“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28-29
This week has flown past so fast and, like many others on my team, I’m not quite ready to leave yet. While we’ve done many farm related activities, we’ve also had some space/time to be in God‘s word, and really seek/abide in him. And God has really used that time to open up my life and revive my need for him. One of the tools he used was a book called “ way of the cross” which asked me some key questions about my faith.
Are you at peace? Do you feel far from God? Do you feel like your faith has grown cold? After five weeks of passionate ministry for God, I had begun to sputter out. I felt disconnected and unmotivated in my walk with God. And I struggled to put time and effort into seeking clarity in my struggles with him. But God had begun a work in me once more, starting with a simple truth. I cannot succeed. I can’t live my life the right way, I can’t do my ministry the right way, I can’t walk in my faith correctly, if I don’t understand that it is no longer “I” or “my” but his life to live in me. The second I start to focus on “my” walk with the Lord I’ve gone wrong. This might seem a little overboard, but if you look at the cross correctly, you see that this is the only way Christ can fill us up to be faithful to him. We have to understand our brokenness and depravity, that we can do nothing correctly on our own. Anything that comes from self is sin. God demands every second, of every hour, of every week to be lived for him. He wants our gifts, our hopes, our dreams, but most of all he wants our sins. He wants us to live for him completely. Are you surrendering everything to him? Does the idea of giving up control scare you like it does me? It’s not easy, but it’s the only way. Along with us having a need to be filled with him, living for him is also our duty as slaves to Christ. We no longer have the rights to our own life, we no longer have control, but that is consequently the thing that gives us the peace we should has in God. When we are recognizing our place as both helpless in our sin and slaves to God, we establish a need/neediness for him and for his spirit. We long for him to fill us and lead us as he controls the reins of our life. And where we long for him, we seek him. And the Bible says when we seek him, we will find him. And when we find him, and let him cleanse us and point our life back to him, he fills us with such a peace that we know that he is with us, and that we are with him. Let him fill you with peace, and use this peace as your guide. Whenever you lose this peace or something interrupts it, urgently seek God and find what is hindering your heart from being with him. God has given us this tool to identify sin, pride, fear, or other issues that hold us back from being in his refuge and hands. After hearing all these truths, this should be (mine) our response and understanding. That we are needy, desperate for him. That we are slaves, bound to him. And that when we come with a heart of humility based on these things, God will fill us with peace and lead us. Showing us when we are falling away from him by the interruption and hindering to this peace. Seek God. Know that you can’t win. You need him. Your life is completely in every aspect his. And once he has control, oh the peace we find in our blessed redeemer, savior, and Lord. One final thing to take with you is this simple, yet strong rhyme, that has already had such an impact on me.
He yielded his will to the Father
And chose to abide in the Light;
But I prefer wrestling to resting
And try by myself to do right.
Lord, break me, then cleanse me and fill me,
And keep me abiding in Thee;
That fellowship may be unbroken
And Thy Name be kept holy in me.
To him be the glory.
While the spiritual aspects of this week have been eye-opening, the farm itself has taught me much.
Tours/Planting:
On the first day we began with a brief orientation of the farm, its purpose, and its mission, and then hopped straight into the hands on tour. We walked through their goat pens, cows, fruit trees, bunnies, and ended at the crops which we came back to later after a short lunch break. They taught us how to make a simplistic level called an A-frame for planting, and once we had finished marking our lines, we planted several seeds as practice. Then we watched as a little Filipino man scaled a coconut tree, cut down enough coconuts for us all, and chopped them open to drink the water inside. Finally we ended by scaling some trees of our own, before we headed back to our home for dinner.
Goats:
This was undeniably, the most interesting and shocking training we did all week. We began by simply milking the goats, which turned out to be not so simple. But, after everyone had milked at least once, while the rest of us cuddled baby goats while waiting, we transferred over to dehorning. This turned out to be slightly dramatic as they demonstrated this process by taking a heated iron and holding it against the goats head, until the horns crumbled and fell off. And the goats screamed and screamed. They screamed even more when we moved on to castrating them. We the watched in half horror and half curious fascination, as they sliced open its ball and removed the testicle one after the other. The video of our reactions on the photo album is absolutely priceless. We then tried goats milk (and later chocolate goats milk which is to die for), along with some cooked goat testicles, which is apparently a delicacy. Surprisingly it was actually pretty good. And finally we finished with clipping the goat hooves to make them even and clean.
Grafting/Processing/Composting:
This was one of the less interesting trainings, but was strangely satisfying and peaceful to do. We started by taking one somewhat grown plant, cutting off the top, and attaching another small plant into a wedge in the top of the first plant. Then, on a separate day, we did eggplant processing. Basically we smashed the eggplants, while never breaking the skin, and then emptied them of all the loose seeds into buckets to be sold later. Finally, we moved on to composting, which was simply stacking pieces of banana leaf plants and goats poop in layers, ending with it all being watered down.
Bunnies/Chickens/Fish:
This being the final farm related trainings we did, it turned out to be particularly very fun. Firstly, with the bunnies, we spent an hour with a machete chopping down designated grasses to feed to them. It was super therapeutic, and incredibly fun to just swing something sharp for a while. Then we did the chickens which was very simply laying out feed in their coop for them. And finally we finished with the fish by feeding them by hand, and wading knee-high in mud with a net to catch a total of eight fish for supper. Side-note; while this was not technically a part of training, we also killed three chickens, defeathered them, and later ate the cooked heart, liver, and gizzard as a snack.
Community Development/Church Visits:
This was our final training before our farm course graduation. We firstly did a lot of sit down learning and power points on identifying community problems, mapping out solutions, and then addressing them. Then, after we had learned all about this informationally, we went out to try and practice it experimentally. We drove and visited the farm owners home, where he showed us how he separately farms and uses it to benefit the community. Finally, we drove up into the mountains, stopping to take pictures of the breathtaking views, and visited 2 churches which we prayed over. Finally, before we went home we also got to go out on a glass overlook bridge and marvel at the valley below. Followed by me and two others out of the 14 driving home in the back of a truck, zooming down the twisting mountain roads at breakneck speeds.
Some other shorter highlights were;
-Dinner at Jollibee on the way to the farm
-Climbing various trees
-Late night talks
-Basketball games with Filipinos
-All the sweet quite times
-Dutch Blitz games
-Team Bible studies
-Holly’s B-day! (Wednesday)
-Exploring
-Having space to throw discs
-Pictionary/Fishbowl
-Naps
-Watching Unbroken
-Star Gazing (most starts I’ve ever seen in my life)
-Graduation Ceremony
-Sunset’s over the mountains
-S’mores and worship
-Early morning drive home
-Hikes at a mountain resort
-Obstacle course with friends
Overall, what a week. So many memories and experiences all packed in just a few short days. Along with the fun things some things that I could use prayer for is;
1. The church’s in the mountains we visited to have spiritual growth and prosperity
2. For renewed spiritual/physical strength heading into the second half of our AOT training
3. For continued humility and surrender to God and his spirit in me
4. All the prayers that I listed last week as well for the ministry church’s community, and the government tear down project.
5. For general team unity and fellowship
As I head back into the mission field and ministry, while I still feel somewhat tired physically, I feel renewed in spirit and ready to cling to God as I rely on him in every work. He has called me here and I am to walk in obedience to him, but it is not I nor never I that will do the work, but only him working in me. As you go about your week I challenge you to examine your life. Are you giving everything to God? Or are there some things, good or bad, that you are holding onto before him? God can’t fill you if you aren’t willing to sacrifice everything to him. He must have it all. He doesn’t just want first place in your life, he wants all the places. And when we give all these things to him, including control of our life, then will he fill us with peace and lead us in his work and for his glory. To that purpose I pray may-
-the Lord, break me, then cleanse me and fill me,
And keep me abiding in Thee;
That fellowship may be unbroken
And Thy Name be kept holy in me.
May the lord do so in your life and give you such peace, Amen.
