Community Garden

April 26 – I went to a city council meeting Tues. night to see if they can help with the community garden we started in our neighborhood.   As I spoke, there was a great deal of support for the idea from the audience and some of the council members; however, when I mentioned using rainwater barrels as a water source, everyone came unglued – especially this one guy who is the water engineer, came over and said “we own the rain”.   I guess there is a law in Colorado where one is not allowed to collect rain water!  I’ve never heard of such a thing!  Anyway, we don’t have a water source for our garden.  We were given a plot of land by the apartment management where we will start with a small, simple garden where we will start with a 140'x100 with 36-8x12 small plots to be given to local residents.   People will have to tote water in themselves.  Next year, we hope to expand to twice the size. We are currently looking for a farmer who has a tractor to till the entire plot for us, along with needing donations of straw, manure, wheel barrow, shovels, etc., and I was given over 140 packets of seeds by the lady who runs Bountiful Baskets here in Fountain and by Donna of Care & Share in Colorado Springs who showed me around their community garden, giving me a lot of great ideas.  I also got in touch with Larry from Pikes Peak Urban Gardens and he had a checklist that we will work on later to get grant money to do this garden up right next year.   This is going to be a lot of work, so I’m looking for volunteers!!

April 30 – Still haven’t heard back from the city to see if they’ll help with the garden, nor have I heard back from all my craigs list posts about needing help from farmers (tilling, straw, etc.).  We will go to Lowes and Big R to see if they’ll donate anything.  However, a very nice article came out in the paper today about the project.  Hopefully, I’ll get some calls with donations and help.  We need to get our garden going.  I do have a ton of seedlings growing in my front room!

It’s been quite busy here in the studio, a bunch of new kids have been coming in from the Jr High school and having fun.  I’ve got my regulars who come in and some days, people bring in Chinese food or pizza to share and we have quite the party!  A lot of ministry goes on – praying for people, talking about healing and other miracles, about the end times, bible studies, prayer meetings, and even ESL classes; and of course, so many budding artists improving their skills.  So many stories I can tell!

God has given us such a wonderful gift of this place – He is keeping it going and it is a miracle each month that we have the $$ to pay for this place.  We’re getting closer to our goal of breaking even – the month of March brought in $320!  We are enjoying so much this chance to give to the community!  And speaking of gifts, God has given us the best gift of all – His son, Jesus Christ, our savior!  I was recently reading in “Our Daily Bread”, April 5^th, Matt. 20:1-16:

The play Amadeus tells of a composer in the 18^th century seeking to understand the mind of God.  The devout Antonio Salieri has the earnest desire, but not the aptitude, to create immortal music.  It infuriates him that God has instead lavished the greatest of musical genius ever known on the impish Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The play poses the same question as the book of Job, only inverted.  The author of Job wonders why God would punish the most righteous man on the face of the earth; the author of Amadeus ponders why God would reward someone so undeserving.

Jesus’ parable of the workers and their grossly unfair paychecks confronts this scandal head-on.  Some people who have been idly standing around are hired by a landowner at “the eleventh hour” (vs. 6-7).  The other workers, who have been serving him all day long, are shocked when each receives identical pay.  What employer in his right mind would pay the same amount for one hour’s work as for 12!

Jesus’ story makes no economical sense, and that was His intent.  He was giving us a parable about grace, which cannot be calculated like a day’s wage.  God dispenses gifts, not wages. – Philip Yancey

In the realm of grace, the word “deserve” does not apply.

And that is the way it is in God’s kingdom – we are all equally undeserving  (Rom. 6:23) – yet God gave us His greatest gift, His Son.  And with Him comes grace.