{"id":537,"date":"2018-09-13T19:33:34","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T19:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianwayfarm.com\/?p=537"},"modified":"2018-09-13T19:33:34","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T19:33:34","slug":"it-all-began-with-an-old-barn-and-a-storybook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianwayfarm.com\/dev\/it-all-began-with-an-old-barn-and-a-storybook\/","title":{"rendered":"It All Began with an Old Barn and a Storybook"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty one years ago, we began with a little dream of living on the family farm while we farmed traditional row crops and invited some school children to the farm to pick a pumpkin.\u00a0 The farm was pretty much a wooly mess from years of minimal farming and lots of neglect.\u00a0 The old farm house belonging to Guy Corley was in complete disrepair and there were old cars, tractors and equipment everywhere.\u00a0 But we were young and our work ethic was strong.\u00a0 We made the choice that this was where we would raise our family and let the Lord guide what came next.<\/p>\n

It took us about two years to clean up the farm, plant some corn, build a house and move our family to the farm in August of 1999.\u00a0 Milt’s father and grandfather had left a mess, but when we peeled back the layers of old cars and overgrown portions of the farm, we found the old barns standing strong and ready for use.\u00a0 We chose the old tobacco barn as the entry point to the farm and started the cleanup process there.\u00a0 As we cleaned out buildings and barns we found more and more old equipment and kept it for future use.<\/p>\n

We planned our first season–2000 would be the year we would plant pumpkins and invite school children.\u00a0 We marked off the land and in June planted the first crop of pumpkins at Christian Way Farm.\u00a0 We didn’t have any animals yet so we built temporary pens for two calves, two sheep and two goats, all borrowed from farmers in the area.\u00a0 With the help of a friend, we created a simple little flyer and delivered to all the Christian County elementary schools.<\/p>\n

Honestly I (Janie) knew nothing about pumpkins.\u00a0 Pumpkin pie was always made from canned pumpkins and only one time had I ever even visited a pumpkin patch with my children.\u00a0 And to top it all off, I wasn’t hugely fond of farm animals.\u00a0 I grew up afraid of gathering eggs because the hens in my grandmother’s coops had always chased after me.\u00a0 Cows were the animals I had to chase and help corral when they got out on my childhood family farm.\u00a0 And Milt loved farming.\u00a0 But he didn’t really want to talk to groups of people.\u00a0 He would do the work and drive the hayride.\u00a0 He would clean up and care for the animals, but he didn’t want to teach the school groups when they visited.<\/p>\n

Then there was the issue of Halloween.\u00a0 It’s not our favorite holiday.\u00a0 In fact, we like none of the scary aspects of Halloween.\u00a0 We don’t watch scary movies and dislike haunted houses and haunted corn mazes.\u00a0 So how could we make a living selling pumpkins and a fall experience in a culture that loves Halloween?<\/p>\n

But God… (I love that phrase) had a plan and we just needed to follow it.\u00a0 Slowly the pieces came together.\u00a0 Back in the days when our internet was on dial-up, I spent some time searching for information about pumpkins and stumbled on an old website called “Pumpkin Evangelism”.\u00a0 There is where I read about using the pumpkin to share the Gospel.\u00a0 And then I found a book called The Pumpkin Patch Parable<\/em>, by Liz Curtis Higgs.\u00a0 This precious book just increased my confidence that we did have a story to tell and that God had a plan for us to open the doors to our pumpkin patch.<\/p>\n

I learned about pumpkins and Milt worked hard to clean up the farm.\u00a0 In late September, we acquired our borrowed pets, gassed up the tractor, set up my “storytime” behind the old tobacco barn and we were ready…..<\/p>\n

Mrs. Norma Folz and her class of third graders from Sts Peter & Paul\u00a0 were greeted by a very anxious family.\u00a0 Our children stayed home from school that day to welcome our guests and attempt our first school tour.\u00a0 The expectant faces of those precious children thrilled our hearts.\u00a0 We were encouraged and eager to make this a fun day.<\/p>\n

We look back on that day 18 years ago and realize how inexperienced we were, the mistakes we made on that first tour, but those teachers and parents gave us hope. They assured us that we had done a good job and even better–they came back, year after year.\u00a0 (In fact Mrs. Folz came almost every year until she retired.)<\/p>\n

And so here we are in our 19th season.\u00a0 The animals are no longer borrowed.\u00a0 The hayride has benches (to avoid the issues of allergies and bug bites).\u00a0 The hayride truck has straw bales for those that must have that experience.\u00a0 The story time has moved to it’s own special place.\u00a0 The barn is now a store and there is so much more to do.<\/p>\n

All those years ago, we would never have dreamed or could even imagine that so many people would accept our invitation to come visit the farm.\u00a0 But here we are 120,000 people later and excited for more.<\/p>\n

And the story?\u00a0 It hasn’t changed.\u00a0 It’s only gotten better.\u00a0 No longer do I use a book.\u00a0 Just some awesome photos and a pumpkin.\u00a0 That story–it’s timeless.\u00a0 About a God that loves us and goes to great lengths to clean out our messy hearts and teach us to love others….<\/p>\n

Want to hear that story?\u00a0 Schedule a group tour with us, or come see us on October 20th (Harvest Praise).\u00a0 We will tell that story all day long.\u00a0 \u00a0Inquire about a date to come when another group is scheduled.\u00a0 Or just ask me (Janie)–if there is anyway possible, I will stop to tell you the story.<\/p>\n

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Twenty one years ago, we began with a little dream of living on the family farm while we farmed traditional row crops and invited some school children to the farm to pick a pumpkin.\u00a0 The farm was pretty much a wooly mess from years of minimal farming and lots of neglect.\u00a0 The old farm house […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,6,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianwayfarm.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianwayfarm.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianwayfarm.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianwayfarm.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianwayfarm.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/christianwayfarm.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":546,"href":"https:\/\/christianwayfarm.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions\/546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianwayfarm.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianwayfarm.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianwayfarm.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianwayfarm.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}