Garden of plenty.

For the last six months, Jeremy has been dedicating every spare minute he has to a garden in the south end of town. A garden on donated Parks Department land that was given to our church to grow fresh vegetables for the South Bellingham Food Bank. He started with a thousand square feet of grass and weeds and he spent hours upon hours tilling, raking and turning the earth over until he had some garden beds. He spent many, many more hours writing letters and making phone calls for donations of seeds. The Lord answered some prayers and we were given many, many seeds and so began the planting. He planted and weeded and tilled and grew and harvested over and over this summer. He worked around deer and rabbits and slugs and hand-watering. Our kids spent over 15 hours a week there. Jeremy spent much more than that. And every two weeks he faithfully delivered boxes and bags of fresh vegetables to people who wouldn't otherwise have them. I am so proud of my husband. When we took this on, we did not know we'd be alone in this process, but the experience has given us huge opportunities. Opportunities to teach our children how to dedicate our time and love to those who need support. We taught our kids that dirty hands and harvesting food grows outside of our fenced backyard. We taught them that bringing lots (and lots and lots) of vegetables to a little house next to our church is really, truly giving, even though we never saw the faces on the receiving end. We are excited about this project. We are excited that with each harvest, not a morsel was leftover. We are excited that the summer is continuing into October and so we are still able to grow the garden. And we are excited that this garden should receive enough daylight to grow fall and winter crops and continue giving. There were weeks when we did not have the time to give and making it there required some big adjustments and giving up things, but talking through it we were able to teach our children that giving is not always easy, fun or convenient. We watched their hearts grow with each seed we planted and each sprout that came up. The other night Parker whispered to me "My heart feels bad about people who don't have food. But we grew a garden and my hands can help" and through my tears of pride for this sweet boy and for Jeremy guiding his children through this process, my humble heart was overwhelmed with love.