We are just about finished up with over a month full of visitors, projects, encounters with God and new relationships! Jesus continues to prove Himself more than faithful in honoring His promises towards us. He’s called us to work in many different ways in our community and each of them are progressing steadily as He leads us!
The well-watered garden had a great first season last Fall with potatoes and beans. We compared the garden with a normal Haitian garden and were astonished at the results. For every 8 potatoes planted in the normal Haitian garden, I planted 1 in the well-watered garden. The Haitian garden used about twice the amount of land space and the same amount of fertilizer per plant. In the well-watered garden we used compost and manure when planting (free resources besides some labor in the off season) as well as God’s blanket which is just a covering of mulch over the whole garden. The two gardens produced the same volume of potatoes and the well-watered garden potatoes were twice the size! We are hoping to continue demonstrating these techniques, sharing the testimonies and eventually find a few Haitians willing to begin implementing these methods. Once some of the locals experience the fruit of Farming God’s Way the ideas and implementation will really begin to spread!
I just finished up preparing our garden to plant 6 rows of corn and 3 rows of bean/peas. Sitwayen and Woody happily joined in on the labor to earn a few dollars! I did a quick weeding then we added some more compost to our rows to continue developing our raised bed garden. We used our teren rope and row pegs to hole-out our planting stations and furrows. We added manure to each hole as well as in the furrows then covered it with some soil. We thanked God for the opportunity to work and asked for His blessing on our garden. We now are waiting for the rain to start in order to plant our seed.
As we approach Passover and the Feast of Unleavened bread I think of how great our Father’s preparation was in order to redeem mankind to Himself! He had created the most wonderful garden ever imagined. Then the weeds of sin entered His perfectly beautiful creation. Though it was going to be difficult, He set His weed removal plan in action. In generation after generation, God Almighty showed how He was able remove the curse of sin, which was eternal death and separation from Him, and replaced the curse with blessing. He showed Noah that faith in God was enough to save his family from destruction. He showed Abraham that his faith would set him apart from the world around him. He showed Moses that his faith would deliver a nation of people from oppression and despair. He showed Joshua that his faith would bring a nation into its inheritance. He showed David that his faith meant that there was no giant too big to keep God from blessing His people. And He showed Mary that her faith would deliver the Messiah from God into our world. He would become the Firstborn among many brethren, the most fruit-bearing seed ever planted, still bearing fruit today!
Gardening is a demonstration from God in so many ways. As we were working I was able to put some of the chaos of the world into good working order ready to bear fruit. If you trust God and let Him have His way in your life He WILL bear fruit through you! There’s going to be some weeding and some digging, but when the harvest comes you’ll know it was all worth it!