Saturday, August 27, 2011

The help God brings


Beer-Sheba is a work in progress. It is a big vision. Its a vast amount of land with an abundance of potential. Its so easy to sit with a group of dreamers and talk the night away about what could be. Oh, the dreams! Its good to have visionary's working on a project such as this. They look at a mass of thorny trees and see a grove of lemon trees producing the most juicy fruit imaginable. A prickly desert is instantly turned into the Garden of Eden in the mind of a visionary. Visionary's that love the Lord are even BIGGER dreamers, because they know that with God all things are possible, so why NOT shoot for the moon!

The obstacle is, and I say obstacle because I'm avoiding the word 'problem', in order for a field of thorns and thistle to turn into a lush garden, we need workers. Workers to pull the weeds, cut down the thorns, plant the trees, love the ground. And THEN we need rain. That's Gods job.
At this point at Beer-Sheba we don't have a lot of full time workers. Its three families, plus a handful of Serer guys that work at the project. Things are moving, but at a very slow, but steady pace.

We have prayed for workers to come. Its interesting how in my mind the workers I expect are full time, committed people who want to make this their passion and their goal. However, God has brought a different kind of worker. He has been bringing us people from Dakar, who have other jobs/ministries, but want to get out of the city for awhile and plant trees, or weed, or trim bushes. Its amazing how many of these helpers have called up and said "hey, what can we do this weekend?"

Another type of worker are the dear friends that wrote us and said "We have a free summer and we want to come and put some time in at Beer-Sheba". Thanks to them, our corn was planted. Our Zai Holes dug. Our barn for the cattle started. Our spirits lifted.


So, here I am envisioning how the work is going to get done and God is getting it done quite differently from what I expected. So much for visions:)
Visions are important and lovely and fun and inspiring and hopeful. We'll still hold on to those to prompt us, but we'll hold those dreams loosely, allowing them to be shaped differently if needs be.







5 comments:

  1. Praying for the "full-time" workers... that the Lord would incline their hearts ...and will get to work on some potential short-term workers. Jehovah Jireh knows and understands.

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  2. Hey! That's Colin's shirt Aaron's wearing! :)

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  3. J Part, Thanks for praying!!
    AfricaBleu, I know! He loves it! Its one of his favorite shirts now:) Thanks, Colin!

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  4. Hey Tu Bab! How are you doing brother? This is quite awesome seeing your face again, and with all these children! What a blessing. I look forward to seeing more video from Landscapes of Cali, I mean Senegal! :)

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  5. Are you still praying for "full-time workers"?

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