To almost every Papua New Guinean their garden is their life. A woman’s full time job is tending the garden to provide food for her family. Typically, a family’s only source of food is their own garden. I was first under the impression that the unemployment rate was nearly 85% primarily because people chose not to work and that they were content with living a subsistent lifestyle. I recently learned that most Papua New Guineans would much rather work and buy their food like you and I do, but there simply are no jobs for them. Because they are unable to work they are forced to garden/farm what they need to survive. Thankfully the ground here is very fertile and the rain is more than plentiful. If it were not for the ideal farming conditions and the 365 day growing season I don’t know how the people here would survive.
Rachel and I recently started our own very small garden, laughable compared to the fields of fruits and vegetables that a national tends to. In America we do so much to make sure our crops and plants get enough water to survive, sometimes we even build ditches and large sprinklers to get water to our crops, plants, and grass. In PNG we do the opposite, there is too much water! We dig barrets, small ditches, along the edges of the gardens to take the massive amounts of water away.
Though the nationals here say they would much rather buy their food, they have become accustomed and happy with their lifestyle. This is such a testament to God’s provisions and blessings each of us. The people here are not able to work but God has provided the resources, tools, and knowledge to produce food for themselves.
An American may observe the lifestyle of a Papua New Guinean and say they have so little, how can they consider themselves blessed, and if they could observe my life they would say God has truly blessed me. Yet a national friend I work with named John said that he and most Christian nationals consider themselves to be blessed because of the salvation from sin and death God gave them. He went on to explain to me that they do not consider worldly items to be blessings, and that he sees having a lot of things as the contradiction of a blessing. John’s point was simple yet powerful. The things we have and consider blessings from God may be the opposite of a blessing, something that hinders our relationship with him.
This post is now far from talking about gardens or subsistence farming, but there seems to be a lesson in faith around every corner. Today’s was John’s simply profound words that the one true blessing we have is the blessing of Salvation.
Rachel and I recently started our own very small garden, laughable compared to the fields of fruits and vegetables that a national tends to. In America we do so much to make sure our crops and plants get enough water to survive, sometimes we even build ditches and large sprinklers to get water to our crops, plants, and grass. In PNG we do the opposite, there is too much water! We dig barrets, small ditches, along the edges of the gardens to take the massive amounts of water away.
Though the nationals here say they would much rather buy their food, they have become accustomed and happy with their lifestyle. This is such a testament to God’s provisions and blessings each of us. The people here are not able to work but God has provided the resources, tools, and knowledge to produce food for themselves.
An American may observe the lifestyle of a Papua New Guinean and say they have so little, how can they consider themselves blessed, and if they could observe my life they would say God has truly blessed me. Yet a national friend I work with named John said that he and most Christian nationals consider themselves to be blessed because of the salvation from sin and death God gave them. He went on to explain to me that they do not consider worldly items to be blessings, and that he sees having a lot of things as the contradiction of a blessing. John’s point was simple yet powerful. The things we have and consider blessings from God may be the opposite of a blessing, something that hinders our relationship with him.
This post is now far from talking about gardens or subsistence farming, but there seems to be a lesson in faith around every corner. Today’s was John’s simply profound words that the one true blessing we have is the blessing of Salvation.
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