Yesterday we went to the countryside to help our cook's father with his harvest. Don Antonio is a 72-year-old farmer/pastor with the biggest toothless smile you've ever seen. Every day he walks an hour from his house to his fields over rolling hills to care for his barley, potatoes, onions, and turnips. And yesterday, we took one day out of our city lives to share in his harvest.
This week one of my servant team members had shared in Bible Study from John 4, “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now those who reap draw their wages, even now they harvest the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.” So I was thrilled when we crested a dusty hill to see fields of bright green barley blowing in the wind. What better break from our metaphorical harvest in the brothels, than a literal harvest of beautiful grain.
Don Antonio handed out sickles until they ran out. I didn't have a sickle. I wanted a sickle. What do I do without a sickle?
“Anyone without a sickle, grab a pick and come with me to dig up potatoes.” So I grabbed a pick, hoisted it over my shoulder, and started humming “Hie-hoe, hie-hoe, it's off to work we go.”
Within about fifteen minutes of hoeing potatoes, I saw I'd gotten the raw end of the deal. Below me, I could see the rest of our team piling up sheaf after sheaf of grain in beautiful emerald piles, advancing resolvedly through the field. But our potato progress was maddeningly slow. It didn't help that it had been a terrible year for potatoes, due to hard rains and early frosts. So after fifteen minutes of harvesting, I had about seven potatoes the size of my thumbnail.
And lest you're sitting on a comfortable couch or an office chair, reading this and thinking, “Oh, what I would give for one hard day of manual labor in the sunshine, doing something organic and real,” let me dispel those nice hippie thoughts right now.
Harvesting potatoes is dirty. And cold. And literally back-breaking.
So after lunch, I made one of my servant team switch with me so I could do barley. Yes, I occasionally abuse my power as their leader. But I figure I'm also teaching them character, so we both win! And let me tell you, barley was better! My hands weren't filthy, and there was the nice swish sound whenever you laid a sheaf on the bundle. And it smelled like harvest, rather than manure. Any logical soul would choose barley over potatoes.
On the two-hour ride back to El Alto at sunset, I thought, “We're heading back to the potato harvest.”
When Jesus told his disciples that the harvest was plentiful, it's a good thing he never mentioned the crop. Because only people like Billy Graham get to harvest barley-people, in huge stadium-size sheaves. I get to harvest tiny, dime-sized potatoes. It's dirty and cold and hard on the streets, and we don't see a lot of progress. And I want to switch crops all the time.
But as our cook told me as we left, “Most people have a bad year like this, and they leave their farms to go work in the city. But farming's just like that. This is a terrible year. But next year will be better.”
In Christ,
Cara