Small Beginnings.

“It didn’t grow?”

 

I was almost ashamed to admit it. After all, Uganda, also known as the “Bread Basket of Africa”, is the land of fruitfulness. They say even if a button from your shirt dropped onto the ground, a button tree grows. Jackfruits, the size of wheels, commonly hang from trees in clusters, pregnant with abundance.

 

So when our African bible school student-pastors, many of whom are farmers by profession, heard that my chili plant failed to sprout after 2 weeks, they looked at me incredulously, as if I had committed a taboo or crime of some sort.

 

“Are you SURE?” They gathered round to ask in disbelief. After all, this was their specialty.

 

In a season of discouragement where I questioned my own “fruitfulness” as a missionary, it was my husband who encouraged me one night with a hug and a question, “Does a fruitful tree look anything like what it grew from?”

 

Deep down, I knew what he implied-bearing fruit took time, even if we are faithful. But for someone who had been used to measuring fruitfulness with accolades, certificates, target numbers, and key performance indices, this whole idea of waiting, and measuring fruitfulness in new and different ways was less than appealing. As we crossed over into our fourth month serving in Uganda, I reflected upon what had and had not materialized, forgetting that many missionaries often take years to bear fruit, but yet, never cease in doing good works.

 

Here, the process of bearing fruit could mean visiting a crippled widow regularly, or journeying with an individual struggling to survive to increase his self-confidence to generate a small-income business for his family. It could mean baking people cakes and visiting them at their homes, to form relationships and build trust. It looks nothing like the big, fruitful tree we long to grow overnight.

 

When you look around you, and see others being fruitful, do you, too, become discouraged? Do you wonder if you had fallen short in tending to your garden, or even question if you might even be a “bad seed”?

 

“Maybe your seeds weren’t mature.”

“Maybe the soil was not good.”

“Did you make a nursery bed?”

 

They all pummeled me with questions, trying to solve the mystery of The Seed Which Did Not Grow.

 

“A nursery bed?” I asked them quizzically. I had taken the fertility of Uganda’s land far too literally, and had assumed that any seed that fell on the wayside would sprout into a big sprawling plant. “Why do you need a nursery bed for?”

 

The Ugandan farmer students doubled up with laughter. Obviously, I had a lot to learn.

 

This morning, just before leaving them, they stopped me with a precious gift. With a bag of soil with a young seedling in it, they said, “You know, sometimes, you need a seedling to start with. Not a seed.”

 

 

As farmers, they knew the magic of making things grow. I, on the other hand, took 3 months to realize that for many successful plantations here, farmers typically grew their trees from bought seedlings, and not seeds.

 

“Your favorite tree,” they said to me with pride.

 

“Avocado!” I exclaimed delightfully, recognizing its leaves.

 

“With this, it will definitely grow in your garden.”

 

As I held the precious seedling in my hands, I thought about the wisdom in their words, and Cliff’s. Our dreams, like tiny seedlings, take time, water and sunshine to grow. There is no use in hurrying the process. Worse, our initial failures could stop us from trying again altogether.

 

But these farmer students taught me, that growing a fruitful tree takes effort and experience, trial and error. Rarely anyone, even them, gets it right on the first try. Onions, carrots, beans, chilies, banana and avocado trees, all require different unique conditions for the best results.

 

As they put the seedling in my hands, I realized, that sometimes, all we need is a little help- some encouragement from the right people to help us lay our foundations right, and push through the dormant “seed” phase to grow our dreams into a seedling, which then becomes a tree, which provides others with shade and fruit.

 

“At the end of one year, you will have a big, big tree in your garden, Wai.”

 

Are you struggling with apparent unfruitfulness this season? Perhaps, all it takes is a little time, a little patience and a little encouragement, and remembering that all great things start with small beginnings.

 

As I planted the seedling in our front yard today, I prayed a prayer in my heart, that we too, would grow in time, to be exceedingly fruitful, and a blessing to all around us.

 

“Do not despise these small beginnings,

for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin…”

-Zechariah 4:10

 

 

“For we are God’s handiwork,

created in Christ Jesus to do good works,

which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

-Ephesians 2:10