Sliding & Gliding on Muddy Mountain

Details

Published: Monday, 14 July 2014 16:54

It was early in the morning. Six of us were packed in a 4x4. I (Tineke) sat at the windowside and looked down. Though it was not a deep rift, 20 meters is still a lot. The road was narrow and although the sun appeared through the clouds today, it had rained hard all week and the road was very muddy. We had to drive upward, quite steeply, to almost 2,900 meters. In this very remote east side of Lesotho only shepherds live with their flocks. I felt de car slide away again into the wrong direction and kept my breath… It is a gorgeous area but I saw nothing, keeping an eye on the abyss. Not that this added to our safety, but I couldn’t help myself…

At the border we disembarked and I decided to walk the rest of the road! Steef wasn’t too happy about it, but after our guide had assured him that it was safe and that there was only one path up – so that I couldn’t get lost – he let me go. It was fun! In the middle of the mountains, beautiful birds, cascades, wading through small rivers (and mud). What a peace. I have to admit that 9 kms climbing was quite an effort, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

At reaching the top I found everybody enjoying coffee in the highest-altitude pub of Southern Africa. After that however, the real adventure started: in the afternoon we were invited to conduct a Bible study in a youth meeting. In the evening the shepherds, after leading their flocks to the enclosure, came to the little church building. Rough people, wearing blankets and beanies, sticks in their hands. Because of the high altitude it is always cold. These shepherds live very frugally, there is water, but no electricity, only huts of stones and thatch. They make fires out of dried cow dung, because there is no wood.

That evening we could tell them about God, Who made the stars (and their view is splendid in the absence of electrical light!) Steef preached about Ps. 23, conscious that they are the shepherds and we really don’t know much about their profession. He also told them about the birth of God’s Son and that the shepherds were the first to hear the Good News. They loved it, that they, the illiterates, the lowest of all, were and still are on the heart of God!

At night we went to bed, where we first searched our beds with the help of small oil lamps, to see whether bugs might have settled under our blankets… a small inconvenience compared to the big privilege to be here and to be allowed to share the Father’s heart with these poor Sothos!