How Does Your Garden Grow?

 For church this month, Pastor Dave Mitchell preached a series asking, "How Does Your Garden Grow?" looking at how we are cultivating our gardens in attempt to produce spiritual fruit in all areas of our lives. For these messages Dave didn't preach a traditional sermon. Instead, he assembled several panels of West Ridge members and interviewed them onstage. 

For the first he had a panel of five regular attenders (three women, two men) tell how they are living out kingdom values in their workplaces. 

One man, an electrician, is employing and mentoring several young men who have grown up attending West Ridge. Another woman started a business helping adult children find living arrangements for aging parents with a decidedly Christian-themed website and mission. A physician's assistant talked about showing Jesus' love as she cares for people on their worst days. 

I thought about our business, Franklin Lawn Service, and how my husband, David, and I have been using it to cultivate our corner of the garden.  When we started in 2003 Dave had already been mowing the lawns of several elderly neighbors for years. As we advertised in neighborhood newsletters, the new customers we gained were often elderly, and many were widows. 

Franklin Lawn Service- In 2003, Dave started with a push mower and his first ZTR (zero turn radius) mower.

The Bible has at least twenty passages instructing believers to care for widows, so from the beginning, we have made a point to serve widows well. We quoted them a fair price for our service and didn't raise it for years. We spent a little extra time in chit chat. Dave would do little odd jobs that they couldn't, like unscrewing a hose from a faucet, programming their sprinkler system, or moving something heavy. We got phone numbers to communicate with their adult children, we reported when things were amiss. We kept mowing periodically until the house was sold. We attended their funerals. 

As we cared for our customers, God continued to provide for us. I was a stay-at-home mom, so we were depending on this business alone to support our family, and He was faithful. In summers, our kids had built-in summer jobs working in our business. We paid them generously, and they had money to buy (mostly) what they wanted. They learned to work hard, and they also learned what they needed to do to advance their own careers so they would no longer have to work for their parents. 

While the parents are away- Harrison, 14, and Caleb, 16, run the business for a few days in August of 2012 while we leave for a vacation.

Once people know we have a lawn service, the next question is always, "What do you do in winter? Do you do snow removal?" Our answer is, "We used to." When our kids were still home, if a snow was heavy enough to cancel school, we would work all day clearing the driveways of our customers who'd requested it. We often made enough to cover our mortgage and give the kids money too. However, some years in Wichita we don't see much snow. Also, since our summers were busy with mowing, we increasingly looked on winter as our vacation time.

In 2018 when Harrison was stationed in Oregon with the Coast Guard, we took 23 days to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway and help him move in. In 2020 we spent 27 days driving down the coast and stopping for a visit with him and his wife, Olivia. An RV purchase led us to check out Florida for 42 days in 2022 and 49 in 2023. 

Our freedom to travel has been unexpected bonus, one that we are loathe to relinquish as we sometimes contemplate other vocations. We are grateful for God's provision for our family.

Lawn mower maintenance- Dave gets his mowers ready for the 2021 season.