Day 18: The Garden

     In my early thirties, I became pregnant with my youngest child. With three other children at home I spent most days, being a mom and taking care of the house. All young mothers will relate to feeling isolated some days, after you've picked up the umpteenth pair of shoes, cleaned up yet another mess, settled yet another childish squabble; you long for a calm. For me, finding that calm involved on many days, listening to the local Christian radio station, KPDQ.

 

     I had my favorite programs, "Through the Bible", with J. Vernon McGee, Chaplain Ray, with his prison ministry, and a daily broadcast from the Portland Rescue Mission. These radio personalities brought life, hope and interest into my busy mom's life. I learned, I grew and I broadened my interests from my own doorstep into the lives of others who were suffering.

 

     Over the course of several weeks a need continued to be mentioned for the Portland Rescue Mission, they didn't have enough vegetables and food to feed the people who came for meals. And, if they had enough food there wasn't enough room to store it. I listened as I cooked the ample meals for my family, pork chops, macaroni and cheese, potato soup and home made rolls. We were, as a family, well fed and nourished.

 

     The seed of an idea grew in my mind, I could plant a vegetable garden for those people, I could help. I started calling realtors to see if there was any land I could use for the garden. Working up my nerve, I visited a few offices in person. I prayed, asking God to guide me. After a number of unsuccessful attempts I found a man who agreed for us to use 10 acres in Felida, Washington. How excited I was! A place to grow vegetables, lots of vegetables. We visited the vacant farm and found an old barn, and acres of empty fields.

 

     I set to work. I needed literal "seed money". We didn't have any bank accounts but I did have an insurance policy my father had bought for me as a child. I called Mutual of Enamclaw, and found out how to withdraw the cash value, $735 dollars. I got the money and began thinking, now what? It wasn't as if I was a skilled gardener or anything. I continued to pray. I called Washington State University and was connected with one of their agricultural research men working in the Eastern part of the state. He listened to my plan and then said, "Listen, we do agricultural research and have seeds by the pound. This is what I'll do, I have pounds of seeds left over that we can't use this next year, let me ship them to you."

 

     I was so excited! I waited and finally the day came that the brown bags of seeds came in the mail. So many bags, labeled with their contents; carrots, squash, beets, corn, cucumbers. Wow! We were in seed heaven! It came into my mind that hungry people really loved potatoes and there were so many different ways to fix them; fried, baked, stews, soups, mashed. Potatoes are a wonderful food. I called a potato farmer in Ridgefield, Washington and asked how I could get seeds for potatoes. (Shows you how little I knew about growing things). The farmer explained that seeds for potatoes, were "seed potatoes". Their farm took potatoes ran them through a cutting machine and the pieces of potatoes with "eyes" on them were the seeds.

 

     I explained about our farm project and how much area we had to plant. He suggested we buy 1800 hundred pounds of seed potatoes. It sounded good to me and off we went in a station wagon to pick up the seeds. Hmm...I apparently hadn't accurately visualized what 1800 lbs of potatoes would look like. They brought out gunny sack, after gunny sack of potatoes until our car was loaded down so far I really didn't know if we'd make it to the farm. We did and the bags of potatoes waited until we got the soil ready.

 

     I rented a tractor and we dragged some kind of "digging" tool behind it back and forth on the fields until they were plush, dark brown and waiting. With babies playing in the playpen outside on the fields, we began the back-breaking toil of using rakes to make our long rows for our crops. Pregnant, sweating, I worked alongside my children's father, he a little puzzled how we'd gotten into this situation.

 

     By hand we planted our 1800 lbs of seed potatoes, our carrots, beets, acorn squash, cucumbers and corn. The rows looked so beautiful! Excited about the thousands of pounds of vegetables we were sure to give the Portland Rescue Mission, I called them to let them know about our garden. Imagine my delight and surprise to hear them talking about our garden on the radio during the next week. The pastor, in good faith to have room to store all the vegetables we were going to give them, continued to ask for financial support to get their new walk in cooler. He preached and asked, we weeded and watched as green shoots began to appear in orderly, (if somewhat crooked) rows over the two acres we'd been able to plant.

 

      As days went by, summer rains watered, summer sun blessed and everything grew at a phenomenal rate; the vegetables, my unborn child, and the weeds! Especially the weeds! We continue to drive the ten miles out to the farm to tend the huge crop the best we could. Overwhelmed I called the Rescue Mission. One day, they agreed to come out and help with the tasks. We waited on the appointed day and finally a van appeared. Eight or nine, kind of worn out looking men got out along with the driver. These men stayed at the mission, some of them appearing to be in various stages of detox. They were cheerful at first,but as the sun beat down, and the heat got worse, I heard one of the men complaining, "Where have they taken us?" He asked with a moan, "Is this some kind of hell I have to go through"?

 

     "Good grief," I thought to myself, "This isn't going too well." The men stayed a little longer then gathered their things and left. The vegetables continue to grow and flourish and now an ungainly eight months pregnant I struggled to nurture these budding plants. I dug up carrots, admiring their orangey goodness. The deep green of hundreds of baby acorn squash nestled amidst healthy vines. Row, after row of potato plants had brown, tight nuggets of potatoes at their roots. The garden was going to be successful!

 

     Harvest time came and I could barely wield a hoe. Huge with child, I clung to two other toddler's hands surveying the "fields ripe unto harvest." I called the Rescue Mission to ask if the men could come back and help with the harvest. They apologized but said the men were unwilling to come back and work on the farm. They did thank me for all we'd done and indicated they finally were able to purchase their new walk in cooler anytime we were ready we could bring them the vegetables. I sat down near the barn and cried, "My vegetables!" I wailed. I couldn't accept we'd done all that work and now we didn't have the strength, time or where-with-all to harvest them!

 

     We harvested what we could and then gave up...there was too much.We took a few boxes of vegetables to the mission and apologized for the small amount, they were very gracious and thanked us for what we could give. After that, I believe I called the local gleaners and gave them the directions to the field and hopefully they were able to put the vegetables on the tables of other hungry people.

 

     What did I learn from that experience? Well, in hindsight, I learned that sometimes working very hard at what seems to be a good plan, doesn't mean everything works out the way you'd thought it would. I'd like to believe that maybe in some small way, telling the radio listeners about the need to house all the expected vegetables helped get the financial support to get their cooler. Maybe, at least thinking of the adventure like that helps me reconcile the expectations with the results.

 

      In my daily walk with God, I'm finding it now more important to run my ideas of what His plans are by a couple of trusted friends. It doesn't mean I don't believe in divine inspiration any more but I do realize that humanly we can create so many ideas of how we can fix things that may or may not be His best plan for us. Trying to make sure that what we're doing is blessed will help us let the results be in His hands; no matter what result, if it's something He wants us to do, things will be okay.

 

Today in your own life, may the seeds you plant create gardens where what you harvest is; love, peace, gentleness, kindness and above all joy!