{"id":139,"date":"2011-08-01T22:16:41","date_gmt":"2011-08-02T02:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/discoveriesofawanderer\/?p=139"},"modified":"2011-08-04T12:15:20","modified_gmt":"2011-08-04T16:15:20","slug":"the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/08\/the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed.html","title":{"rendered":"The Force of a Tiny Mustard Seed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have arrived in Bolivia. It\u2019s cold. I\u2019m freezing. And it\u2019s awesome to be here.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Our first day marked an incredible tour of the World Vision sites in the Cochabamba area, which lies in the vast mountains of Bolivia. We swiftly traveled to a school where many young children greeted us with shy smiles and happy voices.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>As the bloggers and I stepped into the schoolroom the children gave a short Bible study. (If you have never been to a Bible study that is led by children, I highly recommend it). One girl of about 11 years old walked to the front and read a verse about a mustard seed. The seed starts small, but oh, watch what it can do!<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Comes from Matthew 17:20<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bible.cc\/matthew\/17-20.htm\" target=\"_blank\">New Living Translation (\u00a92007)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Jesus told them. &#8220;I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, &#8216;Move from here to there,&#8217; and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>The small mustard seed parable reminded me of a precious child; it can expand and grow into something incredible that can affect the world. A child, just like the mustard seed, can be a part of doing the impossible.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>I was moved by this reflection and considered <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldvision.org\/content.nsf\/pages\/become-a-sponsor-today-bolivia?Open&amp;campaign=2100664\">how caring for a child, whether in Bolivia<\/a> or anywhere else, is vital not only for today but also for tomorrow. Children grow up to be the social changers of the future. Children grow up to bring their own brave ideas into reality.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>In their own time, children eventually can move mountains of their own.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldvision.org\/content.nsf\/pages\/become-a-sponsor-today-bolivia?Open&amp;campaign=2100664\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.worldvision.org\/wp-content\/themes\/wvusblog2\/images\/bloggers\/bolivia\/boliviaSquare.jpg\" alt=\"Sponsor in Bolivia\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have arrived in Bolivia. It\u2019s cold. I\u2019m freezing. And it\u2019s awesome to be here. Our first day marked an incredible tour of the World Vision sites in the Cochabamba area, which lies in the vast mountains of Bolivia. We swiftly traveled to a school where many young children greeted us with shy smiles and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":235,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,30,12,14,11,13],"tags":[20,49,50,18],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-rights","category-christianity","category-education","category-god","category-hope","category-jesus","category-love","tag-bolivia","tag-gospels","tag-nature","tag-world-vision"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Force of a Tiny Mustard Seed - Discoveries of a Wanderer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/08\/the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Force of a Tiny Mustard Seed - Discoveries of a Wanderer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have arrived in Bolivia. It\u2019s cold. I\u2019m freezing. And it\u2019s awesome to be here. Our first day marked an incredible tour of the World Vision sites in the Cochabamba area, which lies in the vast mountains of Bolivia. We swiftly traveled to a school where many young children greeted us with shy smiles and&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/08\/the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Discoveries of a Wanderer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-02T02:16:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-08-04T16:15:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.worldvision.org\/wp-content\/themes\/wvusblog2\/images\/bloggers\/bolivia\/boliviaSquare.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jana Melpolder\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Force of a Tiny Mustard Seed - Discoveries of a Wanderer","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/08\/the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Force of a Tiny Mustard Seed - Discoveries of a Wanderer","og_description":"I have arrived in Bolivia. It\u2019s cold. I\u2019m freezing. And it\u2019s awesome to be here. Our first day marked an incredible tour of the World Vision sites in the Cochabamba area, which lies in the vast mountains of Bolivia. We swiftly traveled to a school where many young children greeted us with shy smiles and&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/08\/the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed.html","og_site_name":"Discoveries of a Wanderer","article_published_time":"2011-08-02T02:16:41+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-08-04T16:15:20+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.worldvision.org\/wp-content\/themes\/wvusblog2\/images\/bloggers\/bolivia\/boliviaSquare.jpg"}],"author":"Jana Melpolder","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/08\/the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/08\/the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed.html","name":"The Force of a Tiny Mustard Seed - Discoveries of a Wanderer","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/08\/the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/08\/the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.worldvision.org\/wp-content\/themes\/wvusblog2\/images\/bloggers\/bolivia\/boliviaSquare.jpg","datePublished":"2011-08-02T02:16:41+00:00","dateModified":"2011-08-04T16:15:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/#\/schema\/person\/ed4df2f4c08a1cb26b9e488226ab83af"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/08\/the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/08\/the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/08\/the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.worldvision.org\/wp-content\/themes\/wvusblog2\/images\/bloggers\/bolivia\/boliviaSquare.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.worldvision.org\/wp-content\/themes\/wvusblog2\/images\/bloggers\/bolivia\/boliviaSquare.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/08\/the-force-of-a-tiny-mustard-seed.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Force of a Tiny Mustard Seed"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/","name":"Discoveries of a Wanderer","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jana Melpolder","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/#\/schema\/person\/ed4df2f4c08a1cb26b9e488226ab83af","name":"Jana Melpolder","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/author\/jmelpolder"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}