Tomatoes

Wanda said to Noel last night, "What do you think tomatoes grow on trees or something?"

Kinda.

Our garden (and Wanda's) is lousy with tomatoes. (I love that phrase "lousy with," we really ought to use it more).

I filled a large shopping bag with tomatoes this morning, skinned about half of them and filled 3 gallon ziplock bags with skinless tomatoes to put in the freezer. There are more tomatoes in the house than we can keep up with. We have made salsa, spaghetti sauce, margarita pizza, salad, curry, caprese salad, BLTs, and fried eggs on toast with tomatoes.

The harvest is PLENTIFUL! But the laborers are few, with Bethany settling in in Dushanbe there are fewer hands to harvest and weed and water.

Last week was a busy week for me professionally and academically, and a hard one personally. I've been working a lot of overtime and trying to finish my last summer school class. I had my 10 year reunion from High school on Saturday night and spent too much emotional energy feeling nervous about that. I didn't get much downtime last week.

One of my 17 year old students passed away on Monday and I've been struggling with my own grief and trying to be there for some of my friends and students that are also grieving.

So some of the tomatoes rotted in the garden on the vine. Getting to the garden just wasn't my priority last week.

Jesus, in the book of Luke (10:2) says, " "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

There are kids in Minneapolis who are ready to know that they are important, that they are a reflection of God's glory, that God loves them and that they can change the world. But if adults in the church don't take the time to teach it. . . I'm not sure what happens.

A week ago I had 80 volunteer positions to fill for Children's Ministry to launch well in three weeks. I sent out this prayer request to the women who pray for my ministry. Now with 2 weeks to go, 30 of those positions have been filled and there are many more people who have said that they are interested in serving, they just want to hear more.

I am blown away by the abundance.






*ps - we have a new roommate moving in - her name is Holly, she's in my bookclub and in the class next door to mine at seminary. I'll tell you more about her later.