April 5, 2023

A picture is worth a thousand words! Last Friday look who backed up to our unloading area at the Pantry! Jacob and Rose from MANNA Food Bank with their van literally filled with food from two area schools. TC Roberson High and Fernleaf Community Charter School's students participated in a food drive sponsored by MANNA Food Bank. Again, it confirms what collaboration with the community and especially our young people can accomplish to help in reducing food insecurity in our community. We just barely unloaded the 2,750.5 pounds of food when Koontz Intermediate School arrives with a large pickup truck packed with 985.5 pounds of baskets and tubs of food items. The generosity of the community warms our hearts. We immediately began filling our shelves with these donations to ensure a quick return to our neighbors with food challenges. Saturday morning we were able to distribute lots of the food items to our 134 families representing 463 individuals and seven new families.

Last Thursday is one of those days that you had to see it to believe it. Our WLOS friend Bill was videoing Chef Martha for one of the Carolina Cooking segments. She began the first recipe by stirring up a salad dressing to accompany the goat cheese and salad greens. The tasty greens were harvested from the church campus, washed, and placed in the salad bowl, topped with goat cheese, and dressing. The greens were dandelion greens found abundantly on our campus and perhaps you too have some at your home!

Thanks to the efforts of Nativity Lutheran, Fletcher Methodist, and Calvary Episcopal Churches who have volunteered over 100 hours to install the 20'x 60' hoop house in the LAF garden. The final task is to build twenty twelve-foot raised beds to place in the hoop house. Now growing in the LAF garden you will find romaine lettuce, collards, and beets.

City Bakery donated loaves of bread. Other donated items were from Bright Farms-lettuce, Ingles and Bimbos bread, Wal-Mart and Big Lots, misc items, Flavor-First - tomatoes and peppers, and MilkCo-milk. Friday, our volunteers stocked the shelves with purchased items from MANNA and Sav-Mor (canned goods, milk, and eggs). Produce this week included potatoes and onions.

On behalf of the executive committee, thank you to our volunteers and our area churches, civic groups, local merchants, and families for all you do to feed our community helping to reduce food insecurity. We thank you for your food and monetary donations. We are able to feed our neighbors 3 and 1/2 days of food or 11 meals.

God Reconciles All Things

We're not meeting in the garden this Holy Week (Thursday nor Saturday).

BUT, we could make a case for doing so. And that's because all creation, including the Lord's Acre, is caught up in God's reconciling work in the cross.

Remember, we still profess in the Creed to believe in the "resurrection of the body." It's a proclamation that all creation is part of redemption, that soul and body, spirit and flesh, wind and soil, are the subject of Christ's redeeming work.

And in Christ, "God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross." (Col 1:20) This is a vision in which nothing is outside God's sacrificial love.

Just think what a witness our actions would be if they suggested that no aspect of God's good creation, whether it's other people or other species, places and ecosystems, is outside that reconciling urge of God. (It's not just about us!) When we dig in the garden, we bear a humble but important witness that God, in Christ, is at work--in the living soil, in sore muscles, in caring conversation between rows, in harvesting fresh vegetables for the hungry--reconciling creation to itself and to God. Hmmm, maybe a Holy Week service in the Lord's Acre next year.-- Doug

What’s in the garden?

Nearly 400 romaine lettuce and collard plants were put in the ground a few weeks ago and look great, having survived the big wind a few days ago. Last week, we planted 150 feet of beet seeds. Consider it an experiment, as planting root crops in rocky soil is risky. There is a parable warning of this.