Fact: when communicating with our contacts around the world, many things are lost in translation. For instance, Pastor Jovic informed us that we would be assisting him in “gardening” one morning. Gardening is something we’ve yet to do on the race, and I hope to have my own garden some day, so I happily agreed to the assignment. It was a beautiful spring day and after our Romanian winter, we were welcoming the time outdoors in the sunshine.
We arrived where we would be planting and began to gather our supplies. We were told we would be planting vegetables including carrots, peas, onions, garlic, radishes, and spinach. Once everything was set to go, the Pastor walked us back to where the “garden” was located. As we turned the corner of this yard, I’m fairly certain every single one of our jaws dropped. This was no garden. This was a vast field, stretching over at least an acre or two of land that would require what we call farming.
We then proceeded to “farm” this land for the remainder of the afternoon, carefully planting each of these vegetables in row after row. Our team actually thought it was comical how our lives that day were a literal example of Matthew 9: 37 which says, “Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”
We couldn’t stop wondering what Pastor Jovic normally does with out 7 eager Americans. We may not be the best farmers in the world, but we were 7 extra sets of hands and feet. By himself, it would have taken the entire day to accomplish what we did in an afternoon. We worked that day. We were tired and dirty, but hundreds of seeds were planted. Our sore legs the next morning were evidence of the effort we put into that field.
This day served as a necessary reminder to me that often the work we’re doing is dirty. It’s overwhelming, and requires me to give everything I have. Physically planting seeds in the earth led me to feel connected to the word in a way I’ve yet to experience. I have been a living example of planting seeds in a field where the workers are few.
