encouragement

Some encouraging news lately. This spring Heather shifted to working on a community garden, growing vegetables to give to the families here, and also to friends nearby and in Evanston. I thought that was a great idea. And many people appreciated the produce this summer. One drawback, though, was that Heather no longer grew vegetables for the farm business, so we wouldn't receive much of a farm donation. That meant over a third of our income would go away. But we felt like she was making the right choice, and that God would find another way to provide.

One encouragement was a unexpected donation from a friend. And now we just found out that we've been offered a large rent reduction, in gratitude for the care-giving I volunteered for our elderly neighbor. A very generous surprise. One that more than makes up for the shortfall in our income. We couldn't have imagined such an arrangement a month ago, but now it meets our current needs very well. With a little extra, too, in case we do manage to add a child to our family in the not too distant future.

We also recently heard from a Catholic Worker house that I contacted over a year ago. I didn't get any reply then, but now they're coming for a retreat in a month. Emmaus is coming about a month after that. So our winter looks a little more interesting than usual.