Hi, Akita here - trust you are having a great week.

Check Your Soil... part one.

Yesterday I bought five plants from a local garden nursery for my back garden. I was so excited to bring them home and plant them in the ground. It took me 20 minutes to decide where I was going to place them. I would move the pots around until I was happy with the location.

I ended up planting them all in different areas of my yard. Something that really stood out was all the five different places had different types of soil. From the surface they all looked like the same. The first hole I dug was in sandy soil, great at the beach but not in my garden. The next couple of holes were in moist black soil, perfect for plants. Another one was in yellow brickie's sand, great for building things but not building a garden bed. And one of the holes I dug out had a lot of cement rubble in the area, good for someone to hide rubbish/waste but not good for plants to grow in.

Normally the only digging I do is in my veggie patch which is rich black soil, and I had just assumed that my whole back yard's soil would be in the same condition. It suprised me how much change there can be even in one yard... parts of the yard are in great condition and can produce easily, but other parts are in poor condition and in need of a boost/fertilizer. This made me think about my life, and different areas there may be in my life. Just like things are not all the same in one garden, so too maybe things are not all the same in one person's life.

Some may tend to notice the condition of an area in our lives and assume that the rest of their areas must be in the same condition. This may be wrong. Some parts of my life are going very well, fertilized regularly, producing much... but there are other areas that are in great need of attention, there may also be an area that is full of rubble and in need of a serious overhaul in that area.

Unless we do a little digging we do not really know what condition our soil is in. If we find some poor soil that doesn't mean all areas of our lives are in poor condition, and if we locate some rich soil that doesn't mean that all of our areas are in perfect condition.

Digging with you,

Akita.
19-4-07

To view past editions of Thrive, click: THRIVE editions

To visit the Oxygen Youth website:

If you have any praise points, encouragement, favourite verses, or short teachings you wish to share... please send me an email (I know there are some out there) and we will try to include.

prayer: for next Oxygen event, to be held on Saturday the 5th of May.

prayer: that young Christians around the world will hear clearly God's voice, learn to stay tuned in, and be bold enough to respond.

.... if you have any requests you would like added here, please email me, contact details below.

Psalm 40 v 1-2

I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

Please feel free to forward this email-newsletter to friends + family.

Akita Olsen - Youth Pastor
Email: olsens@westnet.com.au

Bunbury Vineyard Church.
PO Box 1475, Bunbury,
WA 6231, Australia.
Office phone: (08) 9721 3379
www.bunburyvineyard.org.au

If somebody has forwarded this email to you and you'd like to subscribe to this weekly message, please visit www.bunburyvineyard.org.au/thrive.htm.