A little over a year ago my wife,
Kat, and I began to work on a dream we believe God gave us which we call
Restoration Farm. As we planned and worked to make the dream come true we were
often asked one of the following questions. What is restoration farm? And
because we are in our early sixties the question "Why are you doing
it?" To answer why we are doing the farm we always began with sharing what
the farm is about. Kat and I believe the what leads to the why.
Restoration Farm is a dream that
developed over the course of several years. It has its roots in a question that
I asked Kat one day as we drove to a conference in Fort Collins, Colorado. We
were driving along listening and discussing “The Dream Giver” by Bruce Wilkinson.
At one point I turned to Kat and asked, “So what is your dream?” I was
expecting her to say to follow me in my dream of doing an inner city ministry.
What she shared was nowhere even close to that and in fact it was a dream not
involving a ministry at all. I was shocked and disappointed. Let me explain
why. You see I had been praying for God to show me through Kat what ministry He
wanted me to do. I was not expecting the words that came out of her mouth. That
was three years ago and at first I put what she said away and ignored it.
While counseling another couple
about their dream of having an organic farm Kat shared how she would like to
also have a farm like that. As she spoke I realized what she was sharing was
similar to what she shared on the trip to Fort Collins. I decided to listen and
help her reach her dream because within her dream my dream of ministry would be
revealed.
That brings me to what
Restoration Farm is. It is a farm that grows vegetables and fruits without
using chemicals, a farm that raises a few goats for goats milk used to make
soap and a farm raising egg laying chickens.
As a ministry the farm will
provide an RV for pastors and missionaries to use for free. Some missionaries
need to unwind after returning from the mission field and so we wanted to
provide a place for them to do that. Some pastors like to get away from things
for a few days to seek God’s direction in their ministry. The most important
part of this ministry is providing a safe place for fallen or wounded servants
to come and seek the healing that only God’s Holy Spirit can give.
Because of Kat and I are both in
our early sixties people almost always ask, “Why would you want to begin an
organic farm at this point in your lives?”
Our answer is we believe that we become the foods we eat. A diet
consisting of fast, processed or fatty foods leads to many of the health
problems our society faces today.
We believe there should be a balance between
eating raw foods such as vegetables and fruits and cooked foods such as meat.
We have decided to grow chemical free vegetables and fruits to sell to people
and to teach them how to prepare those vegetables and fruits for delicious
meals. The secondary and maybe the most important reason for the farm is to provide
a safe place for missionaries and pastors to come and spend a few days to seek
God’s intervention in their lives.
We believe The Restoration Farm idea because
we believe it is a dream God has placed in our hearts. If God gave us this
dream then He has a reason for us to do it at this particular point in our
lives.
We began our search near the
Kansas City, Missouri area but it seemed the more we looked the farther God led
us away from that area. We finally found a ten acre piece of land five miles
outside of Stover, Missouri. We knew that God led us to this place the day we
first walked the property.
For more information about our
farming methods or for how the ministry to servants will work please email or
give us a call.
Larry Clark
913-636-1862
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