His power is made perfect in our weakness.
In February of 2020, we left Lesotho and returned to America as a family. The Sunday before we left, we attended church in Ha Suane (Ha Soo-ah-knee) with missionaries Jim and Teresa Flora. We sat on rocks at a mountainside church plant and listened to Jim preach a message on hope. “Our hope isn’t in a man, or missionary, or building, but in the Gospel of Jesus.” We said, “See you soon,” to our Basotho, and missionary friends, and headed to the States for a, “few months.”
Well… we all know what March held. Rumors of a strange, serious virus, became reality and the entire world braced for the impact and fall out of COVID-19.
The fallout in Lesotho was felt primarily in the form of hunger as food prices and drought brought on a deadly crisis nationwide. You guys, our donors, showed up ready to give and help. Your generous donations provided food for over 300 families for an entire year. Even though we couldn’t be there in person, we had to trust that God was working in our absence and that the mission and ministry of the Church wasn't going to be stopped by the absence of missionaries or presence of a virus.
2020 kept hitting hard, as we learned later that year, that our friend and fellow missionary, Jim Flora was diagnosed with cancer. Jim, and his wife Teresa were the missionaries who first invited us to work in Lesotho. I would describe their ministry as incarnational. They came, not to just live amongst the Basotho, but to live WITH them. I was always struck by the fact that Teresa never seemed to become jaded. Even after seeing so much pain and suffering for years, she was still moved to tears at the suffering of her Basotho friends. Teresa loved Jim with that same compassion and care until the very end. Jim passed away in May and we, along with our Basotho friends, felt a sadness and loss that’s hard to put into words.
A couple of weeks after Jim’s celebration of Life, we packed our bags to return to Lesotho. It is a 9 hour drive from the airport to our home in the mountains. As we drove home, winding through the mountains, we felt and processed the weight of all that changed since we shared a beautiful Sunday in the sun on the mountainside before we left. COVID was here, Jim was gone. Everything was different.
Walking towards the church, I thought about how it all looked the same, but so much had changed. Our reunion with the care centers quenched something in my heart that I didn’t even realize was so dry. They shared how they’d poured into the kids, and depended on the Lord in our absence. I listened quietly as the ladies talked about the kids who’d come to know the Lord since we’d been gone. These kids have been out sharing the gospel with their friends, and inviting people to the church. I listened to the kids talk about their love for the Lord and excitement about sharing his love with their peers at school, and their caretakers at home. I didn’t really have words. The ladies told me that they gathered regularly to pray for us while we’d been away. They prayed that the Lord would provide all we needed and protect us until we could be together again. My precious friends… God answered their prayers. I realized as I sat there that something unexpected had shifted. This had truly become their ministry in our absence. They weren’t, “surviving” without us. They were soaring. They were ministering to MY heart and I felt some of the pain from the past year being soothed with pockets of real hope for the future.
While we were in Lesotho we had a celebration for God’s provision of food through the hunger crisis. We constructed a barn for animals from the care center. All of our kids will receive an inheritance of sheep when they graduate from high school. Our Basotho friends told us that orphaned children don’t usually receive an inheritance like other children, so this has been dream of ours for a long time. We also continued construction on our skills training facility. The Skills Training facility will be a place where our kids and community members can learn job skills like carpentry, welding, plumbing, sewing, etc. We reignited our marketplace ministry. The Reclaimed Marketplace sells amazing handcrafted items from our Basotho friends. Part of the proceeds benefit the care center, and the other part benefits the artist who created them. Our artists shed tears as we paid them for their products and shared that the money would allow them to buy food for their families and pay their children’s school fees. We can’t wait to show you their amazing products! Get ready to shop!
There are so many sweet, amazing stories to share with you in the coming months. We added several children to the care center who could use your prayers as they acclimate and heal from a lot of trauma. We have big hopes for each of them, and can’t wait to tell you more about them.
My biggest take away from our time in Africa is that His power is truly made perfect in our weakness. Through dark, hard times, God holds the reins. The mission continues by his grace. God is extending his hands and feet through broken people who believe in Him to build his Kingdom and make his love known in every corner of the world. A little child is no less qualified to share the gospel or participate in the divine restoration of a broken world than you or me. How awesome?! God is on a mission to bring hope and healing through Christ, and to participate in that mission with him is a mysterious journey with inevitable pain, and indescribable joy. It’s not always easy- but it’s worth it because He’s with us.
-Allison Barnhill
