The Words of the Beresford Family

Idaho Family Celebrates Earth Week with a Garden for Refugees

Marcus Beresford
May 1, 2008

The Family Church of Idaho owns a field of about a half acre behind our Boise church. In the spring and early summer it grows a bountiful crop of weeds and tall grasses. As summer progresses, it turns brown and is full of "goatheads" - sharp seeds that attach to your clothes and tear into your shoes. I have been wondering how to maintain this wild western prairie.

I originally considered keeping a couple of sheep or goats but the zoning laws would not allow livestock, so I turned my thoughts to growing crops. I realized that for me to grow crops would take up much of my time so I wondered who else might be interested. I considered offering plots to nearby apartment dwellers and envisioned competitions between them as to who could grow the biggest leeks or rhubarb and developing the friendships into family fellowship.

One of the churches I visit has a plot that it grows vegetables on that helps provide for its free food program. I offered the church the use of our field but the members said that they had enough land of there own. However, they informed others about our land, and in February I received a call from the Idaho Office for Refugees (I. O. R.), who was looking for land for refugee families to farm. We met, and arrangements were made for the refugees to come.

Representatives from three families came for the groundbreaking on Saturday, April 26th, as part of the I. O. R's Earth Day celebrations. Significantly the refugees came from three continents -Columbia in South America, Uzbekistan in Asia, and the Congo in Africa. They worked hard digging irrigation ditches and clearing the land, while some of their children played on our swings. From small acorns great oak trees grow.

These are the seeds of Chon il Guk in Idaho that will bear great fruit in the future.

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