Planting Seeds with Point Hope

72 seedlings whose tender shoots are breaking gound and seeing the light of day...72 baptisms...72 believers in Christ...72 souls ready to spend eternity with the only Savior we have...72 reasons for the angels to rejoice!  How awesome is that!! I just read an email message from Joel Dombrow, lead pastor at Willamette Christian Church.  He was talking about the pleasure of having 72 water baptisms all in one day and the appropriately dirty water left behind and how much work went into bringing people to this first step of an exciting journey to a life changing, hope-filled eternity (okay, I may have added that last part myself...anyway...as he was saying...).  One sentence really touched me and where I am on this first full day back in the States.  "It's tough tilling soil & planting seeds -- it requires effort, consistency, & faith...believing that one day God will reap a harvest (Gal. 6:9)."

Galatians 6:9-10, from the Message translation, says:So let's not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don't give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

As the baptisms occurred, on the same Sunday, around the same time (since Ghana is 7 hours ahead of this time zone, noon is 7 p.m. there, our arrival time), Gerald and I were stepping off the plane and onto Ghanaian soil.  The people we were closest to in the community of faith were our brothers and sisters at Camp Buduburam.  You can toggle on over to the Africa link and read the daily adventures, and see the pictures, but when you do, please pay special attention to Day Two.  We went to visit the farm where Joel's words ring especially true, it IS tough tilling soil and planting seeds.  Although Joel was referring to this in a spiritual sense, the physical reality is no less true.  The two brothers who have remained faithful to the farm have no power tools, no tractors or tillers.  They have limited hand tools and yet they are working, trying to make 5 acres of dry soil come to life.  God has provided water through Point Hope, but the laborers in the field, the hands that till the soil still have a very big job ahead of them...and a community of people would profit from the success of this effort. 

In the same way, the seeds being planted by the work Point Hope is doing in Ghana, with a vision of expanding into Liberia, is tough, tedious, often dirty and it does require consistency, but Delilah and a small group of dedicated Point Hope people have remained faithful, even when fatigued, they have not stopped doing good, they are not giving up, they are not quitting. They have a limited number of hands available and yet they are working, laboring in the field that God has led them to, intent on tilling the soil, planting the seeds so that God can reap a harvest and add many to the numbers in the community of faith Paul wrote about--a community of people who will profit eternally from the success of this effort. 

It was my privilege, honor and great pleasure to dig into the soil and plant some seeds this past week...I want to go back and water and weed and tend to the growth, knowing full well, in the meantime, God will take care of what is His.  For right now, I am privileged, honored and ready to continue tilling the ground and planting wherever God sets my feet, including here at home.