A Garden 58 story-Jennifer & Rusty Logan
God’s grace looks different to different people because we are not the same--we can each connect deeply with some people, but not everyone. We can each connect with a person that may be difficult for others to create a bond with. That is God’s design. Connectedness. Compassion. Outreach and vulnerability. Wholeheartedly using the gifts that God has loaded each of us up with and going out to find our people!
Well I’ve found my people. And they have dirty nails.
Rusty and I (Jennifer) along with our children are the farmers at Whimsy Flower Farm in north Georgia. The farm began in 2014, growing spring, summer and fall flowers, such as anemones, tulips, peonies, zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers, dahlias and many more! There are months of prep work before season begins and a month of clean up after the first frost as we dig thousands of dahlias on cool days and plant tiny anemone corms in the warm hoophouse. We look forward to December celebrations and winter naps, but by mid-January the flower thoughts start creeping in. Suddenly we find ourselves talking about perennials, ordering seeds and making field maps, looking forward to the time we can begin seeding plug trays.
I Corinthians 3:6-7 says: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”
The idea for transitional housing in conjunction with Garden 58 was a seed the Lord planted using Amy Rasmussen and Erik Peddle. Amy was faithful to speak often about the jail ministry work and the ladies there who spent time in worship and prayer with them. I would listen to Amy share about the lives these women were living while incarcerated, the struggles that put them there and their hopes for the future. Every time, I felt such discomfort in my spirit and sometimes a sense of hopelessness, sometimes simple awe at people like Amy who dedicated so much time in such a sad place.
Erik Peddle created FreedomNow, an athlete-led organization that raised funds and awareness for several homes in Atlanta that rehabilitated victims of human trafficking. Erik organized a dinner held at our flower farm where attendees ate an incredible meal and strolled through the flower rows, but ultimately were enlightened by several speakers on the uncomfortable subject of human trafficking. Erik’s dedication to spreading the word affected our thought patterns over the next year. and in February of 2020, I had a dream that I can only attribute to the Lord.
I had a dream early one Sunday morning that I was cleaning up a kitchen with the late afternoon sun coming in through a bank of tall windows. I knew the house wasn’t where I slept at night, sort of a communal cottage and kitchen. There was a knock on the screen door at the end of the kitchen and when I opened it, a girl was standing there with a baby on her hip. She looked exhausted, her eyes showing weariness and an odd lack of emotion. She asked for something the baby could eat and I invited her in, quickly putting some ground oatmeal on the stove to cook. She told me how her family had kicked her out, pushing her away and telling her they were done with her and she needed to move on. She felt hopeless and had no where to go with a tiny child depending on her. The dream jumped to twilight and we were walking up through the woods along a dirt path to a row of identical tiny houses. I opened a door and told her she could sleep there for the night and that there was a good lock on the door. After she went in, I walked next door to my own little cottage to tell my husband what I had done. Then I woke up. I told Rusty about my dream as soon as he was awake, because it was so unusual.
That morning at church, after worship was over, Amy gave an update on her ministry at the ladies prison. She was explaining how easily the newly released women fell back into their old habits if they returned to their old neighborhoods when I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me in the back as if to say, There you go! That’s what I was talking about!
I looked at Rusty and whispered, “We could build transitional housing at the farm!” Since Rusty isn’t the over analytical skeptic I am, he immediately whispered, “Absolutely.”
I walked up to Amy as soon as service was over and told her about my dream. She said that a group of people involved with her ministry had been discussing transitional housing and had come to a decision that the best set-up was a group of tiny houses where the women had a personal space they could be responsible for and could feel some autonomy. God is amazing! He just blows our minds with his ability to move multiple people in the direction of His will at the time He designates. I am not a risk-taker by nature. I tend toward uncertainty and struggle with fear of the unknown, and that is why my husband Rusty and I make such a great team. He has more natural faith than I do and is excited by a challenge, seeing the possibilities and visualizing the completed end result as a success already in the books! Three cheers for optimism! The transitional housing project at Whimsy Flower Farm aligned with Garden 58 will certainly need big thinkers and optimistic visualizers as well as thoughtful planners, discerning leaders and steady prayer warriors. There is a place for every kind of support as we begin this journey and the future residents (or “Garden Girls” as I call them) who will live in these homes and work in the flowers will be blessed with a solid hope-filled second chance, thanks to you!
A further word about gardening:
Our Lord God is the first and the ultimate gardener, sprinkling scripture with agricultural references and allusions. Long before modern technology placed itself between mankind and a daily interaction with the earth, agriculture and animal caretaking were simply the methods mankind used to stay alive. Working with the soil was essential to life and man received all the benefits in the body and the spirit that cultivating plants was intended to bring. Modern sciences tell us now that direct connection with the earth through skin contact with soil has many healing and health benefits, whether immune related or electromagnetically. Sometimes the benefit from working the farm comes in the form of meditation while one’s hands are busy with repetitive tasks that leave the mind free to pray and think. At other times, the benefit is in the personal satisfaction your heart feels after sowing 100 trays of zinnias then to watch the seeds germinate and push through the soil three days later, in unison, covering an entire table with little green sprouts.
Gardening is a daily miracle, but one that can be easily overlooked when leading a hurried lifestyle. Farming is as busy an occupation as any other and perhaps more demanding in some ways as tasks must be accomplished in a brief window of time. When that window is missed, it does not come around again for another year. We truly believe that the opportunity to work on the farm will teach the ladies so much about the way God works in our lives as well as bringing healing, purpose, structure, & the joy of seeing the harvest of the work of their hands.