Occupation or Ministry?

I have been thinking a lot about following Jesus. I am lucky that I have found a "job" where my specific goal is to share the love of Christ in all I do. Funny thing about what I do is that I don't plant churches or give sermons, yet it seems different than other work I have done.

I've realized that many people, myself included, have a hard time remembering that no matter what we do, we do it for the glory of God and his kingdom. I have it good cause I am now working a job that is classified as ministry which somehow makes it easier. I found it much harder to keep my focus when I was serving tables, or marshaling in airplanes, or driving tractors back in the states.

I wish our Savior had more influence on our job. I wish that our savior identified us better. For example: I wish that rather than a carpenter who is a Christian it would be a Christian carpenter and that people would understand the difference. So many people are identified by their work. We need to find our identity in Christ.

The point of all this is that I guess I am a farmer, businessman, construction worker, accountant, and teacher, but I only want to be a follower of Jesus.


I have recently been looking into posho mills. We buy 3,000 pounds of posho each week. Posho is basically flour made from maize. I have got really excited about the idea of starting our own mill. It must be in the blood. Anyway, I am hoping and dreaming that we could use this as both development and ministry. I think we could set it up like our women's circle that makes the bead necklaces. A group of men who work together and pray together.


I had my first "kid." So after Operation Christmas Goat I decided I wanted to raise some of my own and this little guy is my first addition (Since him I have had 2 more babies). I'm not really in it for the money so I think I will just use the babies I have as gifts, but it has been fun. I currently have 7 females, 1 male, and 3 babies. I still have not gotten around to naming them all, but it is on my to do list.



We also started to farm a small piece of our land. We have a bit of extra land behind where I built the playground. We hope someday to buy up a few more pieces and start a teaching farm. As for now I figured rather than it just sitting unused that we could plant some crops. I decided on tomatoes and onions after about 10 seconds of consideration. I'm thinking I should have done a bit of research. They are doing fine and everything, but they are a ton of work and I'm not exactly certain what we are going to do with all of them. My original thought process was that we could supplement our purchasing of these items with home grown ones, but it seems that we will have hundreds of times more than we could possibly ever use. I've been brainstorming and there is a woman with 4 kids that is staying with Katie currently because she got evicted from her home. I'm tossing around the idea of letting her set up a tomato and onion stand and sell our produce. It would give her an income and enable her to rent her own place and provide for her children (previously she would haul small bundles of firewood on her head into town).


We also have a chalkboard at our chapel now. This will be great for the Bible studies that we have each Saturday and will facilitate teaching a plethora of other things in the future. We also have been working on re-varnishing the entire playground and putting up a fence around our whole property. I am happy to have completed all three of these tasks.

So, that is a bit of what I've been working on recently. Well, at least the interesting stuff. I suppose I could get you some photos of me going through receipts and talking to government officials. Anyway, I have more to tell you, but I will save it for the next time. Hopefully at a much smaller interval than this time.

I encourage you all to come before the Lord and ask Him to help you turn your job into ministry. It is what we were made to do!