Building Futures- The Garden of Weeden

Funny thing about gardens. Something is going to grow there.

Really, it’s up to the gardener and what is planted and what is culled as to what the garden produces in the end.

Of course there are always factors beyond the gardener’s control. Things like the weather and some pesky critters can make even the most avid gardener want to burn the whole thing down. One year, we had a “bumper crop” of tomatoes growing. Three twenty-foot rows of plants, all of which were producing some mighty fine-looking tomatoes. Now, we live in a area rife with the pesky critters I referred to. Thus, a well-built fence with a decent height is a necessity.

So, we built such a fence. It was tall enough that the dozens of deer and elk that pass through our property on a daily basis could not jump it. The garden and its produce were safe!

Or so we thought.

Unfortunately, we focused on the big critters and neglected to account for the small. The gate was wooden and the ground uneven, and this resulted in a small gap at the bottom right side of the gate. A gap that a very small whitetail fawn used to weasel his way into our fully mature garden, just maybe a week before we would harvest.

I woke up that morning and headed out to turn on the water for the garden. As I approached, I noticed that something looked different. The red permeation wasn’t as prevalent! When I entered through the gate, which was still closed and latched, the reason became painfully obvious. Roughly eighty percent of the tomatoes had a single bite taken out of them. I looked down and saw the tiny prints of the spotted invader that had massacred our tomato crop. So, there are indeed outside factors that can have a very negative impact on your garden.

But, for the most part, the result is in direct relation to what was planted and the care and protection of what was planted. In essence, typically you reap what you sow.

Some of the critical elements of a garden really boil down to some very basic things that every good garden needs. Good soil. Appropriate amounts of water. Sunlight. Perhaps some fertilizer if the soil is not rich enough. And of course, the gardener’s choice of plants that are appropriate to the climate.

However, as I said in the beginning, the funny thing about a garden is that something is going to grow!

Beyond what you plant and intend to grow, there is also grass and weeds that infiltrate and attempt to use all the nutrients and water. And so, you spend a lot of time culling out all of the unwanted occupants in the soil.

For me, the solution to that problem is to put more of what I want to grow in the garden, leaving less space for the undesirable elements. More good stuff means less weeds and grass.

What does this have to do with our mission? A lot!

The children we care for are our crop. We nurture them and care for them much the way a good gardener cares for the young plants in his garden. But like the garden, there are unwanted elements that try to prevent us from helping these children grow to become all that God intended them to be and ultimately be ready for the harvest when God calls them home.

One such “weed” that infiltrates our “garden” is the culture of poverty that surrounds them. Everywhere they look they see the heart-breaking poverty that they once experienced themselves. They see hungry people dressed in rags, begging for food. And they know that one day they will have to enter that world if something doesn’t intervene to change that sad eventual reality.

Another toxic weed is ignorance. I know that is a harsh word to describe the uneducated, but it is an honest assessment of the end result.

Just imagine how it must feel to look around you and see poverty and suffering everywhere you look. And you know all to well what that feels like, because that is where you came from. But now you know that there is a different way to live life. A life in which you never go hungry. You are loved and cared for. You don’t have to dress in rags or sleep on a hard dirt floor. You are healthy and happy. But also worried. Worried that someday you will have to leave this wonderful place and go out on your own. You know that knowledge is the key. Knowledge and the eventual wisdom that comes with age will be the difference.

You know this because now that you are safe and cared for, you have begun to dream about what life could be if you could just realize those dreams. You have been given hope and you see a better life, just within reach.

You know it is out there, but you also know that you must have a quality education if you are ever to have the opportunity to gain a higher education and all the financial benefits that come with it. You don’t want your life to be a sad and repetitive version of your own parents.

When we started this mission more than two decades ago, our motivation to do so was an emotional one. I readily admit now that I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. I also admit, that up to the point where we adopted our daughter from Russia, the plight of the orphans of the world had never crossed my mind.

Simply put, you don’t know what you don’t know.

And so, it’s really no surprise that I thought this would be easy. Just provide the orphans with food, clothes and medicine and God’s Word and things would be golden.

I wish it were that simple.

When we expanded outside of Russia it didn’t take long to realize that the scope of our programs needed to be expanded greatly. We didn’t realize at that time that many of the orphans didn’t even get a basic education. We hadn’t stopped to think about the fact that they couldn’t even read God’s Word.

We also didn’t know that the “free” schools in these countries were always full and provided a very rudimentary education and therein, offered little to no opportunity for the children to move on to higher education.

Thankfully, much has changed since those early days.

Now, without exception, the orphan children in our care are receiving the best education available. They are receiving an education that allows them to qualify for college or trade school, based upon their own achievements. We have dozens of young adults graduating from college every year and moving on to careers that will allow them to break the cycle of poverty that caused them to become a fatherless child in the first place.

And so, school has become an ever-growing part of our budget each year as we take on new children. But nothing has proven to be a more worthwhile investment in the lives of these children.

Which brings us back to the garden.

We have come to realize that, like the garden, the more good we can put into the lives of the children we care for, the less weeds there are to pull. The more good things we contribute to their lives, the less bad can enter in.

Inside you will see some of the results of that good in the lives of a few of our children. Multiply that by a few thousand and you will begin to get the picture of the incredible good that you are doing. Those thousands will become tens of thousands over the generations as they teach their own children what they have learned.

God is and will be glorified and the harvest of souls will be great indeed. All because of all the good you have put into His garden of precious, young souls. Thank you so much for your compassion in action and for helping us not let that garden be the garden of weeden.