Harvest Time

I am not going to lie, I was pretty excited to hop on the back of the moto with Rebeca and head out to the village to go check on a baby. Normally, if I want to do a "sortie" or an outing with Rebecca and Juliette, I have to bring my car because there are too many of us to fit on a moto. But this time, with just me and Rebeca, I got to ride in my favorite spot: the back of a moto. 

"Normally, you are my chauffeur in your car," Rebeca told me as I hopped on the back, "but this time I get to chauffeur you!" I happily accepted. I put on my helmet and she commented, "I would wear my helmet, but my meche (aka weave) is too big." I probably shouldn't have, but I laughed and made a mental note that no matter where they originate from, Africans love their hair. 

We puttered out to the village where a premature baby weighing 800 grams (around 2 lbs) had been born on October 2. Rebeca had encouraged the family to bring the baby to our city for a medical evaluation, but they never showed, so we went out together to see what was up. 

Upon arriving, we found a baby so tiny that you wouldn't believe she had survived eleven days out in the bush. In the United States, a baby like her would be called an "urgent case" and rushed to a NICU where they would be in isolation and hooked up to all kinds of machines. Yet here she was, surviving like a trooper against all odds in the most desperate (and unclean) situation. 

Sometimes I wonder if the babies born in the United States are just weaker or maybe the babies here are more resilient. Or maybe God just extends an extra measure of his grace by putting his protective hand over these little ones in the middle of nowhere who have no other hope besides him. 

I held her for about an hour as we tried to convince the family to bring this fragile little one in for a medical evaluation. We don't have a NICU, but at least she could live close by so that I could check on her daily, take temperatures and give prophylactic antibiotics, weigh her and monitor her feelings and nutrition, even drop a feeding tube if necessary. Even though the family understood the fragility of her little life, it is still "complicated" (as they say) to drop everything and move to another city to seek medical care. Who will take care of the other children? Who will help with the harvest? These things, too, are essential to life, and must be considered and weighed. It's not fair. 

On the way back, the sun was setting over the corn fields and I watched the countryside pass by from the back of the moto. It's October, I thought to myself, and realized that I miss the familiar things of fall. Instead of 60 degree weather, we get the 100s. Instead of bright yellow and orange leaves falling off trees, we get dust blowing around and people burning grass everywhere. Instead of scarves and sweaters, I wear sweaty tanktops and am more tan than I was in June. The other day, I saw someone post a lovely fall flavored Starbucks drink on Facebook. I was so jealous that I got out one packet of apple cider that came from America and tried to put myself in the fall mood. Sweat beads rolled off my chin and hit the table, almost landing in my steamy Apple cider. This is just not the same, I thought to myself, half laughing and half ticked-off. 

But on the back of that moto, autumn didn't seem too bad. Yes, I miss some things from the fall I am familiar with, but at the same time I am experiencing a new type of fall that I haven't know before. A fall where the corn grows so high that everywhere you go, you feel like you are in a giant corn maze. This is the first time in my life that I have experienced a true harvest, and I love seeing the stalks heavy with millet and the little white buds blooming on the cotton plants. Fall time is harvest time, and it makes me think of Jesus when he said,

"The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his fields." 

Then I thought about a different kind of field, a field where seeds have been planted in fertile hearts, and now fruit is growing and people are waiting for someone to come for the harvest. Several images came to my mind. 

First, I thought about going to the village of Sarba this past Sunday with Charlotte. Whenever we go to village church together, we bring a big bag with all the supplies we need to share the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand and do an activity with all the children. This Sunday in particular, we had the opportunity to share the story with the whole church, not just the children, and they loved it so much that they begged us to come back. They loved the costumes and actively participated in the reenactment of the story. More impressively, they participated equally as much in the application part of the story-telling. They learned that we all have a spiritual hunger that only Jesus can satisfy. 

The harvest is plentiful. 

Then I thought about our visit this week to the family that we are serving in another nearby village. The father is practically blind, the mother died randomly in a field just a few years ago, and the four children are living in a situation of true poverty. Each time we go out to visit them, we establish a little more trust, laugh a little bit more, and pray with them a little bit harder. 

The harvest is plentiful. 

I see Adama, a 13 year old boy who lives in our neighborhood and dropped out of school because he had an umbiblical hernia that caused kids to make fun of him. We provided a surgery for him and are now supporting him to return to school for the first time in several years. 

The harvest is plentiful. 

I think about Gertrude, another neighbor of ours who is suffering from HIV/AIDS. We know of a clinic in Ouaga that specializes in treating AIDS, and we sent her there with a friend of ours who has the same illness. "She's my sister in Christ, of course I will go with her," she said even though she doesn't know her.  

We also offered to help Getrude's son learn a trade. When he showed up at our house today, we asked one of our Dagara-speaking friends to chat with him for a little while. When I peaked my head around the corner to check on them, I saw him with his Bible open in his lap, reading straight out of the Word of God.

The harvest is plentiful. 

The man living next door to us, Pierre, has a huge leg wound that could have easily taken his life by now. We are choosing to believe that God will save his life and his leg, and so we do dressing changes every other day and pray with him every night. In fact, our night guard goes over and prays with him because he used to be a church leader and speaks Dagara. 

The harvest is plentiful. 

Finally, I think about a little baby who came into the office yesterday when I just happened to be there. The baby looked on the very brink of death, diagnosed with severe malaria and anemia, desperately in need of a blood transfusion. The closest place to get a transfusion was Gaoua, but I didn't think the baby would make it that far. Nevertheless, I didn't know what else to do, and I couldn't do nothing, so I payed for their transport and prayed with them before they left. I asked God to do the impossible by helping them get to Gaoua before the baby died, make quick transfers, find a quick taxi, get to the hospital, and find willing personnel to see and treat him without hesitation. To add onto that, I prayed that God would make a blood transfusion available and that the child would receive it without complication that very night. (These sound like obvious requests for U.S. health care, but you have no idea how complicated that string of events actually is over here)

The harvest is indeed plentiful. 

This morning, I heard news that the baby had arrived the night before. received blood, and was doing significantly better. Let me tell you, God did that; he prolonged that baby's life and made a way for him to get the rapid care that he needed to save his life. 

So when I look out over the fields and see the stalks heavy with the harvest, I also see images of faces in my mind. Faces of the true harvest. People who need hope, whose hearts are already tilled by the hardships of life, and who are ready to receive the love of Jesus and the good news of the gospel that is producing beautiful, edible fruit in this very season.