Twelve years ago, we bought a farm in Fiji. Despite our lack of funds and experience, my husband and I took a loan from my mom and bought 14 acres. We had a vision for a community development training farm that would be a light for Christ. When we bought it, the farm was full of runaway sugarcane surrounding a dilapidated rat-infested tin house. Honestly, I wasn’t too sure about it. My husband could look at the hills of overgrown sugarcane and see a vision of what was to come. I just saw work.  

Along with our small team, we just kept showing up. The family that had lived in the house had been throwing their trash out the back window for years. We dug and dug, and kept unearthing trash. We shoveled the rats’ nests out of the house, tore out rotten boards, and rebuilt walls. In the fields, we began to prepare the earth for plowing, picking up rocks one by one. We planted papaya trees, watering acres of trees by hand until rainy season came and the trees began to grow. 

The work was relentless, but we did not give up. The neighbors tried to burn the farm. Someone put gravel in the tractor gas tank to break it. Our dogs were poisoned and died. The spiritual warfare just never seemed to let up. My husband asked a visiting ministry team to paint Gal 6:9 on a big sign to hang up at the main house: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

My husband held tenaciously to the vision God had given him, and for the past decade he did not give up. Today, Oasis Farm is a beautiful haven where visitors are refreshed, trained, encouraged and discipled. Hundreds of young people, both nationals and visitors from overseas, have labored side by side in the fields and been touched by God in this place over the years. The harvest has been plentiful and our service to God has not been in vain. 

And yet, there are still so many who don’t know Christ. We often view the spiritual needs in our community through the analogy of the farm. We may be the ones that are picking up the rocks and clearing the ground for the next wave of people that God calls to reach this place. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:6, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.” It is so reassuring to know that, although God asks us to do our part and serve Him, the growth is up to Him. 

Don’t give up! Your labor for the Lord is not in vain. Keep on picking up those rocks and trust God for the harvest, just like we do at Oasis Farm.