The Parable of the Sower

Pastor John asked a question at the english service of the Foursquare Church this morning that left me hanging my head in shame!  He was preaching about the parable of the sower and asked who was good at growing plants.  Several hands shot up while my thoughts shot to the corn crops which I was lying awake thinking about for over an hour last night.

Turns out there's quite a bit more to it than ploughing the fields and scattering the good seed on the ground.  Although I have done this with plenty of help from visiting teams...and it is fed and watered by God's almighty hand, along with my own, and Jakob and Lincon's!  Hopefully with this team effort we will start to see some progress with our corn and the other vegetables we are growing.

This may seem like a strange topic for a missionary to be writing about.  The idea is that we produce something of a market garden to teach Haitians how to grow vegetables for themselves and also perhaps to sell.  Ideally we will then be able to roll out the whole aquaponics system to churches, schools and orphanages that we have ties with here, and also in Les Cayes and Jeremie where we also have projects ongoing.

So life at Foursquare is turning out to be pretty sweet!  I'm enjoying getting to know the people who work with them as well as the teams who are constantly coming for short visits to help in all areas.  We also have plenty of opportunities to visit the orphanages and tent cities that 4SQ work with in Port-au-Prince.  For me he highlight is beginning to build relationships with Haitian people who come to the church or who work with us or in the projects.  After 3 months of only really meeting security staff of other NGOs it feels fantastic to finally be spending time with the people I came here to be with.  My creole is coming along... slowly but surely...some days more slowly than surely but it all counts!

One of the other major bonuses of joining up with 4SQ is spending time with the wonderful permanent base staff (although they are not all as permanent as I would like!)  A few weeks ago we went to Wahu Beach to celebrate someone's birthday.  Not only was it our first trip to a beach in Haiti, it was also my first time eating lobster (bought straight from the boat of course!) and I have to say, I am a fan of both things.  It felt brilliant to be going from it being just me and Jackie for so long, to being part of a much larger family here.  As much as I hope to be a blessing to Foursquare Haiti, they have already been a huge blessing to me in just giving us the opportunity to serve and to be a part of the work that is going on here...and the 'good bye Aaron' steak didn't hurt either!!!