It was with great excitement and eager green fingers that we started our 6-week Abba’s Child gardening course with 13 families in Mmakaunyane. The aim of the project is to empower families to grow personal gardens to sustain their families into the future.
The magic of gardening is that it does not take massive tracts of land to do it. A garden patch the size of a standard-sized door will do for a family of four or more. So, it made sense for us to enable families to grow their own produce.
It starts with a single seedling
Our family gardening project runs over six weeks and starts with our family gardeners carefully growing and tending to a variety of seedlings. We delivered 11,000 seedlings for the winter crop-growing season to our family gardening projects and our partnering agriculture centres, as well as fertiliser in advance to help them prepare for the new crops. We also provided equipment, netting and poles to our guardians. Crops covered include spinach, cabbage, onion and carrots.
After their training is finished, our guardians will plant those seedlings. Over time, they will be able to reap what they sow, and will hopefully also share their gardening skills with other families in their community, so that soon every household will have their own garden from which to harvest food for their table.
Sowing the Word and growing in God’s Love
We also included a bible study course for our budding guardians which will continue after the gardening course ends. This will not only help them to deepen their faith and find strength through the teachings, but will also help them improve their reading and writing skills as they immerse themselves in the Word of God.
Home gardens that bring hope and faith
In so many ways, gardening can be seen as a metaphor for God’s work and the way faith grows and gives back to those who believe. In the words of Scripture:
I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”
– 1 Corinthians 3:6
So far, we have seen tremendous commitment and strong attendance from our families in the program, and we have high hopes for each family as they implement their own gardens in their own homes. May their gardens bloom and grow!
