Isn’t it amazing how you can spend so much time planning for something and then, in what seems like the blink of an eye, it is over? Somehow, January is already finished, and with it our first outreach team of the year has come and gone.
January brought us a team from Canada representing both Crossridge Church and Discipleship International (DI). Beautiful Gate Lesotho’s relationships with both Crossridge and DI have been growing and expanding over the past several years. We have had members of Crossridge visit and serve at BGL, others have adopted, and many support BGL annually at a run-walk fundraiser. Likewise, DI supports BGL as a fundraising collection point in Canada, as well as allowing team members to teach their discipleship courses to our staff.
This year’s team consisted of 12 people, half of them being 12 years old or younger. Led by returning couple, and Beautiful Gate Representatives, Mike and Chyrlle Dunne, the Funk and Robinson families followed the call God placed on their hearts to serve together as families in Lesotho. This was a very unique and blessed group to have on our campus.
As with most of our teams, the group helped out with the day-to-day childcare tasks in the baby houses and our playgroup program. Unlike most teams, however, the younger members of the team were able to not only help care for the kids, but play with them and enjoy them on more of a personal, peer level. It was absolutely awesome to see the younger kids from the team playing side by side with our BG children.
Above and beyond caring for our children and serving our staff (as if that weren’t enough in and of itself) the team also gave of themselves in numerous other areas. Each day, as some of the group helped in the houses, others were helping us in the finishing stages of our bathroom renovation project. All of the bathrooms now have a fresh coat of paint that brightens them up and makes them feel new. In the afternoons, Mike and Chyrlle facilitated discipleship courses for our staff to attend. They were able to learn new techniques for reading and memorizing scripture, prayer, and discipling others. After discipleship training, the whole team provided a Vacation Bible School experience for our school-aged children. Finally, the fathers on the team organized and, together with the other team members, led our Wednesday chapel time.
All in all, the Crossridge Church/Discipleship International team was a great group of people to kick off our team schedule for 2019. They worked hard, pushing through bouts of sickness, and really showed the servant heart of Christ in all they did. It was an absolute pleasure to host them and we look forward to seeing what God has in store for all of them in the future. Maybe some of them will come back to spend some time with us again. We certainly would be grateful if they could.