Report From Lesotho CPx Outreach Team
The team makes inroads with the village chief while starting up two new home churches.
This week we finally had audience with his royal highness chief Mots’oene of Nkoeng. We had asked to see him the moment we arrived but his counselor advised us to wait till later. We were granted the permission to do ministry nonetheless, which we have been doing with the chief’s blessing. Finally team Lesotho met the chief. We made two portrait photos in frame as gifts. One of the chief and another of the whole team. The chief and his wife were extremely thrilled with the gifts. We got the blessings to continue. The chief instructed his counselor to get us a venue for a celebration(we are bringing together the people we have been ministering to and evryone else for a celebration – Africa house style) next Wednesday. He absolutely loved the idea of simple house church. Turning to members of his household, he exclaimed; “these are the people with my prefered idea of church! This is the crowd I should link and relate with.” At that point he went on to do the translation of our house church concept and did enough to affirm ideas of his own exactly as ours. To us he is the ultimate person of peace. We expect him to attend our celebration on Wednesday.
In church planting news:
We have shared the story of a household headed by a 60-year-old widow ma-Motholo. She has lost all but one of her 7 children. After the first week when we joined in on the harvest in the corn field, the door was open for us to share the gospel with them. We particularly were intentional with ma-Matsitsi, the wife of the old widow’s only surviving son. Week two went smoothly, the next one closed with drama at this family. We arrived to connect further and establish the assurance of salvation before we could proceed any further. When we went back days later the jealous husband welcomed us. He happily let the couple next door join in and their eldest daughter with a third woman from across the village. We had led another woman ma-Nako to the Lord a week before. She is married to a polygamist sangoma (witch doctor) who disapproves of her newfound faith and will not welcome us into their home. But such is the woman’s hunger for the word that when she heard we were meeting at ma-Matsitsi’s house she committed to walk across the village and join in. At the end of the day, our first house church was born in this house- in the home where we incurred the wrath of a jealous husband Ntate Motholo.
Recently we had the privilege of meeting a 19-year-old orphan whose childhood dream of becoming a lawyer vanished when she lost her parents and was forced to drop out of school. She eventually got married at 16. We led her to the Lord and she has not stopped telling anyone who would listen about her new found faith in God. Her circle of influence (Oikos) include her younger and unmarried peers Ntswaki, Neheng & Moipone. This group is evolving into a girls’ bible study group with every attribute of a house church, except that we are keeping it exclusively for these young adults. We are having it function more as a Life Transformation Group (LTG). Elizabeth leads this. Following the MAWL tool, we are now assisting Mahlalele to take over the leadership when we leave. A few more young women are in the process of joining in the group.
