Free Rivers and I spent our last two weeks together as a team on a farm in the jungle of Costa Rica. Most of our time was spent machete-ing the weeds and digging up dirt in order to make a garden for our hosts. 

But Sierra, how is digging a garden bed ministry? How is that Kingdom work? That’s a fair question. 

While working on the garden, God reminded me of when Jesus talks to his disciples about sowing and reaping in John 4:36-38.

“Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.’”

We all have different roles in the Kingdom - and our role might change from interaction to interaction, but regardless of what it looks like, it has tremendous value. Some people sow and plant spiritual seeds - they point people to Jesus and truth - while others come along behind and reap the harvest of those that went before them - seeing life transformation and lasting change. Both are important.

As a sower, you don’t always see the immediate effects of what you are doing. Sometimes you get to be the one who prepares the ground so that someone else can plant seeds, someone else can water them so that they grow, and someone else can reap the harvest of what was sown long before. 

All roles are valuable. You cannot continue on to the next without the ones before. You can’t have a harvest without something being planted and labored for.

So how exactly is digging a garden bed ministry? 

The ministry we partnered with is starting a missionary school soon. The hope for the garden is to have a place where the ministry can plant and grow their own food - enabling it to be more self-sustainable than it is currently. We got to literally work the ground so that seeds can be planted and food grown to support this ministry and to provide for them and their future missionary school. The work we did is going to help others so that they can be nourished physically while they learn and then they are going to be sent to spread the Gospel to others. It’s all important.

I’m grateful for the different roles in the Kingdom that we get to have a part in playing. And I’m grateful that God invites us along.