Welcome to this week’s edition of the Redeeming the Dirt Newsletter!

Redeeming the Dirt is the ministry of Noah Sanders and his family, committed to encouraging Christians to live for Jesus, excel in agriculture, and make disciples.

In an age of kids glued to their phones, imagine a garden where high-schoolers actually want to come work outside in the dirt, learning to grow vegetables for their community.

This week I stopped by to help teach at a local after-school garden program I’ve been involved in developing. Situated in the middle of a city housing neighborhood, the community garden was originally started by a local man who used it to feed his neighbors. Now the site uses the Well-Watered Garden Program to train gardeners and invest in the lives of high-schoolers in the community, both public schoolers and homeschoolers.

I drove through the tidy neighborhood of identical brick homes, waving to the older residents sitting on their steps. They always wave back. Hidden at the back of the community is the garden, an oasis of fruit trees, raised beds, and walking paths. I parked and walked through the food forest to where the program staff were overseeing about a dozen students working in the late afternoon sun.

The garden was overflowing — a visual feast of color. More than seven well-watered gardens and other raised beds were brimming with flowers, tomatoes, cucumbers, southern peas, okra, cotton, and melons, all grown by the students without any plowing or chemicals. I had come in the middle of class after finishing a meeting, and students were harvesting all over the garden in teams directed by the garden manager and a part-time teacher, both of whom have their own local farms. One of the assistant staff members is a former student who now works in the garden.

“How long have you been working here?” I asked, walking up to introduce myself to a new student as she picked tomatoes. She had only been coming a few weeks, she said, but her brother had been in the program before her.

“Have you learned much?”

She paused with a tomato in her hands, looking past me thoughtfully, then said with raised eyebrows, “Lots!”

“Is it what you expected?”

“No. It’s different.”

“Oh!” I said with mock surprise. “Good different or bad different?”

She smiled. “Good different.”

I told her I was glad to meet her and glad she was enjoying what she was learning, then moved toward some other students walking past the tool shed carrying harvest baskets.

That tool shed is a beautiful building — local, rough-cut board and batten siding, built by the high-schoolers in the carpentry class. Spacious, full of organized tools and supplies — I want to build one on my own farm.

Several students walked up and one of them asked, matter of factly, “Do you want some okra?” — offering me a basket of freshly picked pods.

I love raw okra. “Definitely! Thanks. One of my favorite garden snacks for sure.”

Wide grins spread across their faces as I grabbed a tender pod and munched it happily.

“How many pounds of tomatoes did you pick from over there?” the garden manager called to one team, who shouted back the weight so it could be entered in the harvest record.

I talked with the staff and several other students as they finished picking and headed back to the outdoor teaching pavilion — the one I helped my cousin build from local trees cut on his sawmill.

For the last half hour I had planned to teach the students one of the demonstrations we use to compare our minimal tillage approach to conventional tilling. But in the middle of showing them how to run the experiment, I found myself talking instead about humility.

Walking around with jars holding clods of plowed and unplowed soil, I asked: “If someone came up to you and said, ‘Plowing is dumb. What an idiot you are. My soil is healthier than yours. You should do it like I do’ — would you feel like listening to them?”

They all shook their heads.

“But what if I came up, asked you about your garden, heard about your challenges, encouraged you in the work you were doing, and then offered to share some of the things I’m learning in my own garden? Would you be more interested in what I had to say?”

They all nodded.

“I want you all to realize that it isn’t just the value of the truths and techniques we share with people. It’s the heart we have when we bring them. Sharing even truth in pride can turn someone off from ever accepting that truth in the future. What people are looking for is whether you care, and whether you’re living out what you’re teaching. You just need to be willing to serve and share and help them as they make their own discoveries.”

With that we were out of time. The students signed out and headed off as their parents pulled up. Driving home, I felt blessed to be able to invest in their lives.

(Here is an Instagram account where the students share some of what they are learning. You might even spot me in some of the posts!)

I have been amazed over the years at the way the setting of agriculture opens doors for investing in people — the lives of fellow Christians, but also the lives of those in my broader community.

I want to be used by God, and I’m grateful for the ways He has included me in the work He is doing. What will that look like tomorrow? I’m not always sure. But He has proven over the years that if I am faithful with what He has given me right now, He will use that as a platform to bless others.

Are you seeing God use your faithfulness to bless others? I'd love to hear about it — just hit reply.

New Carpentry Class from the School of Traditional Skills

Back in April we got to spend some time with Josh and Carolyn Thomas at the Homestead Conference in Waco. They were there in part to film a new class on basic woodworking, and I was eager to get it when it launched — this is an area I want my boys to grow in, and we’ve been using several School of Traditional Skills classes in our homeschool already.

This week they asked if I’d help promote the launch through my affiliate account, so I’m passing it along. It’s a way to support our ministry, support Josh’s excellent work, and invest in your own skills at the same time. The class teaches technique through a few projects I’m genuinely excited about: a compost sifter, an herb drying rack, and a bushel box.

​Take a look at the class here →​

A Young Homesteader’s Video Channel

Years ago a young man came and interned with us, and his family has supported our ministry ever since. Recently his younger brother started making some fun “extreme homesteading” videos on YouTube. I wanted to give him a shout-out and encourage you to subscribe. If you have young kids on the farm, they should find his videos both entertaining and edifying.

​Subscribe to Homesteading Extreme on YouTube →​

Until next time, stay humble, be faithful, and keep Redeeming the Dirt!

Noah Sanders

Find more articles, books, and resources at redeemingthedirt.com.

This ministry is supported by readers like you. If these letters have been an encouragement, you can partner with us here — every gift helps us keep training gardeners and making disciples.