FRESH FRUIT!

If you know me well, you know I’m a cheapskate. I nicer word might be frugal, but regardless of how you word it – I don’t like to spend money. 

In college (and lets be honest, after as well), my goal when going to the grocery store was always to see how little I could spend on groceries. That usually meant buying Great Value brand at Wal-Mart. Fruits and vegetables (unless they were in a Great Value can) were too expensive, so I didn’t buy them.

In Bolivia, the tables have turned. Fresh fruits and vegetables are the cheapest things you can buy!

Now, as summer comes to an end in Bolivia, I have made an exciting discovery. The girls house has a grape vine, an orange tree, and two fig trees! I knew about the orange tree, but almost every day for 7 months I have walked past these trees without really looking at them. (And to be honest, even if I had looked at them I don’t know anything about trees.)

Oranges, but right now they are greens....

Grapes!

The girls have spent hours climbing up into the trees to find the ripest fruit. Every time they find a good fig, or a bunch of grapes they gather around excitedly and calmly discuss [fight over] who will get to eat it. I don’t know if I had ever eaten a fig in my life before this week, but I have grown to like them as well!

The inside of a fig - just in case you haven't eaten one either

Yesterday afternoon as I picked fruit with the girls and learned to tell the difference between good figs and bad figs, I was reminded of the verse in Matthew 7:16 that says, “You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” And the verses in John 15:5 that says, “ I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

As I saw the rotting grapes and figs that had fallen on the ground I was reminded of my own helplessness apart from Jesus. There is great need, but apart from Him I can do nothing. Please pray with me that the Lord would bear fruit in the lives of the girls at Casa de Amor just as He has grown the fruit in their front yard!

A.M enjoying her fig!

I love this picture of J looking for good fruit!