The Garden

A previous member of the church started a program for the community referred to simply as "The Garden." Each year the church raised a very large garden and gave the food out to the needy around the community in the Fall. Each Spring the church put up flyers asking for volunteers to help work in the garden. Carl, despite his age and condition, signed up every year. Most of the time he was the only one that signed up.

The neighborhood wasn’t what it use to be. Gangs now roamed the streets and it just wasn’t safe to be on the street or in your home. Carl was just finishing his watering for the day when three gang members approached him. Ignoring their attempt to intimidate him, he simply asked, "Would you like a drink of water from the hose?"

The tallest and toughest-looking of the three said, "Yeah, sure." As Carl offered the hose to him, the other two grabbed Carl's arm and threw him down on the ground. They stole his wallet, and fled. Carl finally managed to get back to his feet, then bent over, picked up the hose and finished watering the garden.

A few weeks later the three returned. Again Carl offered them a drink form the hose. They took the hose from his hand and spayed him repeatedly with the icy water. When they had finished, they walked off down the street, laughing at what they had just done to him. Carl picked up his hose, and went on with his watering.

Summer quickly faded into fall. The leader of the gang returned one day while Carl was gathering some of the vegetables. He said; "Don't worry old man, I'm not gonna hurt you this time." and pulled a crumpled bag from his pocket and handed it to Carl. "It's your stuff, I couldn't sleep after we stole your stuff, so here it is." explained the young man as he walked away.

Carl died that very winter, only few people attended his funeral on that cold and snowy day. In the back of the church was a young man that was a stranger in the house of God.

The following spring flyers went up for volunteers to care for the garden. The flyer in the church went unnoticed by the busy parishioners. The flyer put up at the local supermarket was noticed by one of the gang members. The next day a knock was heard at the door of the minister's office.

Opening the door, the minister saw a young man holding a flyer, he didn’t recognized him, but it was the young man that had attended Carl’s funeral. The man said; " I want to take care of the garden." Stunned, the minister handed him the keys to the garden shed and said; "Glad to have you".

The man went to work, he tended the vegetables just as Carl had done. In time, he found Jesus and joined the church. Although he had no traditional training to be a youth leader, he got the job simply because no one else applied for it. As a former gang member he was able to go places where others wouldn’t dare. As the numbers of the church members increased, so did the numbers of their community programs.

At first it was small things like just putting up a basket ball goal on the church parking lot. Later came bigger things, like using the basement of the church for a Christian run, child day care center. The 47 member church grew into a 258 member church over the next 10 years. In God’s garden is the tree of life, for a church this tree is the youth. Remember that Serpents were also found in God’s garden.