Leaving the Garden in Good Hands

So, as part of my preparations to leave beautiful Benin for delightful Dakar, I had to figure out what to do about the garden. I couldn't leave it untended for 2 weeks. So I wrote my former garden instructor to ask if he was interested/available in taking care of the garden while I was away. Surpisingly, no response. . . This is the 1st time he hadn't responded immediately. I remembered back to my 2nd or 3rd week in Cotonou I saw the most beautiful private garden I've seen, perhaps in my life. It belongs to an American acquaintance of mine who works in Cotonou. At that time she told me that if I needed a gardener, she could give me the contact information of the gardener who help with my garden. I was all about doing the gardening myself at the time so I didn't follow up.

Three days before I left for Dakar,   I got in touch with my acquaintance, called her gardener and arranged for him to come take a look at my garden.

What he said when he arrived floored me.

He stepped 3 feet in the gate and said the garden is coming along but it needs serious fertilizing treatments, deeper watering, and pest control. He also said the mysteriously appearing plant that I thought was a weed was a green that could be eaten.   Who knew a part of my garden would be edible?!

But,  it wasn't that that floored me.

I invited him to come in and take a look at the grounds.  He told me that he already knew the garden because it was him who planted it.   What?!

That was a Moses' mama moment if I've ever experienced one!!  If you've experienced one, I'd love to hear about it.

For those of you not familiar with Moses' mama's story, let's take a moment for story time:

In the beginning of the book of Exodus,  Pharoah, for fear of the Israelites overthrowing his kingdom, ordered that all male children be killed.  During this time a Isreaelite Levite woman, gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Moses.  She couldn't bear to kill him so she put him in a basket and sent him down the river in hopes he would somehow survive.  One of Pharoah's daughters found him and adopted him.  She needed someone to nurse him so she  inquired among the Israelite women for a nurse.  The nurse ended up being Moses' own birth mother.  What a blessing to be at the verge of losing your child then ending up being hired to nurse him.

So I am feeling particularly excited that I hired the creator of my garden to take care of it.  I have a strong feeling that the season of me taking care of my own garden has passed for 3 reasons:

1) Gardening takes a LOT of effort. To produce results I would need to spend probably 3-4 times as much time fertilizing, weeding, trimming, watering, etc.
 2) Experts are experts for good reason. Even if I spent 3-4x the time, I still might not get the best (or even decent:) result.
3) I now have more important things to do with my time. I'm considering starting to volunteer with an adult literacy program or at an orphanage. I've also discussed with Francine starting up an English club for professionals and a financial literacy class. Please join with me in prayer about the when, how and if of these possible projects.

I asked the gardener, Dominique if my garden would be transformed by the time I got back from my trip.  He laughed.  We'll see. . .