Lessons from John

I have seen God at work through the relationship of our team with John, the master builder who is charged with creating a new teacher's home at the Lomngeletjane primary school. Using the most basic of materials -- sand, crushed stone, cement and blocks -- along with a few simple hand tools, he will carry the new four bedroom home from paper plans to concrete reality.

A wiry 48-year-old father of five, John is used to a life of hard, manual labor in a male-dominated workplace.

He was obviously taken aback when, first thing Monday morning, he was presented with his volunteer work crew for the morning -- eight teenage girls, two women and a guy who's mostly used to making pictures of other people working.

It was a beautiful thing, though, to watch him and our team learn to work and live together. A day of hard work mixing concrete on the ground ended wtih about half of the foundation footer poured and all of our team knowing the difference between cement and concrete. John's skepticism had given way to a few words of seemingly grudging respect, delivered with a twinkle in his eye. "You'll be better at this tomorrow," he said. "We need 50 more wheelbarrows of sand laid out before you leave for the day." As I gave him a slack-jawed look, he glanced over at our youth resting on the gravel pile sharing music and stories with the youth volunteers from Swaziland who'd been working alongside us. "You tell them, he said."

Thanks to the head start of all that sand, we were able to complete the footer in two days. By Wednesday, we had grown in our respect of one another to the point that we came to see John less as a stern taskmaster and more as a patient, nurturing teacher as he carefully taught us how to lay concrete blocks.

In the meantime, we learned a bit about life in Swaziland from the many volunteers who came to work alongisde us. From Cindy, a mother with a baby strapped to her back and another the way, to the grandmothers -- Isabet, Mary, Casta and Martha -- our team scooped concrete side by side with our hosts.

While we've all learned many things from our experiences, I firmly believe the incalculable value of this trip will reveal itself over the next few years as our young people begin to make the choices that will shape their (and our) future world.

In Christ,

Mike