This photo is from a garden in front of a house that Chris and Donna took us to deliver food. It is hand dug by the men.

Walking in the Garden
Chapter 6
By: Tara Rye
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Matthew 5:8

There is nothing more enjoyable than walking through a garden with your loved one or with one precious to you. Somehow, their presence enhances the experience. It is the shared joy of celebrating the planting or harvest together. I recently went on a field trip with my son touring Lauritzen’s Gardens. Grant and I both could not wait to take Greg and Mikayla to see the mini replica garden of Omaha made out of twigs and leaves. We think nothing of asking another to come along and celebrate a garden’s beauty, but what if the garden held danger like risky terrain or snakes in the grass? Would we still be willing to invite another to come along? In many respects, a missionary is the one who takes another by the hand to walk them through a particular garden to cultivate what has already been sowed by another or to reap the planting. Often their places of service—their garden is dangerous or risky at best. Missionaries Chris and Donna Mooney of Bethel Ministries International takes about fifteen teams a year by the hand to walk them through the garden in Guatemala. They do not stop at just walking the people through. They hand each person a tool and say, Get to work! Plants don’t grow by just looking at them. It takes love and hard work to cultivate a rich and bountiful harvest! In the summer of 2008, a team from our church had the privilege of being taken by the hand to walk and serve in the garden with the Mooney’s. One afternoon while our team dug out the ground to lay a house, Chris picked up an old fashioned pick and hoe combination and started to give us a sermon while he broke hard chunks of earth. “You know this hoe and pick is a lot like the LORD. He has to break up the hardness in us to make us soft for planting.” I paused in my labor to ponder what he said and without thinking I blurted out our theme verse, Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you. Hosea 10:12 (NIV). Chris turned and looked at me and laughed! I discovered as the days unfolded I was going to love that laugh as we toured the garden with this couple because the LORD reminded me that the purest laughter often comes from great depths of pain. Through the simplicity and purity of their ministry in a land scarcely loved by man our team saw Jesus in Guatemala.