A Garden 58 Story- Amy
My story with Garden 58 started in 2009 when I moved from California to Georgia in a big step of faith. While in Georgia, I got involved with a Christ-centered addiction ministry as well as a homeless ministry where volunteers were encouraged to not just pass out food, but to eat with the homeless people we were serving and get to know them. This was when I started learning how deep & complex the roots of poverty & addiction are.
I moved to Brooklyn the following year & it was there God began giving me a dream for a mentorship program that would allow people to pour into the lives of youth & hopefully intercept generational poverty & addiction. I thought I would get to work on this in NYC, but God seems to love surprising with the unexpected!
Shortly after I moved to North Carolina in 2012, God gave me the green light to become a foster parent and help whatever kids I could. Through fostering, I saw the impact that prayer and tutoring had on my foster kids. I knew not everyone could or should foster but prayer, relationship, & help with schoolwork was a way many more people could get involved with kids in their community! In the spring of 2017, my friend Little & I started Pinwheel Tutoring & have watched it make a difference in kids’ lives & in their families’ lives, but also in our own lives and the lives of our tutors! This has also been true of working with ladies in jail - we’ve seen God beautifully transform some of their lives, but our own hearts and lives have undergone massive reconstruction!
We’ve explained what each branch of Garden 58 is all about, but one of the main purposes of Garden 58 as a whole is directly related to those who give of their time, attention, prayers, skills, or resources.
As we invest in the healing, renewal, guidance & growth of others, we will receive healing, renewal, guidance & growth ourselves! The ultimate goal is to instill this truth in the lives of whoever we come in contact with, so those who are invested in become the next gardeners in their community.
One more part of my story & dream is the active pursuit of unity among those who believe in Jesus Christ. He prayed that we would be one & that by our unity, the world would see how much God loves them. Though of course we will disagree about different things, we can all agree that we are undeserving recipients of God’s love & truth & He has called us to extend that love & truth to others. It’s a beautiful thing that so many churches in our community work together through Pinwheel, the jail ministry & foster care support already!
Our dream for Garden 58 is that it would be a place where even more Christ - followers of all sorts can find effective ways to meet needs in their community, growing together in a love that serves & shares the love of Christ.