Gardener

We worked for hours and hours on pulling and trimming and stuffing bags full of weeds and thorns and roots. Then the ministry of education told us one of the requirements we had to meet before obtaining our license was making an area for a garden so the students could learn agriculture. So, we "built" a garden. We mixed concrete along side our awesome servant of a friend, Rob and we made a flat and solid foundation of dirt and built up a concrete barrier.

And we had our "garden." We didn't plant anything - waiting until we had students. Needless to say - last year we were busy enough trying to iron out any wrinkles that we found in our brand new school project and gardening just went to the back burner. And as things tend to grow - weeds took over our garden. We would have landscaping days to try to tame the jungle growing behind our school.

Just this week - Rob brought a friend who happens to be a farmer in Australia. So, Tony cleaned out our garden again. Spent hours getting things ready for our students to begin planting. And so they did. They took the tiny seeds in their tiny hands and buried them the in piles of dirt. Sweat beads pouring from their little brows as they took the watering can and watered the newly upturned dirt. And I started thinking. . . I was thinking about doing a "clean slate" blog about the beginning of this year. How this year signified a clean canvas. However, the gardening theme seemed to fit even better.

Our Gardener

I watch my kiddos dig through the dirt and watch intently as Farmer Tony shows them what to do. Even though they don't speak the same language, they want to figure out what he is trying to tell him. They didn't do it perfectly as he said some needed to be 10 centimeters apart and some ended up less than a centimeter apart. However, he lovingly came along side them. Telling them it wouldn't be perfect - but it didn't have to be. It would be great. He knew it.

I am reminded that God is the gardener of our hearts.

We got to the point where we had to call in a professional. The garden was overgrown with weeds and we didn't know what we were doing - so a volunteer came in and tranformed it. He went back to the foundation. He leveled it out and started again. Clean (as clean as dirt can be :). He used what was there and tranformed it back to what it was originally meant to be.

This is so what God longs to do in our hearts. He's just waiting for us to call in the pro. Jesus is ready to transform us but he's waiting. Waiting for us tell him that we can't do it alone. There are too many weeds. There's too much work and we can't do it all on our own. Even if we try - we tire easily and grow weary. But He doesn't. He may have to pull a lot of weeds. And it might hurt. He might have to get all the way back to the foundation. But He promises to come along side us the entire time. He promises that beauty will come of what seeds are planted. Maybe beauty we can't define or can't see - but it'll be for His Glory and that's beautiful. I'm also reminded that you can't just call in the gardener once and then call it good. It takes nurturing. It takes constant cleaning out and constant love if something of worth is going to grow and be of lasting value. Eternal value.

He makes all things new. No matter where we are at. No matter how "clean" or how "dirty" our garden is.

Planting Seeds

On this same note but in a different angle - I think of the seeds being planted. I think of the seeds of Christ's love being planted in the hearts of our students. In the hearts of these kiddos - some orphaned, some living with a grandma or a grandpa, some living with a mom and dad, some with broken families - we have kids all over the map. And my prayer is that EVERY ONE of them receives a seed in their heart that takes hold. One that inspires them. One that encourages them. One that points them to the only one who can truly satisfy - Jesus.