Thorny Situations

Friday, April 08, 2011

The big task for the day involved the ongoing removal of a large tree filled with sharp 3-4 inch thorns. Debbie and Roger had removed enough branches to allow clear access for me to get in with the chainsaw. One has to be very careful as you wade into the mass of sprawling branches. Once I finally got the trunk cut down it was a ton more work to cut off the small branches and feed them through the mulcher. Using chainsaw, handsaws, pruning shears, axes, hatchets and hands we broke the tree down piece by patient piece. We won’t be completely finished mulching it all until next week sometime.

What a miserable tree to work with. It really tried my patience when I took a turn feeding the thorny branches into the mulcher. I continually had to fight the urge to hurry and grab without looking and just shove the branches around. If you hurry you pay for it with painful pokes. I even got jabbed through my work gloves, another time deep into my thigh. Debbie cut a branch that swung into her head, drawing blood.

I see our work on this thorn tree as yet another metaphor for how they are sharing the Gospel in this region. Patience, persistence, methodical progress mixed with painful jabs and the occasional misstep. I can sense the zeal the folks here have and can tell they’d love to jump in with a full throttle approach, but I know that prudence rules. And yet it is so awesome to hear the innovative radio programs they are producing here. Amazing to see the strategic ways they dodge branches and duck through thorny patches, cutting here, trimming there, making the big cut when possible. What a great group of people that W has working with him.