The church sits on 22 acres of former farmland, with a creek and about 12 acres of bottomland perfect for agriculture. While most of the Karen refugees now work at the Tyson poultry processing plant in Shelbyville, they had been farmers in Myanmar.
At the time, the All Saints property was for sale, and Spurlock told Win the timing was wrong for planting gardens. He feared the property might be sold before the refugees could harvest their crops. Still, the idea stuck with him.
One day in May, while working on a plan to restart the church, he took a walk on the church property, and the idea of starting a farm finally dawned on him. “God gave us this land for a purpose,” he said.
Longtime church member Mark Orr agreed. He and his wife, Landra, have been attending All Saints since its organizational meeting about 12 years ago.
“I’m ashamed to say it, but we had to wait until God slapped us on the head, and said, ‘I gave this land to you, put it to work.’ ”
I’m thankful to see that this got picked up in the Tennessean and I pray that it will lead to even more blessings on the faithful people of All Saints’ Smyrna and the Karen community. This really is an example of the importance of the Communion. As Bishop Bauerschmidt noted in his post-Lambeth reflections, it is amazing to reflect on the fact that he and the Archbishop of Myanmar (Burma) had common business to handle at Lambeth. It should stand as an example of why none of us should take the Communion lightly.
The latest Nashotah House Missioner had a good write up on All Saints and Kurios as well, but unfortunately I cannot find the article online. A similar article appeared in the most recent newsletter of the Diocese of Tennessee, available here: [url=http://tinyurl.com/67l7cz](in PDF format)[/url].
You can read more about what is happening on the farm on their blog, here:
http://kuriosfarm.blogspot.com/
Father Spurlock is an example of the kind of priests Nashotah House is training these days – energetic, creative, and above all – faithful. Deo Gratia!
It was heartbreaking when the bulk of the All Saints’ congregation decamped, but it is exciting to see that God still has exciting possibilities in store for parish. Michael Spurlock is a hard-working, faithful man and All Saints’ was a huge challenge for one so recently ordained, but he is doing a heartening job. It has been good to watch the Diocese of Tennessee gradually become more multinational!
I don’t actually go to that church, but the youth group at my church, Trinity Epscipal (sorry, can’t spell), from Clarksville, were there yesterday, June 6th, working on the farm with those wonderful people. They are so nice and kind, and just fun to be around. A lot of my friends in the group were saying that they had so much fun planting, that they wanted to come back in the fall to help harvest. It felt really good to help the people, and we planted 24 rows of veggies (the record for one day is 31), about 50,000 (or was it 55,000…?) lbs. of them!!! And we had the best time ever!!! We helped plant cucumbers, tomatoes, raddishes, green beans, pumpkins, and a bunch more. You really should make time to come out there and help, because I promise you that if you do, you’ll have a ton of fun helping, and you’ll feel good about helping people who are so nice. Just make sure you put on a lot of sunblock. I got soooooo burned, I look like a tomatoe! I’m glad that someone didn’t try to eat me! 🙂