Eating Local

About 8 years ago (I think), Martina (our church administrator) and I started dreaming and praying of having a place with a huge garden. I mean like almost a farm, a place where we could really grow a lot to feed a lot.

Yesterday, the city engineers came to talk about our drainage problems. To help with drainage on the Northside, the city has bought three or four houses and is going to demolish them and use them for a drainage basin. They told us that we could have the land for a community garden.

I don’t know if they are going to make a basin out of it—I hope that they can leave the flat spaces where they are. If I dream big, I think of putting in a pond and maybe raising catfish. But that will have to wait.

For now, it looks like we have a space for our garden, space we’ll lose when the school rebuilds. If it is a permanent place, like the city’s property, I think we can justify putting in some fruit trees and some other permanent crops.

It’s funny; Martina and I have been involved in thinking, dreaming and praying about stuff like this for a long time. It comes to fruition here, where we have really gotten down to mission. It’ll be a sight to see—half a block of flowers, trees and vegetables.

And last night at our meal and service, we had a salad that had garden tomatoes, radishes, and spinach leaves. And 90 people. A real prayer concern: that we will not let ourselves be victims of our own success. It is going to be too easy to be wiped out by the numbers of people coming, by the pressure of getting a meal served, food baskets out, cleaning up. We want to spend and be spent, but we could use some help, too!