When my husband and I first decided to join MAF, I spent a good amount of time thinking and praying about what my role should be while my husband would be flying. As I talked to people I got such a variety of answers. I realize now that they were all trying to express Matthew 9:37 in a way that I (having not yet lived in a 3rd world country) could truly understand.

The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”

Since I have been here, I’ve been asked to help with a youth group, teach a class at a school, host visitors, take visitors shopping, help adopting families, organize shopping orders, teach sewing classes, take photos for friends and organizations, visit a senior home on a regular basis, hand out food to street kids, go to a weekly book club, go to a weekly baby club, grow a garden, raise rabbits, chickens and guinea fowl, go to a Bible study every Tuesday, teach a girls’ Bible study every Wednesday, visit an orphanage every Friday, play baseball every Saturday, volleyball every Sunday, and somehow make dinner, take care of the house, my daughter and husband every day, and … breathe!

Photo by Nicole Bradfield with Oh Snap Photography.

To keep things in their proper order, I must put God first, my family second, my ministry third and all other needs after. I must be able to say no to some things that fall after my top three—or I will drown in a sea of the world’s needs.

Thankfully, we serve a God who is capable and does not ask us to do everything. Instead, in verse 38, we’re told to “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” So let us continue to pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send out more workers, to help us to be more effective in meeting the needs we can and to help meet the needs that we cannot.