Tuesday, January 24, 2012

The Offer & The Call

Last night as Kat and I watched "Courageous" I received a text message from our realtor. The people who viewed our house this past weekend made an offer. It was $10,000 less than what we were asking. Kat and I immediately turned off the video and talked about a counter offer. We shot back our reply. Our realtor said they would get back with us today.

This afternoon I received a text message with another counter and it was $7,000 less than what we were asking. I immediately shot back another counter which I thought was fair to both of us and the party agreed to it. Tomorrow they will be signing the papers and seeking a loan.

Before I go any farther I want to share with you how all of this got started. It really goes back to when I worked at Folgers Coffee Company in the 1980s. One of the by-products of roasting coffee is chaff which comes from the center of the bean as it is being roasted. I took some samples to a local school and had the science class run some experiments on it. At the time I had a vision of having an organic fertilizer business and thought maybe the chaff could be composted. The results from the experiments showed that indeed composting the chaff would be beneficial. Those papers got shoved into a box when we moved in 1990s not to be seen until just a few months ago.

The story behind "Restoration Farm" is really kind of neat which I want to share now.

A few years back Kat and I drove to Ft. Collins, CO to attend a "Naturally Supernatural" Conference being lead by Gary Best a lead pastor of a Vineyard. As we drove to the conference we listened to Bruce Wilkinson's cd "The Dream Giver". For several months leading up to this day I had been asking God to show me through Kat where He wanted me to minister. I had been ordained a year or so before and could not get any word on what God wanted me to do with that. I had performed some marriages and that was neat since I got to sit down with couples and talk about marriage but I was not getting any idea about what God wanted me to do. I knew it would an inner city ministry or maybe a church plant at the Lake of the Ozarks but no confirmation. So I began to pray that the word would come through Kat. At some point during the cd I turned it off and turned to Kat and asked, "What is your big dream?" I fully expected her to say whatever God is calling you to do but no that is not what rolled off her lips. In fact what spilled from her mouth did not register with me at all. It had to do with dirt and stuff not ministering to people. Because her dream did not fit what I thought it should be I stuffed her answer away.

Now a couple of years later I realize her dream which God showed me as we drove along I-70 was the same dream He gave me back in the 1980s except more complete. A year or so ago we did the "Dream Giver" with two friends, Rick and Karen, who I just happened to have the honor to perform their wedding ceremony. Their dream was to have a farm called, "The Shepherd's Garden" and to teach people how to use whole food to improve their health. Over the past year their dream inspired our dream and God has molded both of us to move toward our vision of having a farm that uses organic means to growing vegetables year round. If I would have listened to my wife's heart two years ago we would have farther down the road than we are today. Having said that I am glad I was hard headed because we are more prepared today than we were two years ago to make this move.

Now back to our present day situation. If everything goes as planned we will be moving out of this house which has been such a blessing to us and our grandkids on March 16th. Where we have no clue but just as we trusted God to bring just the right person to this house we are trusting that He will reveal where He wants us to move to.

One of the neatest things that has come from this planned move is we are going to be partnering with the former owner of Chez Charles that was located in Eureka Springs, AR. Chez Charles was an experience of the taste buds and the eye. Chez Charles was a dining experience with a unique combination of dining room and kitchen, in which you can be involved, talking with Chef/Owner Charles Clark in the open kitchen area, or casually observing the master at work, through the large window next to the kitchen. His food style was stacked with edible herbs and flowers. It was truly a work of love and art.

Now Kat and I will begin the task of discovering where God wants us to have this farm and exactly where our market will be. Whether close to Kansas City or the Lake of the Ozarks we know that our marketing plan and product will work in either location. The main thing is we want to respond to what God is calling us to do.

Having said all of this we want you to help us by praying that we will discover that area that God wants our farm to be located and that will be blessed by our farm being located there. Also pray for God to bring those people who will benefit from our product and services to our farm. Kat and I believe that the Restoration Farm is meant to be more than just a vegetable growing money making enterprise for us. We believe it is a calling to make a difference in the lives of those we provide products to and to those pastors, missionaries and wounded warriors that we serve.

We would very much like to receive your feed back and any special word that God might give you concerning our dream.

Larry and Kat

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Why Cabins for the Missionary and Wounded Pastors?

Kat and I have been around several missionaries when they have come back to the states for rest and fund raising. Serving in a culture that is different than your own can be stressful and the task of fund raising is for sure stressful.

So what we want to do is provide a place for missionaries to come to and upon returning home and before leaving for their mission. We hope that it will be a stress free environment and one where they can be restored through the Holy Spirit.

Our vision is to have one or two little cottages or RV type structures












where they can stay for free. The cabins will have electricity but no radio or television. We will provide some form of system for them to listen to worship music. There will be running water but right now we do not plan any bathing facilities in the cabins. For restroom services they will have to walk down to the barn which will have a full restroom with a showering area. We will also have laundry machines available in the barn.

To answer the question about wounded pastors is simply to say I have been wounded by pastors and I have wounded wounded pastors. We want to provide a place where pastors can come to for healing of their wounds. How they were wounded or who caused the wounds is not important what is important is they get restored to service. Only God can do that but we can provide the place for the Holy Spirit to His work.

Neither the missionaries or the pastors will be expected to help around the farm but we will encourage them to because there is a calming affect that comes from getting hands in the dirt or from interacting with farm animals.

Our job will be to listen, listen and do some more listening. We will not be offering our opinions but we will talk but we will do more listening than talking.

The Restoration Cabins are an important part of the farm and our plan. For more information contact me at lnclark1950@gmail.com.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Great Plains Growers Conference

Kat and I attended the Great Plains Growers Conference that was held in St. Joseph, MO. We heard some new stuff and some stuff we already knew but reinforced what we are planning.

For this short post I just want to share that we believe our plan is a solid one and that we have put a great deal of time in writing that plan and even visualizing it. We know that it will require hard work and a good deal of monetary investment but we are both committed to making that happen.

One of the things we believe is, "If you are doing what you enjoy and love then it is not a job even though it requires hard work."

Anyone who wants to do something without putting in either the monetary investment or the labor will most likely not even get started or if they do get started fail because they have not invested themselves and their capital into the dream. In reality they are not living their dream they are only acting in the dream of someone else.

(For those of you who are missionaries you are in a different situation than what I am talking
about here. What I am talking about here is someone who has a dream of a business type of
adventure and they are wanting someone else to pay for or do the work. Missionaries are
investing the most by serving God in a culture that is different than they are use to.)

I encourage you to dream but make the dream become a reality by investing yourself and your resources into it. It might mean you have to get a job to support your dream until it can support itself and it will most definitely require effort to make it become a reality. I know one thing for sure once it is a reality you will be able to enjoy the fruits of your investment of time and money.