The Power of Water
Jeff and Susan Moore – Lesotho
If you look up Lesotho on the internet or in an encyclopedia, you’ll likely read that water is the nation’s primary natural resource – ironic in a country that has experienced drought conditions for three of the last four years.
Jeff and Susan Moore – Lesotho
If you look up Lesotho on the internet or in an encyclopedia, you’ll likely read that water is the nation’s primary natural resource – ironic in a country that has experienced drought conditions for three of the last four years.
Through its Highlands Water Project, the government of Lesotho developed dams and reservoirs to collect and distribute water for sale to Lesotho’s neighbor, South Africa. While this project has provided income for some and water for many, it has also affected members of the Lesotho Evangelical Church. The flooding of the mountain valley displaced the Molikaliko congregation and its entire community, scattering its members to other locations in and around the mountains. Looking down at the huge dam and the enormous reservoir, it’s easy to understand the power of water to change things. This morning I stood on a mountainside with church elders as they pointed to the water’s surface, showing me just where the village, the church, and the parsonage used to be. Pastor Joseph Mopasi shows me the very top of a large willow tree, just barely visible above the waves. “That was a beautiful tree,” he says. “The soil in this valley was wonderful. The people had fields all through this area.” Water gives life, and it has changed the lives in this community, separating them from their fields and from one another.
The afternoon has come, and I am seeing the power of water, through God’s grace, to bring people together and to unite them. Pastor Joseph and I have traveled to a hillside just above the reservoir where the members of the Molikaliko church have gathered in the summer sun to worship, celebrate communion, and administer the sacrament of baptism. As the breeze moves the waves of the reservoir below us, I can see sunlight sparkling on the water in the baptismal bowl before us. People have traveled from near and far to gather in the name of Christ to sing, to pray, to share the Lord’s Supper, and to celebrate the presence of God’s spirit through baptismal waters. As I dip my fingers into the bowl, I feel the cooling power of water. As I pour it gently onto the head of the child in front of me and say “Ke u kolobetsa ka lebitso la Ntate, le la Mora, le la Moea o Halalelang” (“I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”), I realize that this water, with the Spirit it represents, not only brings us together today on this grassy hill in southern Africa; it also binds us to the church throughout the world. The joy and meaning we experience as we share the sacraments together here today connect us to Christians throughout the world and throughout the history of the church.
Baptism and Communion are, in many ways, about hope, and it’s plain to see that hope is still alive in the people of Molikaliko. As we finish the service and share a meal together, several women point over the hill to show me where they hope they will build a new church. I smile with them, encouraged that they will, indeed, build a church in that place someday, and confident that today, through the bread, the cup, and the water of baptism, the promise of God and the faith of God’s people have powerfully combined to build up the church right here in this place in the sun.
Khotso (“Peace”)
Jeff Moore
Lesotho
Jeff and Susan Moore are missionaries with Morija Seminary in Lesotho. Susan serves as a teacher of psychology and English. Jeff serves as a teacher of theology and Biblical studies.