Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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So, there are a few different options of ministries here at Cicrin Orphanage. 

·         Two work with the kitchen ministry, preparing meals and cleaning up.

·         One person is on baby duty, which means taking care of the two littlest kids.

·         Three work with the garden ministry.

·         The rest go into the town and work with the pastor on construction projects around the church.

I have been blessed to work with Senor Elarrio and Josiel in the garden ministry the past week! While we were told there would be a lot of herding and feeding animals, all we’ve done is weed the garden.
 
I mean… we’re talking hours of hoeing and hand picking weeds from the rows of plants!  There are rows of pepper plants mostly, with some melons, corn, and other stuff too, but they all had weeds, weeds and more weeds, and that meant weeding, weeding, weeding.

 
Spanish lesson for the week:
DESPENDEJAR: (verb) to weed.

At first, during the first two hours of hoeing, I was really having a hard time staying joyful. I was wishing I had work gloves, my back began hurting, and I was STINKIN’ Hot.  

However, it didn’t take long for me to remember how much I LOVE weeding.    SERIOUSLY! I really do! Thank you, mom, for teaching me the art of gardening…who knew how much it would come in handy!

I’m one of those people who enjoy organizing. I know… I’m a nerd.

There’s something really therapeutic about organizing desk drawers, alphabetizing, and even pulling weeds. 

There’s something about taking things that are out of order and putting them in order that is enjoyable to me. So, eventually I gave into the fact there was no way my fingernails were going to remain clean, and I sat down in the dirt and had at it. 

Ants, gnats, spiders, worms, caterpillars, centipedes, and of course mosquitoes all gracefully had their way in the garden. Once I convinced myself swatting gnats wasn’t doing any good, and that ants were going to crawl on me and they weren’t going to kill me, I was able to soak in the joy of just being in the garden.

Then I noticed the birds and butterflies, too! Did I mention I’m on lake front property, and there’s an active volcano to glance at in the other direction? Ya, it’s not so bad.

In fact, the peaceful, beautiful, sweet presence of the Lord has completely infiltrated the entire land here. The people, the fields, the buildings, the views… it’s just impossible to miss seeing the Glory of God and His majesty anywhere I go!

LESSONS IN THE GARDEN

Working in the garden has been God’s favorite place to speak to me this week! He’s reminded me of so many things, and shown me some new things, through plant/fruit/seed analogies!
 

·         Sometimes I’d accidently uproot a plant trying to get the weeds from around it, but it was necessary, and then I’d replant it with good soil packed in around it. I know there are so many times in my life when I have to completely be taken from the foundation I’ve built for myself, so God can completely free me from the things I’m trapped in. It doesn’t mean I’m any less of a ‘plant’, or woman of God, but there were still some things keeping me from growing into all God made me to be! He reminded me through there is NO condemnation in Christ! Only continual purification, refinement, and freedom.

·         As we pulled the weeds, we saw how important it was to completely get rid of all the parts of the weed, because if we left any of the roots it would grow back, and usually multiply quicker. It’s so easy to just pull off the top of the weeds in our lives, so people think we’re living in healthy soil, when in reality we’re being suffocated on the inside, where no one can see underneath. As a Christian, it´s easy to learn how to make yourself LOOK like a Christian is supposed to look, and forget what Christ really wants you to be!   Let JESUS weed you!  Don’t let Satan hold onto the weed roots!

·         I LOVED taking time with each plant, delicately and deliberately clearing each one from the weeds around it. I feel like God very deliberately knows when He’s pulling which weeds from our lives. He knows when it’s something close to our roots and will hurt a little, and when it’s a little farther away from our core but still sucking some of our water supply from us. He knows what is good for us, what we can handle, and always sees the benefit of getting rid of those things from our lives even when all we can feel is the pull and pain.

·         Every once in a while, we’d come across another plant that was actually a good plant, but began growing by the purposed plant in the garden. 

Sometimes they’d grow in an opening that left the row healthy, and so we’d leave it as it was, but sometimes it was growing practically on top of the purposeful plant, and so we’d pull it so it wouldn’t kill the main plant. I think so often in our lives we have things God intended for good, but they overtake our lives and don’t let us fully mature into all God has purposed us to be. They quickly become idols, and before we know it, our justification of that ‘plant’ being ‘good’ will block all our sunlight and we’ll be half withered, or at the least we’d be much smaller and less healthy than God created us to be.

 

·         Sometimes, even when all the weeds are pulled and the plant grows healthy and strong and produces fruit, the stinkin’ fruit still get’s eaten by bugs.
 
As a “plant,” it’s important to remember life is not all about us, and not to worry about results of the fruit He’s given us to bear. 
 
He, the gardener, is in control of who gets the nutrients from the fruit we bear. He did everything to prepare the soil, water, and supply the sunlight, afterall! HE is the one who labored for hours, days, months, and even years to get us in the condition we are in today! He’s spent so much time caring for us, and anything we do or provide for others is only the reflection of what He’s done for us. He brings along the people to feed from our fruit. He can kill the bugs if He wants to, but sometimes He lets them come. It doesn’t mean He’s not in control! The fruit is His to begin with! 
 

·         I’m pretty sure blowing/dancing in the wind means nothing to any other plant, and has no purpose other than to bring joy to the eye of the beholder. 

·         Once I viewed the whole garden as being me. I think God has different plants/gifts He’s given us to use for Him, and He wants us to be good stewards of what He’s given us. If we neglect one area He’s given us, we’ll stop producing fruit from it. We should be careful to not neglect any plant/gift He’s given us, even if it’s not harvest time for that plant! It still needs tending to, nourishment, and water! 

·         I’ve realized how much producing fruit of the spirit takes lots of cultivating and a constant supply of nutrients from our Gardener, both sunlight (Jesus) and water (Holy spirit) and good soil (our hearts, and the foundation of the body of Christ around you), and of course letting God have His way with you as the Gardener.

 Read Galatians 5, and see if the fruit of the spirit shapes your character!  This type of fruit, shown through our everyday lives, is one of the greatest tools God has given us to share Himself with others.

 

·         So, I was weeding the pepper plants, and I came across a plant that wasn’t a pepper. At first I thought it was corn, because the spacing between it and the other plants was in line with the rest of the row, but I was pretty sure it was a weed. But, it looked like a healthy plant, so I figured I’d just leave it and weed around it and let I spent a good little while getting all the weeds around it picked out, and it looked really nice along my row of pepper plants. 
 
Then, Josiel came by and ripped it out and said, “no; muerte,” meaning, “no, it’s not a plant; kill it.” I just laughed and thought how dumb it was I initially could tell it was a weed, but I second guessed myself and justified the fact that as long as it looked good in the row, it would be okay and not make any difference one way or another.
 
All it took was a split second from the experienced gardener to call out the truth of the matter: no, it’s bad; kill it.  I could have even just asked him, and saved myself a LOT of time.  I know there are so many times in my life that I have “cleaned something up” to make it look nice and orderly and justified the fact it worked quite fittingly in my life.
 
I think we all have those “little things” we know in the back of our minds are bad, but we just love the way they look in our lives, so we clean them up and leave them, hoping no one would ever know the difference anyway.  Most people honestly wouldn’t notice, either. But, all it ever takes is one second of hearing the Master’s “gardener” voice to lay down the truth of the matter: No, it’s bad. Kill it.

·         There were two corn plants practically growing on top of each other, so I decided to play God and separate the two. They were both healthy enough, in my opinion, to withstand the separation, so I proceeded. I very carefully dug a deep hole around the two, got rid of all the things surrounding it, and very delicately untangled the roots woven between the two. It was impossible not to break a few of the roots, but not enough to kill the plant. 

So, I had already prepared the soil for the second plant to go into, and I carefully replanted both of them where they had plenty of room to grow into the big, beautiful, healthy, fruitful plants that they were created to be.

The analogy is pretty obvious, I think. As followers of Jesus, it’s so awesome when we are able to plant a seed and actually see it grow right before our eyes. But, sometimes we can get trapped into the flow of life of only seeing the person or people right next to us, and we forget to seek God in how we should live and be, because all we can see is that person and how THEY are living for God.

Both people can have a heart for God, and can earnestly be seeking Him and desire to bear fruit, but sometimes it takes God planting us somewhere else, or planting someone we love somewhere else, so we can depend solely on His ‘living water’ and His ‘son’ so we can grow into all we were created to be. My favorite part is how God knows what is good for us, what we can live through, and He understands how hard the process can be sometimes. Even though He sometimes shakes our roots, it’s ONLY because He knows the potential we have if we have more room to grow. 

One thing our two teams felt as we prayed over our ministry this month was this:

 What we do in the physical, we want it to be representative of the spiritual.

Pulling weeds, preparing and serving food, building projects, etc. All of these things, as we do them, we are focusing on praying they have as much spiritual purpose as they do physically. I’ve treasured my time in the garden to pray over the wonderful people here, that God would continue to mold them into their destiny as men and women of God.  

 

I’m understanding more and more what Jesus meant when He said,

 

“Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.” 
 
PS: Snack time when working in the garden means cracking open a cantaloupe or going to Josiel’s house for Coconuts!