The Greatest of These is Love

My, my, my how time has flown by. As I write, I am sitting on the porch of the hotel we are staying at in Phoenix, Arizona. I am wearing pants, a long sleeved shirt, and wrapped up in a down comforter. Not only has the weather drastically changed from summer to winter, but so has the scenery and the noises that I hear. I lookout to a parking lot full of nice, expensive, shiny cars and hear trucks and busses accelerate to pass each other on the highway off in the distance. I also heard something of the sort as I wrote posts in Moheles Hoek, Lesotho, however, the pitch of the engines was different- cheaper. They sounded more like toy cars compared to the deep, loud rumble I hear now. I don't hear horns of dozens of taxis honking every thirty eight seconds announcing that they have open seats. I don't hear conversations being carried on in a crazy cool language that I can't understand. I hear english. I don't hear music blasting with a fun beat that makes me want to dance in the seat I'm sitting in. As crazy and sometimes stressful as those moments would feel- they make me smile. They always will.

My last two and a half or so weeks in Lesotho were days that I will hold very dear to my heart. It was in that time that I began to feel almost like one of the resident students at Growing Nations. There was something that made it so easy and unbelievably fun to get closer with Lefa, Mpho, Zanelle, Mapei, Molibeti, Mpho, and Maedwerd. Maybe it was because we were close in age. I am a whopping 20 years old, believe it or not- sometimes it doesn't quite feel like it to me. They range from the ages of 19 to 30. Maybe it was because we had some of the same passions. When I was with them, we did a lot of laughing. We also played countless card games. I taught them one of my favorite, Kemps, and they taught me an improved version of Crazy Eights. Who knew that one of the games I grew up playing my whole childhood I would now be playing with a group of my Basotho friends in a country I hadn't known of before the year 2012? Maybe it was because we all had the drive to learn. Walking into this entire experience, I knew very little about farming. I had no idea there were multiple methods, how important crop rotation is, and how great the impact of farming God's way with high standards can have on an entire country. I was completely clueless. As a matter of fact, I was completely clueless that I was completely clueless. (Say that five times fast!) Through my time with them, not only did I have the amazing opportunity to learn, but they had the opportunity to teach me. I can't imagine that any Basotho would assume that sometime in their lifetime they would be able to teach some rich, white American how to do something as readily important as farming. Now, can you imagine what kind of self worth, what kind of dignity, what kind of hope that gave these students? Just like in Vredendal and Mocuba, the racial barriers are too high to see over, even if I got on an eight-foot ladder. But through this relationship building process, those walls came down low enough that I could step over that darn wall and onto thier side. I want my friends to see that there is no reason for sides. We are all fearfully and wonderfully made in God's image. (Psalms 139:14)

Family, friends, loved strangers- that is exactly what this entire trip from the Navajo Reservation to South Africa to Mozambique to Lesotho has been about. It wasn't about giving out gifts or candies, or building a church, or hitting people over the head with a Bible, or converting as many people as possible. No. The tally marks don't matter; but the love within relationships is what truly matters. I can tell you first hand that loving and being loved in return is loads more precious than the undeniable, rewarding feeling of giving that single mom a few hundred bucks to get through the Christmas season. She may feel like she needs that money or that pat on the back- you may feel like she needs it, and you know what, maybe she really does. But love and relationship with a person who doesn't feel worthy is worth more than any amount of money some one could dream up. This is how Jesus lived his life walking among us- the unworthy sinners. Whether you love God and have chosen to give your life to him or not, there is no better way to live life than out of love.