We loaded up in the van and headed north up the road toward Butha Bothe and then into the mountains. I cannot tell you how beautiful this country is. If this country were a state in the USA, there would be inumerable national and state parks along every river and mountain stream and waterfall. There are two mountain ranges in the country, equally beautiful: the Drakensburg Mountains and the Maloti (also the name of the Lesotho currency). We drove and drove gasping and oohing and aahing at the amazing beauty of the rugged mountains, which looked similar to the mountains in the Western US. There were rows and rows of maize in every valley and terraced up and down the green mountains. As we went further and further up into the mountains, the dry climate foliage turned into some evergreens and the air became cooler. The clothing of the people also changed. Whereas the women in Maseru and Leribe wore their long dresses with perhaps a light shawl, the people of the mountains wore colorful head wraps, conical straw hats and blankets either draped, wrapped or tied around their bodies. They lived in round dwellings, made either of mud and stones or branches with cone-shaped thatch roofs. The cone shape of the roof matched the cone shape of their hats.

We learned that one natural resource which is plentiful in Lesotho besides the diamonds is the water which comes down from the mountains into a river where it is collected by the massive Katse dam. The collected water is then funneled into a very large tunnel through the bedrock which actually takes the water to South Africa and even Botswana. You would think that with such a rich natural resource there would be extreme wealth near the area of the Highland Water Initiative, but the opposite is true. We saw miles and miles of giant electrical poles and cable wiring which carried the electricity generated through the water power all over the country of Lesotho, but in the shadow of the massive columns of electrical conduits where thatch roofed huts which had no electricity, no running water and no plumbing of any kind.

We came to the village of Mopeng, where our guides, the Knights, had purchased a small property to start a church in the mountain village of 10 - 20 huts which would also serve about 20 surrounding villages a few of which could be seen from our vantage point on the hillside above the church property. The mountain pastor’s wife was manning the shack which housed the community telephone, which I think was basically a wireless cell phone which could be used by those who had purchased calling cards. We saw these little tin shacks frequently along the main road through the countryside.

When I greeted the pastor’s wife with the Lesotho ‘hello’, “Dumela Ma”, and told her how beautiful I thought her country was, she looked at me in shock and said, “What? This country? You think so? What do you like about it?” I was later to have this exact same response almost every time I remarked about the beauty of the country. I began to realize that because of the poverty, AIDS epidemic and moral despair, these people are living in a paradise but imprisoned in their image of themselves and their lives.

We discovered that the pastor and his wife and 7 children had moved 8 years ago to this area just for the purpose of evangelizing and serving the people in the mountains. I spoke with the pastor who shared with me how he had met Christ and how people in the mountains were coming to accept Christ. He pointed me to one of the far off villages on a neighboring mountain which looked so small and told me of a tribal chief who lived there. At first, the chief had not been receptive at all to the gospel, but after becoming sick, he had asked for prayer. God had healed him and as a result, he gave his life to Jesus Christ.

We encouraged the pastor and his wife to continue the good work they were doing and asked what his greatest need was. He said they needed a high school for his area so that the teenagers could go to school. As I mentioned in a previous blog, the children in these villages had to walk an hour and a half one way to school.

No electricity, no running water, no sewer system, no phone lines and what he wants is education for his children. Thank God for this pastor.

Father, I pray in agreement with this pastor that he would get the school he needs and give him so much more as well. Let our hearts be open to hear your voice.

Amen