The garden at the G.O.D. Int’l property has been very active this spring as our community members have come together in an effort to practice small-scale biointensive farming methods. Our current 28-bed garden operation is located on the same piece of land as the Institute for G.O.D. Int’l, enabling volunteers to consistently help throughout the week. Seth Davis has led the garden operation as he has diligently begun to implement a garden that enables people to work hard and harvest healthy produce from the ground. In developing our garden, we hope to learn methods that are transferable to the regions in which we work in the future.

This 8' x 8' greenhouse, constructed from repurposed glass windows, is where we start all of the seeds for our community garden.

Our gardening team has constructed a greenhouse by utilizing used glass door panels and wood to start seedlings in soil blocks until they are ready to transplant into the garden beds. We have reconstructed our entire garden with sheet mulching, a much more efficient technique for creating rich soil that is less labor intensive to maintain. We have started our own composting operation utilizing all of the food scraps from our community kitchen and wood chips and hay from companies in Nashville who donate their excess. We have currently planted tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, peas, potatoes, beans, lettuces, squash, pumpkins and plan on much more in the coming days. We have created edible landscaping by planting over ten different kinds of trees, over fifteen raspberries plants and thirty blueberry bushes with the hope of sustaining some of our community’s nutritional needs.

Our practical goal for the garden is to provide all of the vegetable needs for our community kitchen enabling us to provide healthy, local, fresh food for the meals we serve throughout the week. This goal, however, comes with many challenges such as limited space, varying soil quality, crop care, water run-off, crop rotation and communication, among other facets. We believe that these challenges have and will only continue to sharpen our ability to produce food from the land.  Furthermore, the teamwork required helps strengthen our relationships as the LORD prepares us to take our experiences abroad to families and friends that are in need of further education that will empower them towards more efficient, nutritious agricultural methods. However, we are thankful for such challenges as they prepare us for transferring our experience abroad, where many people are in need of education concerning how to grow food without extra chemicals, on limited plots.

By Geoff Hartnell

With the 5 new business startups taking place within our organization (see recent newsletter), I have been blessed with the opportunity to participate in getting Music City Handyman off the ground. Though I have worked construction and masonry jobs in the past, starting a business is new for me. In putting in long hours to get the business moving, we have had to move away from extensive time in the classroom, as many of us previously had. Yet, we still have a desire to continue learning, and understand the great value that comes as a result of learning the word of God alongside others who offer us both accountability and fellowship.

For this reason, we have had to make some adjustments for our students who are now working full-time with the businesses. Many of those who have taken on full-time positions with the businesses are students who have either finished the program at our Institute, or are very close. The businesses demand daytime hours, which brings about the need to offer classes during the evening. This semester we are offering an evening class, Johannine Literature (an intensive writing course on the gospel and epistles of John) to allow the business participants to still benefit from formal Bible teaching.  Such times allow students to ‘provoke one another towards love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, but encouraging one another.’ (Hebrews 10:24-25).

Employees of Music City Handymen are all involved at the Institute for G.O.D. Int'l.

As someone who has finished the Missiology program and has been participating in getting our Music City Handymen business started, I am grateful for the opportunity to still be able to study God’s Word. In order to make this happen, sacrifice has been required from both teachers and students. Our teachers put in many hours in class preparation and ministry throughout each day, so adding a night class to their schedule is demanding on their time. Both students and teachers here have found continuing biblical education to be a pursuit worthy of our time, even if it means sacrificing a couple of evenings a week.

We remember that ‘man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’ (Deut. 8:3). As God’s children we acknowledge that the Word of God sustains us. The classroom provides accountability for students to study the Bible in depth. Giving this much time to the Bible also helps keep our minds engaged in the Word throughout each week. I am glad that we can continue to provide classroom time for learning the Word as individuals take on different responsibilities and areas and ministry.

Written By Cameron Kagay

As followers of Jesus, healthy social relationships are something we strive to develop and sustain.  In our study of the scriptures, we learn much about the complex experience of relating to other human beings, particularly those unlike us.  Very quickly in this study, we learn of the importance of the first human institution: marriage (Genesis 2).

According to recent Barna polls, 11% of the American adult population is currently divorced and 25% of adults have at least one divorce during their lifetime.  Interestingly, divorce rates among conservative Christians are significantly higher than other faith groups, including non-believers.  According to these same polls, less people are entering into marriage, many due to the attitude that it simply does not work.

Times of dialogue helped give guidance to married couples involved in full-time ministry.

Recently, couples involved in our ministry had the opportunity to evaluate the health of our marriages at our first ever marriage retreat! Forty couples came together to reflect on the health of their marriages, as well as the marriages of their friends, and it was invigorating.

Over the course of the weekend we had the opportunity for intentional dialogue, focused study in the word, table fellowship over meals, and we shared both laughter and tears.  We discussed issues such as our roles as men and as women in the specific context of our vocation as third world development workers. We asked questions like: “How many hours should men work during course of a the week?  How many classes can mothers successfully take during a semester?”  We discussed issues pertaining to future deployment like, raising our children in the third world and taking care of our parents.  We also discussed various issues concerning the full-time ministry we are all apart of: “What type of accountability do individuals have with one another, and what type do they need?  What is our responsibility as married couples towards the single individuals with whom we serve?”  The hope was that we’d walk away from these discussions with shared biblical values and understanding on the issues at hand. As we reflected together, we were refreshed and thankful to the LORD.  He is doing a great work in us and he has been so faithful!

In the end, the retreat was not solely focused on our individual couples, but the surrounding community in which these couples live, and the health, benefit and accountability that such community offers.

Written by Betsy Johnson