A Barn Raising...of Sorts

Every year, sometime after the planting but before the harvest, comes the dreaded job of summer gardens....mulching. If Chris and I work together, diligently, without children, we can do it in 1/2 a day. If we do it with Isis, tack on at least three hours. If a husband does it alone because his wife is 8 months pregnant, well, you can see where this is going. It is a job and it takes time.

This year our small group from church has decided to do something new. Each family gets to pick a grueling task and the other three families come to help. Since mulching is the most time consuming, labor intensive task we have, we jumped on the opportunity to have the extra hands. And what has been, in the past, a tiring day long event, took 2.5 hours. Yep. That is very speedy.

What I think is most impressive, is that underneath all this straw are hundreds of newspapers. We had weeders. We had planters. We had straw runners. We had newspapers spreaders. We had straw spreaders. We had five children running, yelling, swinging sticks, taking truck rides, drinking tea, and even mulching. I don't think at any point I found it grueling or tiring. I think it may have even been rather enjoyable.

I'm not really sure why the Amish have barn raisings. But I think something very similar happened here today. There is power in numbers. There is fellowship in laboring together. There is joy is working in God's earth. There is community in friendship. Fellowship. Joy. Community. In what was once the most dreaded job of the year.

Thank you very much Eliot, Katrina, Jamey, Sam, Tim, Amy, Jonas, Kate, and Mya. And thanks to Gen, Sadie, and Baby-Get-Here-Soon for thinking of us at home. We are blessed.