September 6 Home Communicator – If you know me well, you know that I will 100% kill it. Every time. Now, I know there are some of you gardeners out there right now doubting me and thinking to yourselves, “but Rachel this one is SO easy…it just needs watering once a week”… “you just need to add Miracle Grow and it won’t die, promise”…. “It worked for my best friend’s grandmother’s aunt and she usually kills everything too…” Trust me: I tried it. I killed it. It’s dead. And it’s gone.
Despite my gardening track record, our school theme for this 2022-2023 school year – Growing in God’s Garden—really resonates with me because God’s Garden is different from mine. He is the perfect gardener. Digging into His Word we learn that He uses the environments we are planted in to nourish and sustain our faith and to produce amazing fruit that overflows in abundance into the lives of others around us. We learn that being connected to Him – the true vine—and to God’s people keeps us from being easily swept away, overrun with pests and weeds that choke away life, and helps us survive the wind and rains that inevitably come.
I’m so thankful to be planted in this community garden of HCS with you and to be part of this Christian School environment that for over 100 years has seen our Perfect Gardener cultivate, nourish, prune, water, and grow the seeds planted here to produce beautiful fruit in many of our own lives and in the lives of our children and grandchildren. And I am so humbled in my Mission Advancement role to be connected with you to Him—the true vine—through this mission of Christian education and to witness the fruit of generosity that God has used to allow for the nourishment and cultivation for thousands and thousands of little hearts in our buildings.
Please join me in once again praying this year’s theme verse over the 2022-2023 school year: “For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.” Isaiah 61:11 Lord, let it be in our own lives and at HCS for the 2022-2023 school year.
Thankful to grow with you,
Rachel Landstra, Mission Advancement
