The azure sky and the balmy air enveloped me yesterday as I harvested vegetables from my garden. My son and daughter were helping too along with my 3 and 5 year old granddaughters. The girls were darting here and there between huge potato plants, thick rows of beans and towering raspberry bushes. They squealed when they found a red raspberry then dashed to the other side of the garden when an adult exclaimed over the mounds of potatoes we were harvesting. It was a glorious time to be in God’s great outdoors.
I find gardening to be miraculous! I took one seed potato and cut it into many small pieces, placed the pieces into the rich, dark earth and voila! Months later the bit of potato becomes 10 or 12 large potatoes! Of course the same could be said about a fruit seed becoming a whole fruit-bearing tree, and the same is true of any viable seed. Yet, as we were digging potatoes it was so exciting because like a treasure hunt, we didn’t know how many potatoes we’d actually find hiding under the soil.
I couldn’t help but think that the ministry of Trips with a Mission, rescuing God’s children is a lot like gardening. First, like seeds, we take God’s forgotten children and they are ‘planted’ in one of our Christ-centered children’s homes. They are ‘watered’ with love, food and showered with God’s words of truth. Daily worship and prayer acts like sunshine so the children grow strong in the Lord, and when they graduate, many go back to the mountains from whence they came. The children now grown tell others about the Christ they came to know and their harvest will be hidden, like the potatoes underground, until God Himself comes to gather His children home!