At our ministry in Mozambique we were expected to work in the “gardens” at our ministry site. These gardens grow the food that feeds all the boys that come and stay at Beacon of Hope, as well as Angie – our ministry contact, her staff and her family members. These “gardens” were more like fields. We pulled weeds, tilled the ground, created mounds, planted seeds (corn, pumpkin, squash, onion, tomato peppers, okra, etc.) and then watered those seeds. This was very difficult manual labor. I was STOKED! I eagerly volunteered to be put to use in this aspect of the ministry and was so excited to work the fields, growing food that would be such a tangible help to the ministry. I felt such a spiritual connection to the work. Not only did it remind me of everything we read about in scripture referring to “planting seeds” and “sowing” and “reaping” but it also really centered my mind on my desire to truly be like a Proverbs 31 Woman “working with willing hands”, “making my arms strong”, “reaching my hand out to the needy” and not worrying at all about my physical appearance but instead being “a woman who fears the Lord”.
Well… little did I know that God had other plans for me that month. Starting one of our first nights in Mozambique I developed a small cough. This cough gradually developed into much more than a small cough. It was almost Christmas and I could barely complete a sentence without coughing excessively in the middle of it. After reading through the book our ministry contact had called “Where There Is No Doctor” and trying every home remedy I read in the book with no luck, as well as using a breathing machine and an inhaler multiple times, I finally went to the medical clinic and received a bunch of medicine and was sent on my way. The medicine slightly decreased my symptoms but I was still struggling with it quite a bit. I was pretty much out of commission for the days around Christmas and by New Year’s Eve I was having spasms that one would describe as asthma attacks. Waking up in the middle of the night literally unable to breathe, wheezing and gagging profusely, waking everyone up around me and crying in fear. So long story short, there would be no going back out into the field for me the rest of that month. I did get plenty of other work to do staying inside. I wrote most of the text for Beacon of Hope’s revamped website www.beaconofhope-africa.org, created a ton of Bible Lesson’s for Angie’s staff to teach the boys, and also did a ton of medical data entry from all of the medical missionaries that have come through to work with Angie, giving medical care to the local Mozambicans.
It was really hard for me to not be out in the “fields” with everyone else. I felt pretty useless and lazy. I felt like what I was doing wasn’t very valuable and just really envied that everyone else was out there getting their hands dirty and their shoulders tan, being “Proverbs 31 Women”, from all their incredibly hard work in the field. Then I remembered a verse, Song of Solomon 1:6 “Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept!” I realized that for some time now I have been so concerned with what I am doing for others and through the eyes of others, wanting to tend to all the “vineyards” around me, that I have totally neglected my own “vineyard.” I realized that God needed to bring me to this place of sickness in order to get me to look within and remember that it is just as important to keep my own vineyard as it is to keep others’. This was the very beginning of a process I am still in the middle of walking… more like trudging through. God really broke me down physically, which lead to breaking me down spiritually, so that He can build me up into something new and greater and more alive. It is time for me to keep my own vineyard again.
Ecclesiastes 3 says “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven… a time to break down, and a time to build up…” He really, REALLY, broke me down in Mozambique. Read my proceeding blogs to get a deeper look into my “breaking”.
