Community

Having studied ministry and worked with churches in my previous life, I thought I knew a thing or two about community. What it looked like. How to do it with some success. But rural living is giving me a new education.

This is what community looks like out here.

Don't recognize it? Try this one.

Still unfamiliar?

It was new to me too.

Our pivot generator went out earlier this week. Given our current drought, it's pretty self-explanatory what would happen to our chili crop if we couldn't irrigate. Imagine losing your entire year's salary in one week. Makes for pretty high stakes.

Enter this community. With one phone call, our neighbors secured us a generator to borrow and a diesel tank to fuel it. We were able to water the chili's only one day behind schedule.

These are folks we've known for just three months. They're all crazy busy with their own farms and vineyards right now. They owe us nothing.

Doesn't matter. They didn't bat an eye.

Even having lived around generous people before, I am utterly overwhelmed and humbled by this community's instinct to help. A sacrifice for them. Offered without hesitation. Expecting nothing in return.

It doesn't end quickly either. Next week, while we're out of town, they'll be checking on our farm, insuring our furry family is watered and fed and safe, watering the chili's, picking up our tractor from the shop and even getting us a head start on plowing the peanut field.

We could not do what we're doing without this community. I don't mean that figuratively or metaphorically or poetically. I mean it literally.

These aren't just nice gestures they offer. It's mission-critical bread and water without which life could not be sustained. And it's completely inspiring.