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The Redeeming the Dirt Podcast
The Redeeming the Dirt Podcast
Stepping Out in Faith to Train Others: Interview with Amanda Nelson
What happens when biblical stewardship principles meet challenging southern clay soil? Amanda Nelson's journey from reluctant teenage gardener to community trainer offers a compelling answer.
Amanda's path began with a simple question: how would her family survive if grocery stores became unavailable? This prompted her first gardening attempts, which quickly led to frustration as north Georgia's notoriously difficult soil—clay mixed with nearly impenetrable chert rock—seemed determined to resist her efforts. Just when she was ready to quit, an unexpected introduction to mulch gardening and later, Foundations for Farming principles, transformed not only her agricultural practices but her understanding of creation care as ministry.
The transformation wasn't immediate. For two years, Amanda battled erosion as southern downpours washed away her carefully applied mulch and compost. Yet through faithful application of stewardship principles, she witnessed her once-eroding plots begin to absorb torrential rainfall faster than it could run off. Her initial devastating aphid problems disappeared entirely, and thriving crops emerged from soil others had deemed hopeless.
What makes Amanda's story particularly powerful is her transition from learner to teacher. Despite initial fears about public speaking, she recognized that hoarding her knowledge would represent unfaithful stewardship. Beginning with tiny classes (sometimes just her sister and a neighbor), she gradually expanded her training efforts, discovering that inviting people to physically see her garden created the most powerful discipleship opportunities. The visible beauty of straight rows, healthy plants, and abundant harvests sparked conversations that pamphlets or lectures never could.
Her experiences offer valuable wisdom for southern gardeners battling continuous growing seasons and potential burnout. Start small. Maintain excellence in limited spaces rather than mediocrity across too much area. Recognize different life seasons may require pruning certain activities to focus on others. Most importantly, approach cultivation with prayer, asking God to reveal ways you can serve family and community through the humble work of tending soil.
Welcome to the Redeeming the Dirt podcast. This is Noah Sanders, so glad that you could join us today. Well, today we're going to talk a little bit about applying these concepts of stewardship and discipleship and kind of some of the principles that we've showcased over the years from Foundations for Farming and how to make disciples through agriculture, how to really intentionally approach creation in a way that allows us to be a witness to those around us and come up with practical solutions for agricultural challenges that we have. How to do that, as just a is what the world would consider a normal, ordinary, everyday person, a homesteader. In this case, we're going to be talking to a friend of mine, amanda Nelson, who has been working on her family's homestead and she's homeschooled and a single young lady and has been really, really faithful at applying the principles of, at applying the principles of foundations for farming, of stewardship and discipleship, in a way that I think is what we want to actually get to.
Noah:All our ministry training kind of endeavors are all to kind of push these principles down to be applied by quote the ordinary believers, which is who God wants to use to do the work of the ministry, again, even the church right, the pastors and leaders there to equip the believers for the work of the ministry, and so I'm excited today to be able to talk about her story and talk a little bit about what some of these things that sometimes we hear from practitioners or missionaries or people that are in ministry, what they look like when they're actually applied in real life, day to day, and how God can use that and how we can be encouraged at just the journey that is and the way that God wants to use us through that. So, amanda, so glad to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for taking time to join.
Amanda:Absolutely Thanks for having me.
Noah:So, amanda, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background first, before we talk about kind of how you got involved with Foundations for Farming and Redeeming the Dirt.
Amanda:Sure, so I live in Rock Spring, georgia, and we've been here about 12 years now, I think, and um, we have run a family farm for about, I want to say, 10 years. So I started that about 10 years ago and um was the manager of that for our family and just recently we ended up deciding to take a break on that and focus more on the homesteading aspect again. So, yeah, I have, I'm one of nine children, so second oldest, so they are all wonderful people that helped me out in all of the farming aspects and it's a real blessing to be part of a family like that.
Noah:Kind of like your faith and your family's faith, like how does, like how does, how does how. Has kind of your relationship with Christ kind of been influential in your life, in your life up to this point?
Amanda:well, um, I became a Christian when I was young, um, so having Christian parents that invested in me was a real blessing so that I knew Christ my whole life. I can't remember ever not knowing Christ, so, but I started following him and understanding, like my responsibility as a Christian in my teens, around 15 years old. So and I think that's probably a lot of kids stories If they grow up in a Christian home, is that they, you know, they knew, they knew Jesus, they knew what he did for them, but it wasn't until they were a little older that they understood. Okay, now it's kind of my job to um, honor him and obey him.
Noah:So, uh, yeah, I think that's a beautiful story because it is. You know, sometimes we, we, we wish we had that more dramatic testimony, but it's actually such a gift to be able to have those truths sunned into our lives. We do have to have that actual moment, like, like that experience of God's tap. It's a personal relationship. It's not something you can just, you know, tag along with your parents' faith or whatever. But I remember myself, you know, trusting in Jesus at an early age, wanting that, but then again, you're still pretty young and it wasn't until I was like 11, 12 that I felt like the Lord tapped me on the shoulder and was like this is a part of a relationship with me and just falling in love with him and just the experience of that just really changing my life. And I think it's we.
Noah:I like to think about our lives. Sometimes it's like this garden where God's in control, he's tending it. We've got the weeds of sin, we've got all the good plants that need to bear fruit that God's trying to plant in there. And for some people, if you haven't given your, if you've been kind of in charge of your garden for years, it grows all up in weeds and then, eventually, when you give it over to the master gardener and he chops them down and we eat the elephant and and we start over and we surrender to him. Then it's just dramatic, like this is the day that the Lord really take over my garden again. But if you've been allowing him to do that early on, you have just as many weeds as everybody else in the soil, right? But when you're cultivating them, you know, and having your parents help you, train you know in godliness, and then once you kind of make that your own and you start seeing that it's still the same grace, still the same forgiveness, still the same process that Jesus uses. But it's a little bit less dramatic moment because you've seen that earlier on and but it really is a gift and that's a sobering thing to me to who much is given, much is required, and we need to be, need to be very grateful for that.
Noah:That's, that's, that's great to hear. So you came to a training, one of our first kind of in depth foundations for farming trainings in 2017. I think it was foundations for farming trainings in 2017, I think it was. How did that come about? Uh, how did how did you guys get here? How did you find us and what was it that made you come want to learn about faith and farming in this kind of way?
Amanda:yeah. So I like to think that my gardening journey started um around the same time that we were talking about you know, kind of giving your life over completely to Christ Around. That same time I was given a book to read called the End of the World as we Know it, and it's kind of a prepper book. So it outlines what would happen if there's like a grid down situation. It kind of just opened your mind to possibilities like what would happen if there was like a grid down situation. It kind of just opened your mind to possibilities like what would happen to my family if this kind of thing happened, if we couldn't go to the grocery store. What would happen to us? So I was kind of inspired after reading that book to learn a skill that would help my family survive if there was a situation, or to help my neighbors and friends survive. Rather than just maybe just stockpiling food, let's learn a skill that would help us get through. So, logically, your brain goes to well, what would we do about food? That's like the most important thing, the base of life. So I guess I need to learn how to grow food. So I started helping my mom. I decided that year I was going to help my mom with our little tilled garden and we were going to lay it out, plant all the little plants in there, and I really enjoyed that. And then I was like this is great, gardening is fun, this is easy. No, not really. Then we had a rainstorm and of course our tilled soil got hard as a rock and we had, within a week we had a cart. A week we had a carpet of weeds and I had to go out and weed all that and it was like trying to pull out weeds in concrete. All of a sudden I'm like, you know, I don't think gardening's for me. I don't really like this. So, you know, I'm kind of like piecing out on it. And then my dad, about a week later, he introduced me to a documentary that had just come out. Um called back to Eden gardening with Paul Gauci, and I remember watching that and it's all about mulch gardening. Um, kind of like this deep mulch bedding and system, and I loved it, especially since they focused on how little weeding you'll have. So it's kind of like oh, this is exactly what I need.
Amanda:But I did have kind of a problem I didn't have any mulch and I didn't have any way to get mulch. I didn't know where to go for that and I didn't have any way to get mulch. I didn't know where to go for that and so I was like, Lord, I feel like you brought this to me right when I was kind of not going to do gardening anymore. But I don't have any mulch. Lord, how am I supposed to do this? Please give us mulch.
Amanda:And literally two or three days later we had a company just outside of our house. We lived on a highway. They were on the highway trimming trees and we just had to walk down there and talk to them and say, hey, could you dump some of that mulch for us? And they were like, thanking us for asking for it. And they were like, can we dump more? And so we ended up, within the next couple of weeks, we ended up with mountain loads of mulch. I was like I prayed once and now we have mountain loads. That's going to last us years. So, uh, yeah, that's an amazing answer to prayer and, um kind of confirmation that I was supposed to be doing this.
Amanda:So we did back to Eden gardening for a few years, and then I kind of felt like it was a really great method and I love the biblical aspect of that, but it did have a few gaps on. I didn't understand how do you do crop rotation? It was kind of like you're working with a blank slate every year, and that, for me, was I needed some structure. And so I was like I think I need to look at some other methods. And that's how I came into permaculture, which I started taking a permaculture design course, and I took that for about six months and I really loved the methods of that. It was everything I needed. It was very, very in-depth and taught me a lot.
Amanda:What I started noticing while I was taking that course was how it didn't really have a biblical worldview and it didn't. It had more of. It was more nature centric, evolutionary teachings, and so what I noticed was these methods are so great but because they don't have Christ, they're teaching me to think in a way that is like very godless and eventually I knew um for my parents good teaching that if I listen to that and I practice that enough, that's going to start coming out of my mouth, even though I am a christian. They're basically teaching me to cancel out god and just talk about Mother Earth and nature and this kind of thing. So that really bothered me. I feel like the Lord was convicting me in that area that these are good, but maybe I need to look for something else.
Amanda:I remember one day I was just taking my course and I just shut my computer and was like Lord, I don't think I can do this anymore, I feel like I need to look for something else. And I was like Lord, what about a permaculture design course? That's Christian? So I opened up my computer again and started searching Christian permaculture design, all these different things, and there was just nothing. I clicked through every site that came up in my search and the very last one I was clicking on was redeeming the dirt. And I'm like what is this? I don't know what this is, we'll give it a shot. Last one, right? So I remember clicking on that and the first thing that popped up was your course now that you're going to be doing in June of that year. It was Christian gardening course or something like that. And I was like what is this? This is, this is amazing. So I told my sister about it, who actually is not into gardening at all, and she was like we should do this, let's go do this. So we ended up going to your um course is a five day course, I believe and um, that was a real eye-opener for me.
Amanda:I think the biggest thing was I was not expecting to be challenged to share the gospel through my garden, because my brain, having come from, you know, back to Eden and just wanting to honor God, I was trying to glorify God in my agriculture, glorify God in my gardening and homesteading, but I hadn't really thought about oh, I can use this as a way to make disciples and fulfill the great commission.
Amanda:Um, so that was a real blessing for me just getting to know your family, noah and um, dorothy and your children, and just how you guys opened up your home and your kindness, and also how you wrap everything around Christ, like Christ is the center of everything you do and you're trying to glorify him in every area.
Amanda:That also was a big thing. So like I'm going there to learn more about gardening, but I come away with this whole heart aspect and I just grew in my faith so much and I was only like 17 or 18 years old at the time. But also, I think just the practical aspect of Foundations for Farming Brian Oldry's story was very inspiring the actual method itself. What I was blown away by was that it is detailed and very well thought out, but it's simple and it's very effective and easy to put in place I mean put into practice. So, um, I remember just being totally on board from day one like this, is it? It's exactly what I've been looking for, um, which, again, I think the Lord prepared my heart beforehand to you know. He prepared the soil of my heart for the seeds of foundations for farming, and I'm so grateful for it.
Noah:It's neat to see the God stories and how he brings all of us together in these different ways. We all have these different trails we can trace in our stories of how god brought us to different places and I just love, love the way that you described that. So, for one of the things I've been having different people asking about recently is how do you garden in the south? Is channel, you know, seems like I, probably because a lot of northern gardeners have all winter to write books and to think about gardening next year.
Noah:A lot of the books that are written for gardeners are from people up north and then you come down to Alabama or Georgia or Texas and it's like whoa, this is a completely different deal. So when you went back to Georgia to apply some of these techniques that had you know have come, you know, from different places Zimbabwe and stuff and your vegetable gardening. So it's one of these challenging things, and not just vegetable gardening, but vegetable gardening organically, basically because we're just trying to use what God has given us. What were some of the challenges that you faced and what were some of the successes that you've seen in that journey?
Amanda:Yeah, so I remember taking the methods and going right back and being like we're going to put these beds in, it's going to be so great and it really was easy to put the beds in and I had leftover mulch still that I used for my pathways and I just brought in some compost and what kind of soil do you have there?
Amanda:so the soil we have is clay, but it's actually in some areas we have red clay. In my area it's more of a gray, silty clay and then. But what our area is known for the most is church. So church rock is like a flaky rock that is, um, when you are trying to dig in it, it's like trying to hit cement. It's. It's really difficult, um, so it. We have the clay mixed in with this church rock, um, so it is very difficult. And in our situation, on our actual property we have 40 acres and it used to be owned before we bought it. It used to be owned by a logging company, so they made landing yards and scraped all of our topsoil away, so we basically have subsoil working with which is just, and then so subsoil here is just chert rock with a little tiny bit of clay. So it's, it makes it even more difficult.
Noah:What's amazing is so many people have been asking me. They're like in that case, in that situation, most people their go-to is well, then, we're going to do raised beds on top, but the beauty of this is that you are going in the ground. Actually, this is in ground gardening that you're doing in that kind of situation. So keep going. I just want to show you know, like tell that it's not that you have to do raised beds. This in-ground stuff is still amazing. So this is go ahead right.
Amanda:Yeah, I didn't have any older brothers or anyone to build me raised beds and so I was like we're just going to start layering. So I was able to get maybe a quarter of an inch of soil off my pathways, on top of my beds, and then I was just putting compost and lots of mulch on top of that and not too much mulch, but I was. I was covering in mulch and what I noticed through just a few seasons and I'll count this as a win was we did have erosion issues. There's nothing to keep the water and we didn't even have much of a slope, it was just a slight gray like a slight slope on there. But the water when we have our southern rainstorms, they're pretty torrential, so when it comes down, it comes, it pours, and so all of our pathway mulch would be washed right out and sometimes our compost beds would be washed right out with it. So there is a struggle every spring. That was happening weekly. We're having to reshape these beds, so that was a struggle. We're having to reshape these beds. So that was a struggle.
Amanda:But just maybe two years into doing foundations for farming, that completely stopped completely. I was no longer losing mulch and I was like what is happening here? And I went and I was like I remember going out in the rain and like watching it, like what is happening? Why is this not running off? And it was soaking in faster than it could run off and I was like this works. This works because I have rocks under here. I know I have rocks under here and, um, we've been able to build soil and this infiltration is happening and we're using all this water, so that's the minimal waste. I was like it's right, right there, right in front of me. That was a real blessing to see. So, yeah, that was a struggle in the beginning and it turned into an amazing blessing.
Noah:Um, and I haven't had any erosion issues since um, perseverance, I think, is so important because I remember, uh, one of my trainers, william tom, when he came from africa and was showing him my, I was showing him our, our plots up there where we had our market garden and you know it was bulldozed really hard and we just did that, you know, minimal tillage, put the mulch out, put a little compost, but those poor first plants were having a hard time because it was so hard and it was just a few beans, you know, like not, they were not impressive. But I remember him saying it's good, just keep going. You know, just just keep persevering. You're doing, you're doing the right things. And I tell you within, like it was before long, I was getting humongous, humongous harvests of green beans and stuff off that plot.
Noah:But it's just that faithfulness. Sometimes you just have to. It's almost like by fate. Sometimes you're like I, I've seen results. I'm trusting that god has solutions here. If I just stick with it for a little bit. And, uh, and it's neat to to see that you didn't just give up that first season. It's like, oh, this doesn't work, but you're able to see god redeem the land, redeem the dirt, over two years of you treating it with you know, in a way that allowed it to fix itself.
Amanda:Yeah, absolutely yeah, I would say here in the South too. Going back to your question on burning, in the South we don't really have much of a break, so I think it's easy to get burnt out because you literally could grow year round. So, especially with a method that is no-till because it's clean, in the winter you can walk, you can go in it. You know, in the spring, when it's when usually you'd have a muddy garden, you can walk in, that you can get started really early. So the challenge of that even though that's a real blessing, the challenge is that you can get overwhelmed and get burnt out pretty easily because you're growing year round. And then, yes, you can have lots of pests and disease. But I have, I will say I have seen a lot less than my neighbors in my community that have just a regular tilled garden. I see a lot less disease and a lot less pests. I would say this too in the very first garden I did um with foundations for farming. I put in this new plot and it was. It was a 30 by 30. Cause that was what I could fit.
Amanda:And the very first year I had an enormous aphid problem. Um, it was all over my lettuce and it was, I mean, was just disgusting. I couldn't. I was like why is this happening? Um, and then the very next year, I had zero aphids and I haven't had any since. So I think that's very interesting. Um, I couldn't say exactly why that is, but I do think that as your soil improves and as you, you love on that, you take care of it and you pour into that soil, the pest problem does seem to be less. Um, so yeah, Sometimes has to.
Noah:The pendulum has to swing, you know, before it can balance in the middle, and I think sometimes God tests us in that way. You know it's it's like when we discover some new principle of like, oh, wow, you know, I can love my sibling this way, or I, you know, maybe I can love my spouse this way, or I can share with my friend or I can you start trying to stand up for what's right. The next thing, you know, you get all this blowback and pushback and instead it seems like your relationships are falling apart where they were fine before and you're like, and then God's like. So are you doing this just because you trust me to use this, or are you trying to do it for quick results? And sometimes he challenges you with, it seems like you. You know, the results are worse when you first start trying to obey him in a certain area of your life and you have to kind of and I think part of that is like a gift of him giving you the opportunity to choose to obey, just because you believe that's what he told you to do, even if you don't see the results, you know, and, uh, I think that's it's challenging because we do want to like, evaluate the fruit to a degree, but at the end of the day, the the real fruit of, of abundance and blessing and those kind of things, are a gift God gives and we can't demand that of him immediately. It's kind of like that.
Noah:Then you're dealing with like a prosperity gospel in the garden versus. You know, I'm doing it out of love, I'm doing it out of faith and trust and to honor the Lord, and sometimes it just when, when people start freaking out with, oh my goodness, I mean, what am I doing wrong? If it's the first year, it's like God's looking for faithfulness. You just gotta, you cannot track it that first season. You have to track it over multiple seasons before you can see the fruit. Same thing with my kids. You know it's like some days it seems like parenting is not working and it's, but it's like I'm just going to be committed to loving them like christ wants me to love.
Noah:You know, applying the uh being a dad like I need to be, and just, uh, letting him produce the fruit long term that he wants, so that's, that's really awesome. I think it just. These are really great uh, encouragements for those of us gardening in the south. And uh, you just to touch on one thing you said here about the the rest element, um and I think maybe you can tie that into a bit of the season that you've moved into now um, how have you learned to uh kind of build in and compensate for and try to have that rest and not get the burnout when we're gardening in the South like this, like you said, it's a danger? What kind of tips and recommendations would you have for people based on your struggle and journey and trying to figure that out?
Amanda:Well, I think what I learned is that you need to be uh, start out, be faithful with little. Don't try to jump in and take over more than you can do. Don't try to feed your family a year's worth of food the first year. Maybe. Try to work up to that and see if that's something you can handle. Start with um, uh, you know, start with a 20 by 20. That may seem small, that may seem so small and like that's not going to feed my family, but if you're doing it well, you have high standards, then it actually will feed you a lot more than you think. And there's ways that you can, you know, save space, and I do a lot of that myself. Um, because, having a market farm, I can't handle a huge farm, so I like to to think of our market farm as a micro farm. It's a very tiny micro market farm, um, but I'm able to do a lot in it and feed a lot of families because I'm focusing on doing it very well. So, um, so, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do too big. Uh, start small and increase Um, and I think for me, what I learned the reason that we took a break um from doing the market farm was.
Amanda:I was trying to do the market farm and our homesteading, and so that can be a lot, especially if you don't have a lot of help and I did have a lot of help for many years. That's how we were able to do it. But as my siblings have gotten older, they you know other responsibilities, other jobs, so they're not as available or you know here to help me, so most of it was falling on just me to do both of those. And when you're spread kind of thin like that, you end up not doing either one very well. So I felt like I needed to make a choice. I could either give up the market farm for now or I have to give up homesteading for now. But I can't really do both really well, um, and make both very profitable. So I felt like Lord wanted me to let go of the market farm for now and just focus on the homesteading.
Amanda:And then also I think that was my first um I don't want to say first love, but you know what I mean Like, like that was what got me excited about gardening is homesteading and feeding my family. So to give that up wouldn't really make a lot of sense. So that's kind of what I'm focusing on right now. I do have other responsibilities. That ties into it too. As you get older, you're, you know, I'm 26 now, so you have other responsibilities. You're not no longer as free as you were when you were in your teens. So I think things change and that's okay.
Noah:It's a beautiful thing understanding there's different seasons, understanding that God often lets several branches grow and then he prunes one or two. That's just part of life and we have to be humble enough to be willing to submit to that process and be grateful, and I think you're, you're, uh. That's a great testimony of that. So it's uh. One other topic I wanted to kind of let you speak to is this idea of so we've talked about some of the practical aspects of applying these things, but one of the unique, uh, like in the garden, but one of the unique things about Foundations for Farming is it integrates discipleship and agriculture, both organically, naturally and intentionally. Try to use what God's doing through in your farming to make disciples and impact people for him.
Amanda:So after the training that we went to at your place, noah, part of that training was practice to talk with just individuals the neighbors, church, family, somebody at the store, if you meet them. So when I got home, the first thing I started doing was just talking to my neighbors about it and my family and my church family and even the farmer's market that we were going to at the time. I would talk with the vendors about it and, um, that was kind of how I started out. Um, what I learned really fast about that was when you, when you say, oh, I went to this, this class, I went to a five day training, all of a sudden people start asking you their gardening questions like, oh, so you must know, since you went to that I, you know, let me me ask you all my and. So what I learned was not to always give them an answer. Um, I want to help them, I want to give them what I have, but at the time I didn't have a ton. I had experience, but I didn't have a lot of experience in foundations for farming. Um, um, and so I would. I learned that answer their question if you, if you can, but if you don't have an answer for something, it's okay, don't try to make up something. So I learned to say I don't know, that's a great question, I need to go look into that. But then also to tag part of that um is to put it on them, ask them. You know, maybe you should pray about this, see if God gives you an answer, because he's done that for me. So that's just kind of how I started out. I did find it difficult. I didn't see a whole lot of fruit from that very quickly. It was more like that's good for you, amanda, that's great, you know, keep going. You look like you're doing a good job. So what I learned after doing that?
Amanda:For a while, yes, people knew what I was doing and I was able to talk about it. But what started being very effective for me was when I actually put in a well water garden, which I was doing right away. But as soon as we started having plants growing you know produce coming in, using that as an opportunity to bring people in and come, you know, take a tour and let me show you the garden Um, that was when people started getting a little more excited about it. Like, this looks great, because it is naturally beautiful, um, when you do everything to high standards and has straight lines and everything's clean and weeded, because it's not too big to handle, uh, that was what attracted people for me, so I would encourage everyone to do that.
Amanda:If you are learning about the well-ordered garden, put one in and use that as an opportunity to bring people in to see it, because they're going to get excited about it. They everyone likes a good garden. Everybody wants to see. You know a tomato growing well and beautiful and go out and you harvest it and bring it in, and so even inviting people over for lunch and being like we're going to have salad from the garden today and then let me share with you what I'm doing out here. So, yeah, that was just kind of how I started.
Noah:Yeah, that's and that's. That's the lifestyle of discipleship. I think that we really all want to be developing and having. It's a come and see, it's a. Let me share with you what God's doing in my life. It's just living out obedience and then being honest about what God's doing in your life, inviting other people into that story, sharing with them, asking them questions, like you said, challenging them in love, and I think that's what's so powerful about how God's using agriculture and discipleship today is because it gives you that real life, practical, tangible thing to connect over and to display the heart that you're trying to talk about.
Noah:That is sometimes, you know, like you said, people are like that's cool, but when they can see something they're like whoa, I like that, I want that, you know. Um, of course that can be in our relationships. It can be, hopefully, it's, in other areas of our life, but sometimes we don't connect with people in a way uh, in our culture anyways, deep enough for people to see that element in us. But if they come and they see a garden, all of a sudden you have this opportunity to talk about the humility and how we're trying to do it like God wants us to and we're trying to be faithful with little and let God add to us and do it unselfishly to serve others. Those are things that would be very hard to bring up otherwise if you weren't around something like that. So I think that's that's really great.
Noah:Share just a little bit about.
Noah:I know we kind of encourage people both to say let's build this in naturally to our, our daily life and our you know our conversations with people.
Noah:But also it's sometimes more efficient and it's it's effective if we can also set aside time to offer more intentional trainings, because sometimes you just can't cover everything in a five minute or a 30 minute. You know five minute conversation or a 30 minute garden tour, and I know you've done a few of those over the years. So share just a little bit about that, because I think it's neat that you've been doing some trainings just at your home, just in your backyard. It's not like full conference scale or at your church, it's just you doing this, but it just it's doable, you know. And so maybe share what you've done and a bit of encouragement for anybody that feels a bit daunted by that that it doesn't have to be as as as scary as you think, but it still can be very useful both to the people you're teaching but also for you as the teacher, to learn a lot more than you maybe thought you did.
Amanda:Absolutely yeah. So I actually didn't have any intention of doing classes. After doing our first training I was like, yeah, I'll just talk to people and you know, that's good enough. Public speaking, nah, I don't know about that. But then we went to the redeeming the dirt conference I think that was the following year and then an actual trainers training that you put on for some of the alumni.
Amanda:And after doing those, unexpectedly I was very much challenged to pass on what had been given to me, because in my brain it was like you know what, this would be very selfish of me to keep what's been such a blessing in my life to myself so and that would not be faithfulness, I wouldn't be passing on to others. And I think the parable of the talents, the story that in the bible, it it really solidified that in my brain. Because you've got the master is giving his talents to these three servants and he tells them you know, you need to multiply this. And the unfaithful servant was the one who sat on it. He buried his talent. So I didn't want to be like that. I was like I need to share this with other people. How am I going to do that? I have no idea.
Amanda:But I started out by just taking the next year. It took me about a year, but the next year just writing down notes, trying to put together a class format. I probably didn't have to do that, I could have just done a very simple class. But in my mind I was like I need to do this, the best my ability, and that was what I felt like I needed to do personally. So I had a booklet that I think you gave me that, um, I just wrote in and had all my lessons outlined and then when I finished that, I was like, okay, well, I guess it's time to try to do a class. So I just um prayed about like you know, we're bringing some people because I don't know who would actually do this. We had a couple, you know, some friends come and join us for that for the very first class. It was. It was only like two or three people. I think one of them was my sister and but you know, I was like this is OK, it's starting with little, it's being faithful with little and you know, god will trust me much eventually, um, if that's what he wants to do. So I did that first class and it was I think it was a two-day class, um, and it was a real blessing. I think those, those students really taught me a lot and, again, like what you said, yeah, you're teaching them, but really you're learning probably a whole lot more than they are and you're just kind of solidifying that information in your own brain, which I was really grateful for. The following year we did another class for some more neighbors and then, I think the following year after that, we did a much bigger class in our barn. We just set our barn up so that you know chairs, and we just were like yep, come on, we'll do another two day class.
Amanda:And I think one of the blessings I've seen through doing classes it may not be easy, but every single class is different and you have different people you get to invest in and what you learn personally from doing that, that is the biggest blessing, more than seeing them actually go put in a garden. Um, it's, I think the ask, the, the heart aspect of foundations for farming just makes it so worthwhile, so fulfilling. Um, but then also, of course, you want to see people pass. You know you want to pass this on and see people actually put in a well water garden.
Amanda:So, um, I think it's been kind of funny, because sometimes we'll have people come. They'll tag along with their family members and be like, yeah, I'm just here because they signed me up, type thing. Um. But usually by the end of the class they are just as excited as everyone else. They're like let's go put a garden in. This is so exciting. So sometimes you may have the difficult people in the beginning and think, oh boy, this is going to be hard. But by the end, what a difference. And it's not me, it's the information and it's god doing, you know, working through that.
Noah:So, um, that's great, that is encouraging. I think, yes, everything I can relate to you in terms of like. Every time I do a training or a conference or anything like that, it's like right at the beginning I'm thinking this is so much work. I'm terrified. Every time I feel like what in the why are these people even coming? Um, but you just learn to be like. It's not for me. They're coming because God wants to do something and if nobody comes, he still does.
Noah:A lot in my heart through that and I think there's there's elements of that stepping out to be intentional, to get outside our comfort zone and stretch our faith that God honors, and I think that's I love that. I always think about that every time when I'm in fear and trembling, thinking how do I steward all these people who have invested this time to come and be here for X, many days? That's terrifying, but when I think you know, but god is, they are stepping out in faith to learn something like to pursue these steps that god wants them to take. He's not going to waste that, you know. He is going to honor that like despite me. He can still like meet them and give them what they need, and he can use my willingness just to serve in a foolish, simple way, uh, to be a vessel to be used by him. And I think when you experience being used by god, like that, where you come and I'm thinking the, the simplicity like you said, foundations for farming is almost foolish compared to all the cool you know farming stuff you can geek out about and you're thinking, but then you see how it impacts people in our own lives as well and you're like it's God, that's what's so exciting about it. It's not really the material, it's just when God shows up. That's just really really what it's all about.
Noah:And it's often when we are coming in weakness, we know it's not us. And it's often when we are coming in weakness, we know there's, it's not us. We don't feel capable. That's not a bad feeling, like I'm more terrified by somebody. That's like I got it, man. You know people should listen to me. I can do this class totally.
Noah:I'm thinking the problem is God might say well, I guess I don't need to show up then because you got it Right, and then we don't have the impact. So we need to have that. God. I need you, I, I am trusting you in that and I think it's beneath. It sounds like you've had that same uh experience.
Noah:So, as we wrap up here, what encouragements would you have for other young people in a kind of a similar situation with you like that you've been in. You kind of finished some of your formal education. You're kind of as a young woman, still serving with your family and trying to figure out what God has for you next. But you've been trying to be faithful in this. Maybe there's somebody that is in that 16, 17 age that you were at the beginning. Maybe they're more in your season right now. But I think God really what we really want is to see God use and raise up a next generation of faithful land stewards, faithful followers of Jesus, faithful disciple makers and for anybody that is listening, that's in that category that God's calling. What kind of encouragements would you have based on what he's done in your life?
Amanda:Yeah, I would say, start with prayer and ask the Lord to show you ways that you can serve your family Number one and then, secondly, your community, because he'll give that to you If you, if that's the desire of your heart and that's a good desire and you ask him to burn that into your vision so that you can actually see what. What should I be doing? Cause, yeah, a lot of times when you're young like that, you look around, you're like what? I don't know what to do, I don't know how to be a blessing, I don't know how to serve Um, especially if there's not something you've already been involved in. Maybe you just don't have anything right now, or your church doesn't have something you can be a part of. I would just start out with prayer and waiting on the Lord and seeing what he's going to give you. Secondly, I would say don't waste your life on frivolous things. You can start young. You can startivolous things. You can start young. You can start in your teens. You can start younger than that Serving God. You just have to have a willing heart and be willing to make mistakes and grow and that's just part of life and he will. He will mature you, he will grow you and he'll put you where you're supposed to be. So I wouldn't be worried about it. Because sometimes you can worry like where, what am I going to do? But yeah, I would just wait on the Lord, let him guide you. And maybe it's something that you aren't necessarily interested in or it's not your passion.
Amanda:Um, cause like for me, gardening. Yeah, I wasn't, that wasn't something. I was just like I love gardening, I want to do that the rest of my life. No, I mean, I was more like, okay, this is what you put in front of me, I guess I'm going to try to do this so. And then I've seen from that, a love for gardening has grown, from that. I didn't have a love for that in the beginning. So I think that's true in everything you do. I think a lot of people are looking for, um, you know, what do I enjoy doing? What I want to spend the rest of my life doing, that big question, rather than looking at what does God have in front of me right now that I can invest in, and then he will give me a love for that. So, yeah, and the joy of the Lord, which is your strength, he'll give you that joy whenever you're doing, because you're doing it to glorify him and to honor him.
Amanda:Heavenly Father, I thank you for this podcast episode and I'm so grateful for Noah and his family's ministry through Redeeming the Dirt and how they have brought Foundations for Farming to the US, and I pray that you would bless them and bless the work of their hands mightily. I pray that you would be with everyone who is listening to this, that you would guide them, direct them, give them a love for you and serving you and using agriculture as a way to share the gospel and fulfill the great commission. I pray that you would bring more young people into this space and the a desire to serve you through agriculture and through gardening, and I pray that you would help them to be faithful and implement the method and, you know, be more like your humility and selfishness and faithfulness, and to do everything on time, with high standard and to have that joy that only you can give us. I thank you and I pray that you would bless all of us in Jesus' name, amen.
Noah:Well, thanks so much, everyone, for listening. Until next time, I encourage you to be humble, be faithful and to keep redeeming the dirt. God bless.