New Home for 400 blankets

These are 8 of the elders from our district who helped with the blankets for the Berea villages

Elder and Sister Holt, Sister and Elder Peterson

We spent Monday working with the Peterson's (missionary couple from Johannesburg who are the area Humanitarian missionaries). They were responsible for providing relief for a few villages in the Berea, Lesotho area that had been hit hard with a terrible wind and rain storm a few weeks ago.  The storm took off many roofs and destroyed some walls, leaving them open to the elements of this cold winter.  The church offered to bring in blankets and hygiene kits to provide some relief.  The Peterson's called us and asked us to research out some warm, good quality blankets for these people and then to help them collect the equipment for the hygiene kits.  We worked very hard all day Monday and with the help of the elders and their bakkies eventually got the blankets from the store to the Red Cross Society, where we stored the blankets over night and then the next morning after a ceremony with the Red Cross, covered by TV and newspapers, loaded 400 blankets on the bakkies and took them way up in the mountains of Lesotho to this village.  Monday evening, after working the elders hard all day, we all went to supper to thank them for spending their Pday in a service project.  We took them to Spurs, a restaurant in a mall in Maseru.  As I was waiting outside the restaurant for all the elders to get there, a lady walked by me.  She stopped, looked very carefully at my name tag and said "your the people supplying all the blankets for Berea".  I said yes, how did you know?  She said "I heard about it on the radio.

Elder Manning loading blankets on the Bakkie.  When in Rome.... right?

We had 5 bakkies loaded so high we had to use ropes to keep all the blankets on the trucks.

We then drove up to the northern part of Lesotho, turned off the highway and travelled down a dirt path that was very rutted, bumpy and rough.  These are some of the sights we saw along the way:

These cute little boys were riding their donkey down this dirt road. 

This is the way women carry their babies in South Africa.  It serves a number of purposes, their hands are free, the baby and mother are kept warm in the blanket wrapped around her.

Once we reached the village the Elders worked hard to unload the 400 blankets.  There were four chiefs and one council woman there to welcome us along with the village people that were to receive the blankets.  Speeches were made by the Red Cross representative, then the chiefs spoke and then the village people sang a song of thanks for this wonderful gift.

I took a video of the people singing and have tried to put it into the blog, but I guess I am a "tech" tard and I can't make it work.  Sorry

These speeches of course were all spoken in Suto and then the Red Cross representative translated it into English for us.  Elder Peterson then spoke to them in English and that was translated into Suto.  We, the Elders, Peterson's and us, then sang for them - "The Spirit of God" and "I am a Child of God".  They enjoyed our singing and we didn't sound half bad!  Then the village people who were getting blankets were called up one family at a time and were given their blankets.

It was quite a process to hand out the blankets, each family had to sign a sheet stating they had received them.

These women are very adept at carrying things on their heads.

This was a very tired old horse, but doesn't this man look pleased with his gift?  His wife is walking in front of him carrying three blankets as well.

This is the group of red cross workers, chiefs, council woman, disaster relief workers, elders and us.

It was quite a day.  A very memorable experience to meet the people of this village and see the very humble circumstances in which they live.  We will return this week to deliver the hygiene kits to them.
On the way home we stopped at the town of TY to drop off some of the disaster workers, and the Petersons wanted to visit the weaving factories there.  Here are some of the pictures of the weavers at work.

This sweet little lady sits here all day spinning the wool into yarn for these ladies to weave with.

This lady sits on some pillows.  Many of the weavers sat on the floor as they wove. 

Wednesday we spent visiting the Chief of the village of Masianokeng.  This is where the open house will take place this Saturday.  One of the branch sisters sold the church her land to put the church on.  But, I guess she was supposed to get approval from the village chief before she did this and she did not.  So, this woman, a member of the branch presidency (who is also a member of this village), the Elders and ourselves, went to the chief to give him an invitation to the open house and to reassure him that the church would take good care of the land, church and its members and that he would not have to deal with any of these issues.  It was a very interesting experience.  We had a final meeting with the Branch President and his wife that evening to finalize everything for the rehearsal for the open house on Saturday.

Thursday we left at 7:00 AM and headed to Durban to pick up a vehicle while one of the other vehicles is getting repaired.  We rode up with the Shumways who were going for meetings.  We had a delightful day and spent the evening with about 8 or 10 other couples at a delightful restaurant in Durban having supper.  We were up and on our way home by 6:30 AM the next morning.  On the way home Wayne kept saying that the vehicle kept pulling to the right.  We got home, unloaded and Dad went downtown to get a few groceries.  He was gone a very long time and when he finally got back I asked him what took him so long.  He said that when he came out of the grocery store he had a low tire, so he went to a service station to get it pumped up.  The attendant pumped it up and the air promptly went out.  He ended up having to put two new tires on the front.  I feel we were truly protected on our travels that day - that tire could have blown very easily as we drove home from Durban, driving 100 Km/hr.  We could have had a very serious accident.

Saturday we were back into Maseru by 9:00 AM and at the church getting all the stuff set out to assemble the Hygiene kits.  Once Seminary was over the young men and young women came in and put together 200 hygiene kits.  These kits will be delivered to Berea on Tuesday of this next week.

They were such fast happy workers!

Even the young men had a great time.

Here are some of the finished products.

All in all it was been a very full and fruitful week.  We have worked very hard and enjoyed the things we have learned an the people we have met.  The Lord is truly blessing us, watching over us, and guiding us in all that we do.  Thank you for all your prayers on our behalf.  We need them and appreciate them.  We love you all and hope all is well with you.
Love
Elder and Sister Holt