Moving Story, Church Brag, & Near Death (Part Two of 3 part story)

Part Two
~Church Brag~

Can we just say we have a pretty sweet group of people who make up our church??

It's become a give-in that Monty needs help most every Saturday (and in between 😦) and our faithful fellow labourers have done nothing but bend over backwards for us. Giving of their time and energy as they are able. And yet they still seem to like us. 😄

We. Appreciate. You. All. So. Much. ❤

It's humbling to us, so very much.

Needing so much help is hard.

We've needed help before but it's come back to bite us (by family, not our last church).

Very, very few people have ever willingly dropped everything to give us a hand when we were struggling to keep a 130 acre farm going. It was like, You poor suckers, you didn't have to farm.

 It felt horrible to be desperate and finally ask but know it was given grudgingly. Or the many times we were promised help on a certain day only to be left hanging... And the deeply discouraged look that would come over my husband to be let down again. 😢 Like as if he enjoyed "using" people. He hated it!! And still does.

I seriously feel emotional thinking of the vast difference we have in the support here. It hasn't been any easier trying to survive but the support makes all the difference. My eyes get all watery, even as I write this post. We don't take a single deed or person or their time for granted (we never did before either but our meager attempts to show appreciation apparently meant nothing...). 

We both look forward to a day we can return some of this rich favor. 

So, back to our church here.

As if every Saturday since March isn't enough, they've volunteered mid week work nights as well. In June our young people spent hours cutting up several truck loads of logs/wood and stacking it in our basement. We felt richly blessed.

The wood is whole other story. Our entire supply last winter came from a fellow from a different church -for nothing- and he is STILL bringing us truckloads. He says he does it to keep himself out of trouble. He was born again in prison. "Just" another person God is using to make us feel rich during this uphill climb to fix this place up.

A few weeks ago most of our church came and pitched in in a host of corners.  I regret not getting before or, at least, during pictures (except one):

This garden.

It's certainly not a source of pride and joy this year. 

I had given up even having one since we already had our hands full and we have no way of tilling now that my Dad's tractor/tiller is 3 hours away.

But the beginning of June, Dave Bailey (who has helped us much, especially by way of his girls milking for us on many occasions) came and tilled and made raised beds for us.

This particular garden is new. Monty plowed an area of upper yard up because the existing garden is in a wet spot and gets a lot of shade. We did plant some things there, and it's much easier to weed than this one that these ladies are working on in the picture....

Anyway, I can share the after effects!

From cutting more wood to weed eating, cleaning out sorry looking flowerbeds, weeding garden, cleaning up the wood mess from the last wood cutting, trimming trees, and putting up fencing...

Between the plants got done, with piling the weed's in the rows as we are mulching the garden. I got a lot mulched later - now I'm waiting for more to get brought home.

And of course there's good food afterwards. 😊

Since this work night, there was another work night here last week.

We got the milkhouse washed, painting started in the parlor, and replaced the old worn out mailbox.

And that brings us to part 3, Near Death.

A continuation of the church work night and the hazards of a large burn pile.... (just a warning, no persons were hurt).

So be on the look out.