On March 16th I wrote this in my journal: It’s the middle of the month here in Hotswana. I am exhausted emotionally and physically – and I don’t think I’m going to be able to go on for much longer. I’ve given myself the “Christianese” pep talks, and even received some from team and squad mates – but no amount of “God works all things together for the good of those who love Him” can soothe this tired soul. I just don’t see His hand in it yet. I can’t help but count down the days until it’s over and we will be flying onward to Mongolia.
My new team of all girls lived in the middle of the Kalahari desert this month- all tented up with some cloth hanging in a tree to give us “privacy” while taking bucket showers, a campfire to cook our meals, and endless scorpion and snake holes to accompany us as we fell asleep. We lived on a decent sized plot of land, with a small “army tent” set up smack dab in the middle for essentially one family in the village of Kokotsha to have church on Sundays. When we first arrived we learned that Kokotsha means “knock knock and take” – and it really didn’t take too long for us to realize that the devil was using that to his full advantage. Kokotsha is a town filled with about a thousand people with a combined total of maybe an ounce of hope. Children’s performance in school is at best just above failing. Work is limited. These people live on the sand where crops pretty much can’t grow and the word “drought” is in day-to-day conversations. It quickly became VERY clear to us that all that people wanted – all that people were expecting – were handouts. Everyday someone (or two, or five) showed up expecting us to feed them or give them some money. Even the chief of the village (the mayor of sorts) asked us in our meeting with him how we were going to help the church build an actual facility. By the end of our first full day in the village I was discouraged. The hopelessness in Kokotsha kind of rubbed off on our whole team, some more than others I’ll admit, and unfortunately so did the apathy. It was the beginning of the month, and we had reached a low.
I have been reading in the gospel of Mark for a while now. On the particular day that I journaled the above discouragement I was pulled back to Mark 4 – “The Parable of the Seed Growing.” Again and again our team brought up the truth that we may not see the fruit of our month in Botswana EVER. I think I kind of go into every month with some expectation of tangibly seeing how myself or my team served to advance the kingdom (yes, I am still letting go of those expectations, and yes, it is month 9).
And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed in the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle because the harvest has come.” Mark 4:26-29
Basically the parable is saying that we can plant or scatter the seeds, but the Lord will take care of the rest without any human effort at all. In fact, we can even unintentionally plant seeds and God will grow them. God is at work with or without us. The pressure is off – God is going to carry the burden for us, we are simply called to be faithful in the process. God isn’t after our greatness, He’s after our faithfulness.
From March 16th, and beyond, I’ve been challenged to surrender to Him the burden that I’ve felt about bringing all of hopeless Kokotsha to the Lord. I’m far from great. In fact, I’ve kind of sucked this month. My attitude has been poor. I have had such little emotional and physical strength to continue on. I felt like I was wasting space in Kokotsha. Maybe I was… but you know what? God was going to work in Kokotsha regardless of if I was there or not… at this particular time He just called me to be there. I can’t say that my being there was completely worthless. There are probably seeds that were planted that I don’t even know about – maybe even in my own heart. I’m sure the same is true for you. In your workplace, in your home, at that coffee shop that you frequent, wherever you find yourself, you’re probably planting seeds – Trust that if you’re faithful, the Lord is going to do the rest.
He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts; he knows not how…
