Journey toward Good Ground
I Peter 2:5
“You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
As we each give what we can for the benefit of others, we intercede as priests for them, and become a refuge of God’s loving presence.
Here are examples of “living stones” being used together to prepare a place of healing for women in our community.
A couple of musicians bringing worship to women in jail.
Faithful prayer warriors for the women met through the jail ministry.
Families who opened their homes to women after their release from jail.
An organization striving to equip churches to meet needs at their root rather than the surface.
A pastor who encourages people to share prayer requests in the service.
A couple who respond to God’s call to use their property & business for those in need.
A man who offers multiple cabins for our use.
Men who counsel & support the forming of a non-profit.
A united board of directors from different churches in Andrews, Murphy, Brasstown, Blairsville & Hayesville!
A couple who commits to supporting the cause with $500/month!
A capable accountant wanting to serve the Lord with her gifts.
Two couples responding to the Spirit’s leading with radical generosity & faith, giving us the momentum we needed to look for a property in Andrews.
A group of volunteers from Christ Community & Red Oak Church willing to spend many hours sorting through clothes donations & organizing a event to help people know about the need for a transition home.
People who took time on a weekend to come to this event & spread the word, leading to a second -pivotal!- event.
A sweet friend in Hawaii that expressed her desire to purchase a property for us to use, leading us to change our strategy from raising impossible funds to looking for investors with a heart for this ministry.
A cousin willing to drive 5 hours each way to help us make a quality video about the transition home & our need for support.
A brother & an assistant helping prepare the video script & an email blast to over 300 churches in NC.
A friend & supporter connecting me to Baptist Children’s Homes leadership & resources.
Multiple men checking out our potential property to assess the condition of the house & cost to renovate.
Generous friends from our county, around the US & across the globe committing to give monthly to make the program for women possible.
A local friend letting her pastor know about Garden 58 & getting us connected with Mountain View Baptist in Andrews so they could support through prayer.
A passionate couple giving us the opportunity to share about the Good Ground transition home at the Worship Tent in Andrews- connecting us to more support & prayers!
Many volunteers from MountainView Community Church in Murphy preparing an amazing event that raised over $2,000 for the transition home & connected us to…
The investors God had prepared to be willing & able to purchase the property for us to start Good Ground in Andrews & prepare for expansion.
What a joy it is to work together with so many caring brothers & sisters in Christ!
Each & every one of these people who chose to be generous with their time, prayers, money, expertise, or connections played a crucial role in this journey we have been on! No role is small when you are working to bring the kingdom of heaven to those in need!
So much love has been poured into this already, before we have even closed on a property. When our first woman moves into the Good Ground house, we know she will feel the truth of her worth to God. Thank you all & glory to God who works in us for His pleasure!
Read on for more details about this journey….
It all started in 2016 in the Cherokee County jail.
We kept hearing the same story over & over again.
We kept seeing the same faces again & again. We saw that the cycle of trauma, poverty, abuse, and incarceration was a revolving door that needed someone to stick their foot in & give women a chance to exit to a place prepared for their healing & growth.
We were learning from “When Helping Hurts” & other materials from the Chalmers Center, like the “Are You a Good Neighbor” course & their “Helping without Hurting in Church Benevolence" small group study. These materials pointed us toward asking the ladies what they thought they needed instead of assuming we knew what was best for them.
And what was the first thing they told us they needed?
A safe place to live when they exited jail.
Most of them were there for things like unpaid child support or failures to appear in court. These type of offenses are directly tied to poverty- not just financial poverty, but relational poverty, transportation poverty, life skill poverty related to work, financial & time-management skills. We could clearly see that returning to their old, unhealthy, often abusive home environment was contributing to their recidivism.
All of these obstacles were things that could be addressed by people choosing to love - “not in word, but in deed & truth.” If we recognize these obstacles as weapons of spiritual warfare, we can see the work of transitional ministry through the eyes of Christ.
Providing a home, helping with practical needs, addressing deep wounds, and patiently walking with others as they try to build new habits is holy work. It is work that prepares & protects the soil of the human heart - guarding it from Satan’s lies, digging up the rocks that keeps God’s word from taking root, pulling out the weeds that choke long-lasting fruitfulness.
Can you see why we chose the name Good Ground for the transition home?
Back to the story…
Every so often on Sunday mornings at Christ Community Church, I was encouraged to share about the women’s jail ministry & the need of a transitional living facility. One Sunday after church, Jennifer Logan approached me, visibly affected. She shared with me that she & her husband felt God leading them to welcome these women onto their property, Whimsy Flower Farm. She envisioned offering them sanctuary as well as work opportunities at the farm itself and branching out from there.
This family’s willingness set the wheels in motion.
Not long after this beautiful offer, Howard Brown offered up some camping cabins as a lodging option. His open hands made the vision more tangible & encouraged us to keep going!
2020: As Covid slowed life down & we figured out the funds that would be required to prepare the transition home property & run the program, Rusty Logan encouraged me to pursue non-profit status for an over-arching umbrella organization that could support Pinwheel Tutoring, More Than Enough, and Revolving Door & maintain accountability & trust with donors.
Isaiah 58 had been the key passage encouraging me to make meeting other’s needs more accessible to people wanting to serve. In this chapter it repeats the concept that when we pour ourselves out for the needs of others, we become like a well-watered garden! So Garden 58 was born.
We gathered our initial board, starting the way we planned to continue- with multiple churches represented, working in unity!
2022: Through multiple meetings with trusts & foundations in 2022, God started guiding us to start our transition home program in Andrews & wait to expand to the flower farm in Blairsville. We were told repeatedly of our need to broaden our base of local support if we ever hoped to receive a grant of any substance.
Our hope is in God’s provision, not in any grants, but since a big part of our mission is “connecting willing hands to waiting needs” it just made sense to us to get as many people in our county in on supporting the transition home program as we possibly could!
Throughout this year, we only had one family committed to monthly support, but others gave for specific projects & God brought in a total of $20,000 during this first full year as a non-profit!
2023: God gives us the green light.
The first week of February 2023, we had our first board meeting of the year. We met with our new accountant, Kristen Fowler, and she walked us through our finances from 2022. We were all surprised to see how many donations had come in, so imagine our shock when God sent us that same amount in donations the following week! In addition, one of our biggest supporters pledged to give $50,000 throughout the year toward the transition home. And when we told another of our supporters this exciting news, she pledged another $50k! This radical faith & generosity gave us the momentum we needed to put together…
Our first Clothing Drive to raise awareness for the transition home! The main purpose of this event was to let as many people know the vision & progress towards the home as we could.
We held it in March & it was a small event, but we had great help from fantastic volunteers from Christ Community, Red Oak & the Wenzel family. We received clothes & raffle donations from so many people and were able to share the vision for the home & program with 50+ people from at least 5 different churches. The sales & donations raised over $500! Even more valuable, many of those who attended signed up to serve with the program in different areas such as transportation help, prayer support, ally roles , and more.
In addition to all these wonderful results, some of the people who attended the event were from MountainView Community Church in Murphy & they offered to host the next drive for further fundraising & awareness! This would prove to be a more valuable connection than we could’ve anticipated!
We had enough clothes left over from the first event to jumpstart the next (and bigger!) event, & a couple from MountainView, Diane & Ron Williams, signed on to spearhead the organization & advertising of the event.
In the meantime, we were trying to spread awareness of the need through conversations, meetings & social media. We were thankful to see our monthly support increase from one donor giving $500/month to over 20 donors from all over committed to giving $3300 total each month! We are humbled that we even have missionary families supporting Garden 58!
God used one particular conversation to guide us into the right strategy regarding the Good Ground property in Andrews. In April, the board and our main supporters had discussed a strategy involving pursuing a grant & raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to purchase a property. But then a sister in Christ, who lives in Hawaii of all places, became extremely interested in our project to the point of expressing her desire to buy outright the property for us to use! She even brought it up to her husband & had him look at the listing we were considering at the time. That listing ended up being taken off the market, but God used her willingness to help us shift our strategy to something far more manageable.
Are there people who invest in properties? Yes! And there are people who invest in properties that love God & want to help people! We could look for investors, let them know the tax benefits to renting the property to us for a low price or even for free, and use the money set aside for the home for renovations- a benefit as a thank you to the investors.
So, I presented this strategy to the board, they approved it, & we included it in the email blast with the video we had prepared to send out to over 300 churches in NC.
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A week after the email went out, prompting many prayers no doubt, the Dignity Clothes & Awareness Event at MountainView Community Church took place. The day before, during set-up, I sent out an advertising reel for the event & this is the caption God gave me faith enough to post:
“Let’s stretch our faith a bit with a “what if?” What if this is the weekend that God lights a fire for the need for a women’s transition home in the right people’s hearts? Those who are willing to use their gifts, resources, expertise & time to bring Good Ground past the development stage into reality!”
A team of hard-working volunteers had set up the basement fellowship hall with tables of amazing raffle & silent auction items, rows & rows of clothes for kids & women, and even tables full of free goods like diapers & kitchen goods. I was there to present the beautiful video my cousin Chris made for us & talk to anyone interested in hearing more about the transition home.
A couple came downstairs after the church service to see what the event was about, & God stirred their heart as we talked about the need & the plans for Good Ground. God had already been working in their hearts to invest in His kingdom work & before the event was over, they had visited the property & decided to buy it for us to use!
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It is so beautiful to look back over the years and see all the people who did what they could with what they had to move this vision forward & extend the welcome & refuge of the Lord to women with nowhere safe to heal or grow in His good plans for their lives.
There is still much to be done before we welcome our first beloved resident, so we hope you’ll stay tuned & keep Good Ground in your prayers!
And wherever God has you, we pray you will let Him guide you in spiritual sacrifice so that others may experience the refuge of His presence.