One of my ongoing goals in life is to ‘Serve Joyfully.’ I couldn’t ask for a better model than Dan
and Val Naish. I have been attending
Bible study at their home roughly 8 years now.
One of Dan’s passion is gardening.
After a trip down to Mexico to an Orphanage named ‘Esperanza para los
Ninos’ (Hope for the Children) he
discovered that the kids and their caretakers could majorly benefit from a vegetable
garden.
For going on three years now he has been taking down supplies, manpower
and giving his time and money to plant and maintain a garden at the
orphanage! I have been blessed to be a
ditch digger beside him….watching, learning and fully enjoying his skill,
passion and servants heart, what a blessing!
In Matthew 13 Jesus
tells a story of a farmer sowing seed. The
scriptures discuss a farmer planting his seeds on four different types of soil:
along a path, rocky soil, among thorns,
and good soil. The path, birds came and
ate the seeds, the rocky ground the plants sprang up quick but their roots
weren’t deep or strong so the plants quickly withered.
The seeds that were planted among thorn got chocked out, but the seeds
planted in good soil grew healthy, strong and steadfast. I was reminded of this story that Jesus
shares in the book of Matthew while working on the garden this weekend. Producing good soil is hard, laborious
work. It is completely exhausting and
will take every bit of energy you have. But, it is the good soil that produces the
good fruit (or veggies in our case). For
me, seeing amazing people like Dan and Val Naish that remind me of why it is so
important do the work it takes to make my life the, “good soil,” because I see
the incredible fruit in the lives of Dan and Val and know I want the exact same
for mine.
Here are a few photos of the garden. This season we
relocated the garden to the old sheep stable.
So excited to see what this soil will bring J!
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