Its 5:00AM and the team is beginning to straggle into the airport for check-in. Between yawns, the first and most important question seems to be, “where’s the coffee?” Followed by, “did you sleep last night?” “Did you pack everything?” “Did you guys bring your passports?” And finally, “hey guys… where’s Brandon?” The team is excited and buzzing with anticipation as we begin boarding our flight to Durban, the starting point of our Lesotho missions experience.
At the same time, Land Rovers are being readied and packed with items generously donated for the trip; beanies, blankets, boots, jerseys for the kids, soccer balls and long-life milk. Every square inch of the vehicles are packed to capacity leaving just enough room for the team to pile into the 4×4’s for the trip up the Sani Pass. After a couple hours of driving, the road turns from pavement to deep ruts. The weather starts to get cold as we gain in elevation. Eventually we come to the small border post – the highest in Africa – where we leave South Africa and enter into Lesotho. After having all passports stamped, we continue our journey passing donkeys carrying supplies for local villages, shepherd boys looking after their family’s sheep and cattle and grass huts dotted along the hillside. In many ways it feels like we have entered into a bygone era where time has stood still. The heavily rutted road that has been washed out from heavy rains eventually leads us to our destination and ministry base, Mokhotlong. It has been a long day of travel, but spirits are high with anticipation of reaching people with the gospel. Tomorrow the road will lead us once again to our first village of Malifoane and onwards. To be continued…