How, he himself does not know

There are clear goals. Learning the language. Getting to know my neighbors. Trying to listen to them and their knowledge and wisdom. Gaining an understanding of poverty here. Learning my way through the culture. Making friendships. Finding a healthy and sustainable lifestyle and rhythms of rest, prayer, recreation, and reflection in a slum.

But there isn't much of a clear path.

Neighbors visit. I play cricket. I chat with kids. I learn to make ruti. I study language. I read books. I pray. Neighbors argue and play and work and laugh and go to the hospital and get better and cook and eat and do laundry and chat. Sometimes we get included.

All this is a lot better than pretending I understand poverty or my community or really much of anything. And it's better than plunging ahead like I know what's going on or what should be done.

But it's slow. And it feels totally out of my hands.

And He was saying, "The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows--how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come." [Mark 4:26-29]

Something is going on down there under the ground. Some days it just doesn't look like much on the surface.