and it was all over much too quickly.

Some other quick impressions- Taxi drivers honked their horns all the time! They just drove with their hand on the horn. They especially honked when they saw us. These were actual taxi's, not like in SA where it's a million people crammed into a van. The roads were really nice and smooth. (except for that market street!) Last but not least, it's warm and sunny and people are wearing coats and insisting that winter is coming. At church today I was wearing a short sleeved shirt and someone said, "Wow, you are dressed for Summer!" And I said, "Well, to me, it still feels like Summer!"

A good reason to love Jesus

I heard recently that one of the main purposes of the Bible is to find reasons to love Jesus. On your own. Not because we are supposed to. Not because we are supposed to want to. To learn about Him and let His character and His goodness draw us to him.
I've been reading in Luke, and this thing has been rolling around in my head for the past couple of days. James and John, the sons of Zebedee went to Jesus, in private. They had a plan to get some honor, some recognition. They asked Jesus for a favor. They started with, "Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask." (Mark 10:35) It doesn't get much more pretentious than that, right? We've been following you, we've given up a lot. We have the right to get something out of this.

(Now maybe I'm twisting this all up, but this is what I'm reading. If anyone thinks I'm way out of line, let me know. I'm willing to listen to other opinions)

They corner Jesus asking for a vague thing, and Jesus says what any parent would say if their child came to them and said this. "What do you want me to do for you?" (36)(Although if I were a parent it would come across more as, "What do you WANT?" with annoyed sounds.

I wonder if these guys were pushing the other to speak, if they were sweating, if they were nervous, or if they were confident of what they were asking. They asked, "Grant us that we may sit, one at your left side, and one at your right, in Your glory." (37)

Now I'm not going to write it all out here. You can read it for yourself. What I love is that Jesus doesn't use His authority to lay them low, and call them out on the idiocy of that request. He doesn't give them a Job "Where you there when the foundations of the earth were being laid?" speech. He doesn't make them feel stupid. He tells them that this request is not His to give.

And the others are greatly displeased when they hear of this audatiousness.

But do you know what greatly displeases Jesus? When children are being brought to Him, and the disciples rebuke those who are bringing them. Let the little children come to ME. When Jesus saw it, He was greatly displeased. I love a man who gets angry at people not seeing the worth and kingdom of heaven inside of children.

Subtle Pangs of Homesickness

These moments keep happening. It's so sweet and barely noticeable. It's the sigh that comes after a good hearty laugh from teasing, and the not-quite-formed lump in the throat saying goodbye to someone you've connected with in such a short time.

Our life on the road is filled with so many of these life giving moments. Today, we got a short notice appointment with a Pastor. The word appointment is much too formal, though! The Pastor was already visiting with a woman he considers to be a spiritual Mother to him. She's almost 88, and was a missionary from 1953, to the Zulu people in South Africa. She moved all over the country, they would put up tents, saw people saved, and then her husband helped build the physical churches to build up the spiritual church, and raise up the leaders to Pastor them.

It was so wonderful when I asked which languages she spoke, and then she said, "Swedish." And my husband just beamed as he spoke to her in his mother tongue, and we all just laughed in this wonderful beaming family-making boom as the unlikeliness of it hit us, two Swedes meeting each other in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. Or as everyone calls it, KZN. Kay-zed-en for you Americans reading this. There were little signs of Sweden all over the living room and Marten looked with so much appreciation at the little signs of home. The horses, the paintings, the knick-knacks. She even served Swedish cinammon roles. She lives in a small retirement home, but immediately took our housing need to heart, and offered her house in case nothing else could be worked out.

These are the kinds of things that form that lump in my throat. When people care. When they hug us after one cup of tea and make sure we have their information before we leave. I think that is a kind of homesickness in itself, just finding a home, for however short, and then having to leave it all over again.

We made wonderful friends in Swaziland and here in KZN over Easter. People that teased us and loved us and I miss them. I'm so excited to see contacts become family and to see them get excited about ministry. This is how it's supposed to be, I'm sure of it.

Today, I was trying to make housing calls, and The Lord did a pretty cool thing. Two or three people in a row couldn't hear me very well, and I was getting frustrated. I gritted my teeth and prayed and said, Come on God! You need to be faithful! I need to be able to do this. Make it work already!" And the next call was so crystal clear that it sounded like the guy was standing right next to me. He is funny.

I am so grateful to have friends all around the world, but I am so excited for that day when we will all be in the same place, enjoying each other and our Creator for eternity.