Mar 21, 2014 5 min read

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Here are the countries: the USA, Germany. South Africa, & Lesotho. My niece picked me up at the airport in Johannesburg. She prepared a trip to Lesotho, which is it’s own country.

It was a seven hour drive, and we met a young lady on the side of the road selling peaches. I gave her a PNC Bank backpack. Again, she was a little hesitant because she thought she had to pay for it. After examining it over and over, I showed her how to put it on and she immediately began proudly wearing the backpack from PNC Bank.

The next stop, we had to get gas and met a young man who, after hearing us speak, asked where we were from. He bent over from being overcome with emotion. Thinking he had fallen ill, I asked him what was wrong, he responded that he had never met an American before. Then when I told him my niece was also from America, he replied “I get to meet two!” He then began thanking Jesus. And he kept saying over and over, “I can’t believe I’m meeting an American, my mother used to tell me stories about them when I was a little boy.” He appeared to be in his late 30s and he kept repeating, “what joy you bring me today, I met am American.”

I looked at his name tag and saw his name was Elias. God works in mysterious ways, because his first name was one letter away from my last name. So the gift I gave to Elias was a t-shirt our kids at the Lemoyne Center printed and designed in Warhol class. Also on the t-shirt was a picture of a car, which was fitting as we met Elias at a gas station. Again he was overcome with emotion. This really makes me proud to be an American as they find us so fascinating.

I was really proud of my nice Marva since she had to learn how to drive a stick, on the opposite side of the road, with the wheel on the other side, all in the last month or so.

We began our trek to Lesotho. After going through customs and crossing the border, we stopped at the village market. You can imagine the hustle and bustle; cars beeping, venders calling out their wares, music blasting. My niece navigated the chaos magnificently.

While we were there, we bought some amazing gifts to bring home and met a man who offered to watch our car. When we finished shopping, I gave him a gift from PNC, another backpack.

We continued onto our journey and we were on our last leg of getting to the camp that we were going to stay at for the next few days. Again, my niece was fabulous, driving on the other side, shifting gears, and following the GPS.

The GPS said we were only an hour and a half away. Now I know how they felt on Gilligan’s Island when they went on a three hour tour and ended up on another island. As we were traveling, we were astounded by the amount of people walking on the highway.

It began to get dark. While following the GPS, we got to the top of a hill and drove past a group of men waving, trying to flag as down. The GPS indicated that we would be traveling on an unpaved road. The roads were filled with craters, divots, potholes, and rocks, and my amazing niece did not stall once!

While traveling on this road, we only passed one truck. There were a few walkers and several shanties without electricity. I had a foreboding feeling. I asked my niece if were going the right way and she looked at the GPS and saw that it appeared we were traveling in the correct direction. We traveled further; I wouldn’t call it a road as it was more like a side of a mountain, I got more and more uncomfortable. And then the road just stopped and in front of us was a creek with rushing water. I had just get done telling my niece that we could not drive through it as the water was too high. At that moment we saw a pair of headlights approaching us. Now mind you, we had not seen a single car for miles. We had no where to go. The sky was as dark as dark, the stars were so bright, and out of the van jumps two men. We couldn’t go backwards or forwards, it was one pathway.

As they approached us I immediately prayed under my breath to Jesus. They told us we were way off course and one kept getting closer and closer to us saying he could get us to where we needed to go. I assured him we’d be okay and I quickly got back into the car. We asked if they could help us back up and they did, then sped right past us right through the creek. And it was dark as dark could be, and we had no flashlight and no sense of direction.

Then I remembered the gift I got from the United Way – it was a pen with a flashlight on the tip of it. I was able to use the light from the pen and we carefully turned the car around. By this time, my niece had been driving for over 11 hours. We went back up the bumpy terrain as I continuously kept praising God and thanking Jesus.

That flashlight from United Way came in handy as we were able to use it to shine out of the window and look for signs for the lodge. We finally made it to Malealea Lodge, and I could barely sleep from giving God praise.

More next time, stay blessed.