Our Community Garden Vision

Six months ago, Alex and I had a crazy idea.  What if we started a community garden?  We already knew the location: our church has over 200 acres of land and we were hopeful they would let us use some to start the garden.  And we felt like this would be the right place to serve our community, as it is right down the street from a very large low-income apartment complex (with lots of international students and young families).  It would be a great way to build inroads into our community and be of practical service to our neighbors. Around this time we also found out about a new bike path that the city was building right through this same area! This would be another draw for people to garden on this land.

But there were some major hurdles to be cleared: coming up with a proposal and blueprint for the garden, getting it approved by our elders, raising the money for materials and gathering people to volunteer to help build the garden.  Did I mention that we know almost nothing about community gardens?  I visited a community garden that my friend had a plot in while we lived in California, and last summer I had a plot in a garden on the other side of town.  But... that's pretty much it.

We worked hard coming up with a proposal (and by "we" I mean Alex as he's done most of the work on this whole thing).  And finally it came time to propose it to the elders.  We really didn't know if it would be approved or not (among other barriers to it being passed, our church gets much needed money from renting out our currently unused acreage to a farmer).  And to be honest, I almost didn't want it to pass... I knew it would be a lot of work on our shoulders if we had to turn this dream into a reality.

It passed.  And I prayed for strength from God to carry this increased load.  But though I knew it would be hard work, I was also excited to have something so big to trust God for, to depend on him completely for.  It has been a while since I have had to do something where I thought "If God doesn't move in this, then this is going to completely fail."  While that is a scary place to be, it is also a place where you get to see God move the most.  As George Mueller once wrote "Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man's power ends."

[Side note: I highly recommend reading The Autobiography of George Mueller.  This is one of my favorite books as it is very faith building and challenging]

Since the proposal passed (and that was just two months ago), we have been working on various aspect of this project almost daily.  We read a book on how to start a community garden and started a kickstarter campaign. We started to spread the word about the garden and have about 10 plots filled and 40 people willing to help build!  

I find that I am being amazed daily with how God is working.  Raising up 40 volunteers?  This is at least double what I could have hoped for.  Just this past weekend he put us in touch with an organization that is probably going to donate the fruit trees we need for the mini-orchard we are hoping to have in the garden.  And just today we passed 50% of the funds we need through our kickstarter campaign.

Will you join us in this work?  Would you consider:

1. Praying for us.

2. Sharing our kickstarter campaign on your social media of choice.

3. Giving to our fundraising campaign.  We have just one week left to raise up the last of what we need.

Thank you!