I did the hoeing in the family garden. And I hoed in Okinawa, too. (Warning: Humor inside.)

I was raised on a small family farm -- with a big garden. As a little girl, I did the hoeing. We have a family joke that I was the hoe-r. Hoer. I would hoe in the garden. Nice.

I fought the weeds. I had to learn the difference between a new plant coming up that we wanted to keep and the weeds that needed to go.

Some wild flowers would grow in the garden, too. I would pick the flowers and give them to my Mom. I would hoe the weeds with my ...hoe.
 

This task was hard work. I'm pretty sure the handle on the hoe was longer than I was tall. I dutifully worked the garden and with all this time alone, I learned to make up songs to God and there is where my heart met Him.

In the midst of the controlled garden area, there was a wild strawberry patch that I loved. The last day I remember hoeing was the day I found a snake. 

As my niece would say, "I don't like 'nakes."

At first I thought it was only a discarded a snake skin (I had heard of them but had never seen one). Then when the tongue darted out towards the strawberry I wanted to pick---I knew it was a live snake. With a wiggly, rattling tail. The devil! The devil in the garden!

(About this photo below... I don't understand people who make stuff like this. Don't ever make one and bring it to my house. It would not go well....)

I was so afraid, I couldn't make a sound. But I knew how to run and I ran to our house like my feet were on fire. Mom said I was pale as a ghost and thought I was going to pass out. The performance won me a reclining afternoon on the couch with a cool washcloth on my forehead.

I'm sure it was a 12' diamond-back rattlesnake.
                               (Don't mock me. You weren't there!!)

In January - February 1991, I spent 8 weeks in Okinawa working in the brothel red-light district. I went with a group of missionaries after completing training in Hawaii. Being a skilled hoer (y'all better be laughing), I went in there looking for flowers, pulling out weeds and helping God's tender plants to grow and find life.

I saw wayyy more 'nakes and darkness than I ever knew existed. I saw women reaching out of rooms towards people in alleys... rooms that had bars on the windows. I touched them. Prayed for them. (Pried myself loose a couple of times.) And experienced how light overcomes darkness.

The Gulf War began while I was there. There was a flood of American Marines 'visiting' the district where I was living. They were brave. They were afraid. They were busted.

We talked and prayed every night with Marines and women--and rested during the day. It was intense but the harvest was ready.

One Marine in particular comes to mind. Being approached by an American missionary in a brothel alley, there was no need to beat around the bush about why he was there--and time was short. I asked him, "Do you know God?" He began to cry and tell me that he gave his life to serve in ministry when he was in high school and was not right with God. We prayed together and he hustled back to base. Another Marine was outside one of the buildings waiting on one of his buddies. Same story. He ditched that post and went on his way.

On the TV each day, we could see the bombing on newscasts but it seemed nothing like what we were fighting. I was strawberry picking and hoeing in Okinawa--fighting 'nakes and picking flowers; especially looking for flowers that others had mistaken for a weed.

I talked to my Mom when the war started. Man, she wanted me to come home. I could have. I could have gone home with a pale face and had the cool-washcloth-couch treatment. But I was ready for this. I told her the safest place for me to be is in the center of God's will.

A hoer has to go where the weeds are.
                   Because there are tender plants out there. ;)

And flowers.

(By the way. I prefer the word 'gardener'.
                                But apparently, it's just not as funny. :)

Love,
Marcie Elliott-Smith