Sotho

GOD LOVES LESOTHO
Author: Teresa
Filed under: Uncategorized
Saturday
Mar 7,2009
3/7/09

Today we had the privilege to speak at a church called River of Life There is a group of ladies who are called “Women in Evangelism”, who have been praying for their country for quite some time. When Jennifer shared her dream with them, they were moved to tears at the reality of how much God loves them. He loves them so much that He sent someone from across the world to tell them that He hasn’t forgotten them.

Isn’t it amazing that He would go to such great lengths to let them know He hears their crys? If you have ever thought God didn’t hear you, this is proof that He does. There is never one prayer that goes unheard, one tear shed that He doesn’t see. I am so moved by the fact that our God is never too busy to know exactly where we are and what we need.

Tomorrow we will be at the largest church in the country, where Jennifer will be speaking to the congregation, and I will have the opportunity to speak to the youth of the church. I am so excited to get to impart to them the importance of their generation to this country.

The whole country has such a pattern of immorality, hopelessness, and poverty mentality. This generation has the ability and the chance to change and make a difference, if they will rise up to the task. It won’t be easy, but it has to start somewhere. I pray that something I say will motivate them and stir up their hearts and give them the courage to be different.
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Is this person crazy or what? Is she talking about me and my people when she says, “The whole country has such a pattern of immorality, hopelessness, and poverty mentality”? What immorality? What hopelessness? What poverty mentality? Stay in a poor country and see how long you last. What’s a poor country?

It’s a country where the rains don’t come and the earth is as hard as baked clay. It’s a country where an epidemic is on the loose, in this case AIDS. It’s a country that has been destroyed by a number of other things, among them bad politics, and a legacy of colonial rule. A poor country is a country where you survive only if you have hope, and if you do not succumb to what you call the poverty mentality. We have not, and that’s why we’re still alive on this baked mountain. And if it’s not baked it’s frozen.

“He loves them so much that He sent someone from across the world to tell them that He hasn’t forgotten them.”

Are you out of your mind? God’s love for my people is evidenced by the fact that Jennifer went to my country and shared her dream with us? Are you trying to insult our intelligence or what? I, too, have had dreams about America and Americans. If I travel to your town and share these dreams, and tell you I’m doing so as proof that God loves you, what are you going to think?

“The people of Lesotho have many resources but don’t seem to know how to put them to work. They have fertile land, cattle, water, diamond mines, etc., but they don’t have the mentality of making life better for themselves.”
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Stuff like this pisses me off. They have fertile land. Soil erosion has taken away our fertile land, the one that remained after the English had given most of it, along the Mohokare River, to the Boers. In order to win our fertile land back from the elements, we are going to need resources and practically no other big battle (poverty, AIDS, drought, bad governance, etc) to fight. Our country is criss-crossed by dongas and rocky terrain, and they have fertile land?

We have water and diamond mines, that’s correct. But have you ever done the math and determined how much of the revenue from these actually stays in Lesotho, for the Basotho? That’s one of the big battles I mentioned above: bad governance. In your country, eight years of bad governance brought you to your knees, and you were already a strong economy that had resources and a vibrant financial life. Eight little years was all it took. And now the whole world is gasping.

No, it has little to do with whether or not we have the mentality of making life better for ourselves. That’s an insult to our humanity and to our intelligence. And I demand an apology. It sounds to me like you see yourself as the all-knowing messenger sent by God to uplift this poor people that doesn’t know how to care for itself, that is immoral, that is heathen, that doesn’t know how to talk to God properly. We knew how to talk to God before your nation was born. If you want to go to my country to help the poor, by all means do so, but go with a spirit of respect and siblinghood. God doesn’t love other people more than others.

Consider yourself lucky to have enough money to eat and to educate your loved ones properly — do not think this is because you know how to talk to God, do not think it’s because you’re less immoral than others, do not think it’s because you have the mentality to make life better for yourself. You were born into it, and someone else wasn’t. If you had been born in a poor country into a poor family, you’d be poor and probably sick. As I respect your people, I want you to respect mine.