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We’re thrilled to welcome our new summer interns, Jerry Nelson, James Alexander, and Don Hale. Jerry visited us this spring and has returned for an internship to help Brendan Prendergast in the garden and to brainstorm with Jake Warren in marketing efforts. James spends the day charming the weeds out of the gardens, and then charms us with his singing and guitar skills during our afternoon prayer. Don uses his talent helping Beth Greaves in our Heart to Heart home repair ministry. Through working with Habitat for Humanity, Don met Millard Fuller who suggested he visit Koinonia. We’re grateful for the new enthusiasm and playfulness these guys bring to the farm! We’re still accepting applications for our fall internship! If you are considering a Koinonia internship, be sure to visit our intern information page.

It's coffee time! Café Campesino, a local, fair-trade coffee company, has opened a brand new coffee shop right here their local roastery, and Koinonia couldn’t be more excited! Café Campesino has partnered with us for years, selling our products in their roastery and offering their fair-trade coffee through Koinonia. Summer hours for their café are Monday to Friday 7:30 a.m. till 6 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m. till 1 p.m. For more information about Café Campesino and their fair-trade coffee business, visit cafecampesino.com.

Reaching Out

We’re happy to welcome Dave Owens as the newest member to our board of directors. Dave is a member of Church of the Servant King, an intentional Christian community in Oregon. We’re always thrilled to extend our connections by reaching out to sister communities, knowing that these connections make us stronger and benefit both communities.

As always, our annual summer camp was a blast! The Atlanta Peace Mobile traveled to the KCOC to train our campers in conflict resolution and peacemaking. The 27 kids constructed peace poles and peace doves to take home with them. Other highlights from the camp include visits from the local sheriff’s department to teach about playing safe and the danger of drugs, a magician to encourage imagination, nutritious eating, nature walks, field trips to visit Koinonia’s gardens and animals, a talent show, and the ever-popular splash days! All of the children and adults thank the Smith-Prochaska Foundation, Sumter Electric, and Weyerhaeuser for their financial contributions in support of this summer-time tradition. To see photos from this year’s camp, click here.

Four Koinonians attended this summer’s People Against Poverty and Apathy festival, or PAPA fest. Beth, Brendan, Jake, and Sanders Thornburgh spent a weekend camping at Plow Creek Farm, an intentional Christian community in Illinois, learning about and discussing shared Christian living and sustainable life. This year’s PAPA fest was a tremendous encouragement to our community. As these four have shared their stories from the festival, we’ve felt challenged to move even more deeply into a shared life and to make a stronger effort to connect with other communities. To learn more about PAPA fest, visit their Web site.

Bren Dubay and a few fellow Koinonians will be in Chicago in early July to attend the Ekklesia Project’s Gathering 2008 at DePaul University. This year’s theme is one Koinonia is very familiar with, “Crossing the Divide: Race, Racism and the Body of Christ.” Look for more information about the gathering in next month’s e-news. Bren will be visiting Koinonia friends in the Chicago area for a few days after the gathering ends. If you would like to visit with Bren, call us at 229-924-0391 or e-mail us.

Down on the Farm

Congratulations to Brian Carter, pictured below, who recently earned his Eagle Scout. He completed his community service project at Koinonia, bordering, mulching, and trimming around our two signs near the entrance to the farm. Brian’s journey to earning Eagle Scout was a bit bumpy. He dropped out of scouting in the seventh grade, but decided to join again in the 10th grade. Few gave him much of chance to make Eagle Scout, but he’s shown his determination by completing all the work necessary. We’re honored that we could be a part of this process. Thanks, Brian, for your hard work and for helping our farm to look more beautiful!

Permaculture consultant Chuck Marsh spent three days with us in June. We drafted a set of 50-year goals and identified all the projects we could do this coming year to step toward these goals. In setting these goals, permaculture design involves people, animals, buildings, and the land itself. It is a way to make the farm more efficient—not just sustainable, but regenerative, so that we have healthy ecosystems that allow us to continue to be a demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God and to share whatever abundance we have with our neighbors. As Koinonian Ana Navarro explained it, permaculture is a way of making sense out of many things; it’s a returning to a way of living with the land and with people that civilizations have successfully used for centuries. It’s working with people and with the land instead of setting them at odds.

We were delighted to host Koinonia board member Tom Fackender and fellow members of the Matthew 25 Leadership Community from Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Tallahassee while they were on retreat her in June. This group is a social justice ministry coordinating team whose purpose is to promote, support, and encourage parish social justice ministries as an expression both of gospel and church teachings. This retreat was a celebration of their accomplishments and allowed them time to prayerfully discern their direction and activities for the next year. Pictured below is Bren Dubay with Dee Lopez, Gloria Smith, Pat Beckett, Marcus Hepburn, Art Wright, Father Robert Young, Bill Wyman and Tom Fackender. As always, we were grateful to see these friends and visitors. If you would like to visit Koinonia, click here or call us at 229-924-0391

The newest Koinonians include two baby goats, birthed just last week, with Community Intern James assisting. (No, we didn’t let the summer campers watch—we don’t want our camp to be shut down again—read “Cotton Patch Evidence” if you don’t know the story.) Since the beginning of spring, we’ve added to our animal count a flock of geese, two hives of Italian bees, 60-some chickens (several hatched right here on the farm!), and two Pygmy goats. Our guineas and geese are on the roam right now, until Brendan can set up a rotation schedule to use them for weeding in the garden and pastures. With all the animal noises we hear, it’s sounding like a full farm around here! Pictured below, our new kids relax in the Georgia shade.

Our garden continues to produce lots of vegetables, including beans, okra, zucchini, squash, cucumbers, figs, a few apples, basil, herbs, and the usual salad fixings. In the coming weekends, you’ll find us with all of our produce at the local Farmer’s Market. And we’re excited to announce that our blueberries are ready for harvesting. Come visit us and pick some blueberries to take home with you or come see us at the Farmer’s Market!

If you’ve been to Koinonia in the past ten years, then you’ll have some idea of the beauty and graciousness of David and Ellie Castle and of their importance to this community. We are sad to share that David has been diagnosed with lung cancer, but we’re happy to report that his treatment has begun and his good nature, humor, and wisdom continue to bless us. Please pray for him, for Ellie, their children, friends, extended family both at Koinonia and beyond. David said his prayer is not so much for healing, but to be a blessing to somebody. Anyone who has met him knows this prayer has already been answered countless times—he is such a blessing to us all.

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