“Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy!” – Psalm
126:5
This morning I went for a run completely alone (except for
the cows, geese, horses, and two people that I saw from a long way away). While I was on my 20-minute run that
turned into 40 minutes…God gave me this
realization.
For the last 2 weeks, which have been our last two weeks of
our World Race, we have been helping till gardens. We are helping everyone get ready for the “first frost” of
winter. We have tilled a few
elderly couples gardens because they couldn’t do it themselves. In our 1st village in
Moldova, we helped till our host family’s garden (although after the 7 women
tilled a rather small portion in 50 minutes, grandpa tilled 5 times that much
in about 2 hours.) As we got to
our 2nd village in Moldova, we began helping them till their garden
behind the church. They will use
this garden to feed the children of this village whose families cannot afford
to do so.
Then, yesterday our team got to help pick apples ALL day in
an apple orchard! We worked hard,
trying our best to keep up with the “professional” locals that do this all the
time.
As I ran, God
revealed to me that both of these manual labor tasks have actually been very
symbolic to our year around the world.
TILLING: It is very hard for us to pack up and leave a
country each month feeling like we are just getting to know the people and the
area. To us it feels like we are
just beginning to build friendships and then its time to move on. However, today God showed me that we
have just been tilling the land. It has been our job to soften up the
land and get it ready to plant seeds and eventually to reap a harvest! We have never been involved in a
ministry this year without a contact to connect the people that we minister
to. When we leave, the contact is
there to pick up where we left off.
They know the people, the area, the language, and they are right there
working alongside us each month.
It is THEIR job to sow the seeds, or continuing to help them grow (whatever
is needed for the situation). It
is their job, when it’s time, to “reap the harvest”.
APPLE ORCHARD:
Since we have not really gotten to see the “fruits of our labor,” this
was God blessing us. We have
desired to see lives changed, people saved, etc…and we have. However, a good majority of things have
taken place after we left a country.
We have missed out on the “harvest” in a lot of ways. For us, picking these apples was like
God saying, “This is the fruit of your labor! You work was not in vain.”
“Open your eyes and look at the fields, for they are ready for
harvest. The reaper is already
receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so the sower and reaper can
rejoice together. For in this case
the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have
labored, and you have benefited from their labor.” – John 4: 35b-38
