What happens when you serve others while trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit?

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He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. (Mark 4: 26-27 NIV)

As we prepared to leave Ofunato, there was one person I absolutely had to say goodbye to.

My friend, the Apple Farmer.

I first met the Apple Farmer during our first fall in Japan, when I helped turn apples towards the sun to help them ripen. That experience taught me a very important lesson– that there cannot be a harvest unless we first care for and nurture individuals, one at a time.

When I first met him, I was warned that he wasn’t very open to hearing about matters of faith–that he used to snicker whenever a Christian volunteer would bring up Jesus.

No matter. The man needed help, so we’d help him whenever we could.

The following spring, my teammates called the Apple Farmer to ask if he needed us to volunteer. Late spring/early summer was when the pollinated flowers begin to form clusters of apple buds, and the farmer needed help pruning the trees, cutting away all but the best bud in each bunch so that precious resources, such as water and nutrients, are concentrated into one good fruit rather than dispersed among multiples.

It was tedious work, somewhat therapeutic but often stressful.

The task is easy enough when there’s one bud that is clearly larger and better-formed than the rest in the bunch, but when there are two that look more or less equal, an executive decision must be made in a snap. Which one to cut off? Which one looks more likely to grow into a nice, big, delicious apple that the farmer can sell for a good price?

A family’s livelihood could hinge on these decisions.

Building trust

Each tree took one or two hours to prune, as there were thousands of buds to clip off. Our staff spent about a week and a half helping to do this, trying to get as much of it done as possible during a crucial window of time that, if missed, could affect not only this year’s crop, but next year’s as well.

A few days into it, the Apple Farmer took a look at our work. I was nervous–he told us that the last group of volunteers had damaged a lot of the fruit by working too fast and nicking them, rendering them unsaleable. What would he think of my handiwork?

He inspected a tree I had pruned and asked me if I had ever done this type of work before.

I replied that I hadn’t.

He then asked why I did such a good job, “like a professional.”

I replied that I was only trying to be careful, as I knew that every apple mattered to him.

He nodded, a slight grin escaping one corner of his mouth.

Rain began to fall. The Apple Farmer invited us into his shed to have some tea with him.

Ochako, or teatime, offers opportunities to connect, for superficial chitchat to be peeled back, allowing for deeper levels of personal sharing. It’s a time to get to know others better and build relationships.

After sharing a few laughs over some hot beverages he prepared, the Apple Farmer told our team, “Volunteers come and go, but (you and I) have a true connection.” He revealed to us that when this important window of time came up and he couldn’t even pay anyone to help prune the apple trees, he began to panic, but our staff contacted him out of the blue, offered to help, and got most of the hard work done in the nick of time, just as the rainy season began.

“It must have been God’s timing,” said the farmer.

What a pleasant surprise to hear these words from his mouth. When our staff first met him two years earlier, he was known for being rather brusque, taking jabs in ways that were borderline insulting, and any mention of God or faith had been met with scoffing. But this time, he was different: he seemed softer, less edgy, more open… He talked about his struggles and concerns, yet he didn’t seem burdened or depressed by any of it, even though some of it was quite heavy. He carried a sense of peace about him.

Letting God be God

During teatime, the Apple Farmer told us nonchalantly that he had abdominal pain and was going to see a doctor the following week to be tested for cancer.

When it was time for us to go, I asked our translator if we could pray for the Apple Farmer. The translator reminded me that he wasn’t very open to matters of faith, but she’d try asking anyway.

She asked him in Japanese if I could pray for him. At first, he let out a snicker, but he then looked me in the eye and gave us the go-ahead. (I suspect that he was responding out of politeness because I had tried so hard to do a decent job on his apple trees.)

I laid a hand on his shoulder and began to pray, breaking the prayer into short phrases for the translator to convey to the Apple Farmer. It was another non-spectacular prayer whereby I simply asked God for His blessings over that year’s harvest. I also prayed that the Apple Farmer would not have cancer.

When I ended with an “amen,” the Apple Farmer rushed over and grabbed my hand, incredulous.

“What did you do? Your hand was hot. I could feel electricity going through my body.”

That was news to me, as I didn’t feel a thing while I was praying for him. I replied that I hadn’t done anything to him, but perhaps the Holy Spirit had touched him.

A week or two later, our team called the Apple Farmer to see how he was doing and ask if he needed more help. He told us that he went through with the cancer test and it came back negative.

Praise God.

Now, I don’t know if he had cancer and God healed him or if he never had cancer in the first place, but my prayer was that he wouldn’t have cancer, and that prayer was answered. The Apple Farmer didn’t have cancer.

—–

Later that summer, our staff contacted the Apple Farmer to ask if he needed help turning apples towards the sun. This time, we had a new volunteer–a college student who had not grown up in any type of Christian environment, survived a horrible accident, took a year off school, came to the tsunami-ravaged region to volunteer, connected with our Christian disaster-relief network, and gave his life to Jesus.

When this college student shared his story with the Apple Farmer, the farmer said, “God is good.”

I don’t recall any of us ever teaching him these kinds of Christianese phrases. Was this the work of the Holy Spirit in the Apple Farmer?

—–

That fall, one Japanese Christian volunteer came all the way from Kyushuu to help with the harvest, as he had done every harvest season for three years running. This volunteer had been out of work for a while and received a job offer that would have required him to start before the apple harvest. The volunteer thus had to decline the job offer, as he had already committed to traveling to Iwate Prefecture to help his friend, the Apple Farmer.

The Apple Farmer was concerned and urged this volunteer to take care of his job situation first, but the volunteer replied, “God will take care of it.” Lo and behold, the volunteer received a different job offer from a company that not only allowed him to fulfill his commitment to help with the harvest first, it promised to give him Sundays off to attend church.

When the Apple Farmer heard of God’s faithfulness to this volunteer, he marveled, “Your God is the living God!” Another Christianese phrase that I don’t recall us ever teaching him.

I pray that this is the work of the Holy Spirit in the Apple Farmer‘s life.

—–

The same three takeaways as last time, rephrased:

1. Talk is cheap. The Apple Farmer didn’t want to be preached to-he just needed help with his struggling apple orchard. By meeting tangible needs, volunteers (many of whom were Christian) earned credibility among the community by serving them in the aftermath of disaster.
2. Show that you care. The Apple Farmer might not have let me pray for him if I hadn’t shown concern for him through the way I worked on his fruit trees. People are savvy–they can easily tell if we see them as projects or as human beings.
3. Trust results to God. Our team of missionaries and volunteers didn’t try to push our faith down the Farmer’s throat. We conveyed love through acts of service, and when opportunities to pray for him arose, we prayed simple prayers, not calling attention to ourselves, but trusting God to answer prayers in whatever way He desired to.

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. (1 Corinthians 3: 6-7 NIV)

(to be continued)