Field Trip

On Friday Bryan, Maleseli (BG's social worker), Elijah, Faith, Mercy and I took a little field trip. Our main objective was to learn a little more about what Maleseli does and see some of the places she visits. She had the cases of 2 children that she would like to have cleared for adoption, but more paperwork needed to be completed in the villages these children come from. She called ahead earlier in the week to let the social workers know she was coming on Friday and off we went!

The first stop was Mohale's Hoek. We walked to the DSW (department of social welfare) office to talk with a social worker and found out that none of them were in the office for the day. It was a bit discouraging but she dropped off the information she needed the social workers to look into and we were off again.

Our second stop was to drop off a book of pictures to the grandmother of a few children who were adopted 9 months ago. We were able to get close to her house, but needed a few local Mosotho to tell us which dirt road (aka path) to take to her house. We got good directions,walked to her house, but she was not home. Since it is a long drive and we do not get out that way much, we asked the neighbors where their uncle lived and were given directions to his house. The directions were very confusing, but after asking a few more people we were able to find his house and asked if he would pass the picture book on to their grandmother, which he promised to do. He was not used to seeing white kids as he said he wished he had a camera so he could have taken a picture of our family :)

Back to the car we walked for a quick lunch in the car (while Bryan drove, I spread peanut butter on some bread for all of us-maybe next time I'll find time to make the sandwiches before we go). We arrived in Quthing and stopped by their DSW office and the social worker was still working on the papers our social worker needed to have done when we arrived so once again she was not able to accomplish her goal. I asked her how often that happens and she said more times than not she is unable to complete the tasks she needs to complete on these trips. She always has such a happy and positive attitude and our BG kids are lucky to have her on their side working to find or reconnect them to a family!

So we left at 9am and arrived back around 5pm and did not accomplish any of our objectives, BUT we saw some very beautiful country side, mountains, villages, shepherds, etc during our drive. We got to know our social worker a lot better and here stories from her about her life as well as what it has been life working for Beautiful Gate. We asked her questions about Lesotho and she asked us about America. We saw signs for the dinosaur footprints so now I know where to take the kids on a field trip when we cover dinosaurs in science class. We spent time as a family and so while we did not do what we had planned, we did what God had planned for our day and it was not a wasted day.