‘Road to Terra Numa’ is a series of posts and other content (ie: podcast episodes, etc) laying out the vision, journey, and process by which this ministry unfolds.

(Editor’s Note: This raw reflection by Pam was written over a year ago when we were ‘houseless’ for 3 months. It was a heart-wrenching time but also has deeply marked in us an even deeper desire to pursue a ministry of hospitality, spiritual renewal, and discipleship to Jesus in the context of farm life. After our time in the ark we came full circle and have been renting a townhouse not far from the townhouse we rented when we first moved to the area in 2006. We are still looking for a property – now in Amherst County)

——————————

It happened in 1996, shortly after I met the Lord; the idea of a retreat center began to unfold. Not just me but my family, well most of us. “Refuge”, it would come to be known after my Dad got this name from the Lord. We began to keep ideas for retreats, classes, hospitality, and other general thoughts of what it would be about. I was 23 at the time and the idea went dormant for a few years until I got involved with a church plant in DC and new forms of the idea came to mind. Communal living with others doing the church plant and a ministry house idea both came in view. The idea of the ministry house came from a fellow church planter, Jason, who later would become my husband. He said that he was given the idea several years before, I think around the same time my family was brainstorming about Refuge. His ideas were very similar to mine.

We were married in 2000, started having children, and eventually decided that the life we were living in northern Virginia was too busy/chaotic. My parents and sister, along with her family, agreed and we started to consider communal living on property together in another town. We prayed and searched, brainstormed and talked for about a year. We decided to all move to the Lynchburg, Virginia, area – sadly though, not on property together, but separately. Over the next year, we all moved; us in February of 2006, my sister’s family in July, and my parents in September. During our year of prayer about moving, I found a farm property that I really wanted called the Village of Curtis. It had a main house, a cabin, a cottage, an old country store with an apartment over it along with a barn and a few other outbuildings all on 33 acres. I was enamored with the property but Jason and my Dad laughed at the $1.2 million price, and that was that.

Jason and I were living in a townhouse for our first year in Lynchburg when I got a call from my sister, her husband had gotten an offer to do some remodeling on a house in the area, after they moved down, by a couple they met through mutual friends. It turned out to be a couple that helped start the church we were a part of in northern Virginia who had bought a property in the area and needed some help with repairs. The property just happened to be an old village, by the name of Curtis! I was floored! Jason had a dream that night about them and the farm, so on Father’s Day 2006, we took a ride to find the property; the place I had wanted to buy over a year earlier.

We pulled into the driveway of the cabin on the property and were greeted by Joe Dittrich. He showed us around a bit and asked if we wanted to be a part of their home church after they were settled. We accepted, and this began our twelve year relationship with the Dittrich’s, ten of which we would spend living in the cabin on the property. Joe and Teresa are people who love the Lord and love young people, so there were always folks coming to the farm for various reasons. Mostly just to be loved on by them.

They had a lot of interesting ideas about cottage industry, hospitality, and ministry that took the spark in our heart for a retreat center and stoked it to flame again. They also invited us into helping care for the farm animals and gardening – things we already were eager to dive into. We had a huge garden for several years. On the farm were sheep, goats, chickens, guineas, a Great Pyrenees dog, and various cats. Eventually a milk cow was added to the mix and at times her calves. We became farm people and we would never be the same again. The retreat center idea became about connection to the land from which we were formed. About becoming the caretakers of animals as we were designed to be. And finding Jesus in it all. A new flavor of Refuge emerged and now has become Terra Numa. We are made from the ‘terra’ (earth) and given life through the breath (pneuma) of God. This has become us, or should I say, God has formed in us this call and it is who we are.

We were asked to move from the farm in 2018. Our hearts were broken to have to leave the place where most of our kids grew up. Where we were changed to be people of the land. To leave the place we had connection with. Since leaving the farm we have been wandering for the last 7 years, holding this hope that with each change, it would be the one in which God brings us back to land to be grounded in Him and in the land, so that His dream of Terra Numa could be realized. We lived in town for 2 years and in a small cabin next to Jason’s work for 4.

We were recently asked to move out of the cabin by Jason’s work and we were convinced, through a series of circumstances, that now was the time. That God would do miracles on our behalf, because He knows we cannot afford the scope of property we would need to see the dream for a place of ministry and hospitality come to life. We had a lot of folks praying with us and many asking daily if we had found anything yet. We prayed fervently. The day before our move came, and we had no where to go. No miracle had happened.

We got a call from a woman we had met at church a few times, she had heard of our situation from another person from church. She knew that, despite the chaos going on in her own life, she had the room to share and was being asked by the Lord to do just that. Jason told me of the offer and I immediately said NO! He asked me to think about it. God, very clearly, told me that if I want to be a person of radical hospitality, then I needed to accept it. UGH! I told Him that it was so awkward, and to that He told me to be open and honest about that.

So on a rainy Tuesday night at 10pm, exhausted from last minute moving chaos, we found ourselves pulling into a strange driveway like weary refugees. I had no idea where this house was that we would be staying in and as we came to the driveway I saw that it was the old Holy Land USA property, a now defunct walk through the life of Jesus started in the 1970’s. I learned that we were going into the building that is shaped like Noah’s Ark. God really has a sense of humor.

So, here we are, in the Ark. This Sunday (2 days from now), it will be forty days since we entered the Ark. The springs of the deep in us have all been opened. Many tears have been shed. Ones of disappointment, disillusionment, confusion, loss (many from loss), and even some from boredom. I have a tiny idea of what Noah felt. Yet, we cannot be different, we cannot be normal, we cannot be anything than who He formed us to be. Terra Numa is part of us. We live it out with what we have, though there is much of it that we just cannot live out without land to root in and grow on. We are here for a reason, that is clear but that is all that is clear. I hold on to this hope that He will finish the work He started in us, in me.

Note: This is a reflection on brokenness and the seeming impassible seasons we find ourselves in – either through our poor choices, or through no fault of our own. It may be depression, it may be addiction, it may be grief, or betrayal, or injury, or despair, or injustice, or pain of many kinds. But as the ancient psalmist said: “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” (Psalm 56:8) God walks with us even when He leaves no footprints and speaks no words of comfort to us.

The hot Saturday sun shone down. We followed the faded dirt road, overtaken with grass the further it went. This was not a well worn path. We had arrived like refugees late at night almost a month ago. Homeless? Houseless? Inbetween stable housing? I had no language for it. It was some form of failure or maybe just a convergence of too many things not lining up. Our search for long term housing and a farm to base our ministry turned into a scramble for short term housing – but nothing was panning out. It’s a long story, but we were taking refuge in the kindness of new friends, grateful for their hospitality.

Two of my sons were begging to find a rumored bamboo forest at the back of the forty acres. The path wound down under a canopy of trees and the cooler forest air brought some relief from the heat of the day. A gate stood, closed and locked across the grassy road. We turned leftward off the path, descending down towards the creek, the tall grass brushing our legs.

We bounded downward toward the edge of the creek onto large rocks, the water low but still flowing beneath us. We had to jump to the higher bank. More tall grass met us as we ascended to find a still pond before us – frogs, unseen, chirupped here and there. Off to the left the bamboo forest breathed in silence. Even from a distance it felt mythical. We walked as if on pilgrimage to a hidden temple. As we entered it was clear this was a wild space, untouched by human effort or order. There was no defined path. Fallen bamboo laid crossways among the tall straight bamboo. The dead mixed with the living. The dead bamboo was a tan color, some of it brittle and twisted, gnarled, or completely broken. The living bamboo was varying degrees of green, some of it impressively large in diameter, the biggest I had ever seen. New growth was skinny but dramatically tall and wore almost a fuzzy coating of enfolding sheathes.

We slowly climbed through the living and the broken bamboo. We stepped over a deep hole – a den of some kind, maybe a fox. I was struck by the muffled silence all around, bamboo leaves covering the ground. I paused, hesitant to press in. My two boys, ages ten and fifteen, eagerly proceeded – undaunted. We were now explorers on a mission to uncover the secrets of this broken forest.

They started to disappear among the bamboo and I felt a slight panic, not wanting to be left behind. The silence, the wildness, the brokenness, and the height of the bamboo all combined in my senses. “Should we be here?” I thought. It felt almost sacred – the feeling you get in a cathedral where some unseen priest or monk is off praying behind the scenes. As we went deeper in, the thickness of the bamboo slowed our movement. We had to pause, calculate our next step, and gingerly climb through. It began to feel impossible, many parts impassible, and yet we had to pass through.

Our weight on the fallen bamboo broke the sacred silence with crunching and cracking. We cracked on, careful to not be impaled by the compounding brokenness. A few times I felt like giving up. And then I stood among that broken forest and knew why it felt so mythic, so sacred, so unearthly. This was an outward display of my inner world. The inner and outer echoing in an exact reflection.

We threaded our way among the bamboo and finally found the other edge which opened to a bend in the creek. This was a place to sit, think, pray. The tree branches hung low and it felt enclosed, almost like a room. The creek smoothly bubbled along among sandbanks and rockbeds. We traversed the creek like any good explorers would and remained there until I felt our time was spent – the world of human order and habitation beckoning us back from this wild space. But there was no way to follow the creek out, which would be the easiest thing to do. We would have to re-enter the bamboo forest. In a flight into fantasy I considered maybe it wasn’t necessary to leave. Maybe we could just stay and live here by this peaceful creek – a modern day Swiss Family Robinson.

I did not want to re-renter the bamboo but we did. Methodically, slowly, we entered back in. The bamboo now felt threatening, hostile, no longer tolerant of our heavy presence. There seemed to be no way out – or at least no good way out. But we had to make a way. I followed my sons as they lead. I mimicked their moves. I patterned my path after theirs, climbing through the wreckage, careful not to be sliced up by the deadwood. Eventually we found our way back to the fox’s den and out of the bamboo where we had entered – then the pond and across the creek again, up the ravine where we had first descended. In the end we walked into the house, not our own, and felt the kindness there. My own brokenness silently rang out, the deadwood laying scattered among the new growth.

-JDF, Bedford, Virginia

‘Road to Terra Numa’ will be a series of posts and other content (ie: podcast episodes, etc) laying out the vision, journey, and process by which this ministry unfolds.

Note: Two months ago I awoke early in the morning and fell into a kind of poetic reflection on our past experience living for ten years on a farm owned by friends of ours – an older Christian couple who we shared a kind of ‘unintentional’ Christian community with. This meditation is also about the future of our farm ministry and our efforts to get back on the land.

This was written six weeks before we had to move out of a cabin we had been renting for several years. Our search for a long term housing that would work for farm ministry turned into a scramble for short term housing. As I write this we find ourselves over three weeks in to an experience of being without stable housing. I hope to write more on this experience soon and how God is dealing with us in this unusual time.

————-

It’s 5:24 am. I can’t sleep. It’s the second night in a row I’ve woken and laid in bed wondering why my brain won’t go back to sleep. But it’s not just me. The air feels stirred. A dog barks intently in the distant darkness – as if alarmed or offended. Another dog answers back, equally intent. A car quietly pulls into the gravel driveway, the unmistakeable sound of heavy tires popping and clacking the small cracked rocks. The cats stir in the house and wonder why I am getting up. They silently leave their posts for a snack, or to keep watch elsewhere in the house.

I grab my journal, my Bible, and a few books. I descend squeeky stairs as stealthily as possible, but it feel like an announcement to a house full of sleepers. I hope not to break their fragile dreams. I make my way to the dark living room and look out the large front window. I can see down the hill that the shop garage door is wide open and all the lights are on – bright lights contrasted against the dark night. Living on the same property as your place of work has it’s benefits and drawbacks.

I turn on a lamp. It clicks loudly as the lightbulb sweeps away the night – small but mighty. Maybe it’s because I am trying to be as quiet as a mouse but sound seems amplified. One of the cats is crunching and rifling through a bowl of dry cat food. There is a slight ringing in my ears; the silent morning pressing in on me. I sit on the long couch. Across the room a stout bookshelf is filled with sturdy white liquor boxes – full of books.

I know why I am awake. My spirit pacing anxiously while my body is curled up in a blanket. We were told we have to move out of this cabin we’ve been renting for the past three and half years. We have six weeks left before the move. I am wrestling with God. It’s bad enough that the rental market has priced us out of viable housing for our large family. We’re also hoping for a miracle of sorts – to find our way back to farm life that has eluded us for six years. Fear grips my stomach and I force it back.

We have a vision for farm ministry that we can’t let go of. In fact, we’re not even holding onto it. It has become a part of who we are. We have some of the vision written down, but it’s more like a memory that I’ve relived a thousand times. The wind stirs the chimes on the front porch. And this vision, at once future, and past, animates my mind.

In this headspace I see me walking with an empty steel milk bucket swinging in my hand, one of my sons at my side. Soon I am in the barn with the milk cow. She is contentedly chewing on alfalfa pellets, the bell hanging from her collar in a muted musical staccato tone. It’s a peaceful chore but we are racing to finish before she does. When we are done I reunite the milk cow with her calf. They’ve been separated all night to prevent the calf from taking the milk before we arrived. I carry the now heavy laden bucket carefully back to the cabin to filter the fresh milk.

I snap back into the present moment with the excited yipping from a pack of coyotes echoing in the valley – stirred up by the blasting horn and rumbling of a speeding train. It’s sounds like that of an angry monster. The coyotes almost sound afraid. I slip back into memory.

I can see the fenced garden near the barn and chicken house. In Spring and Summer it swells with plants reaching, vines climbing, leaves spreading out, bright greens, reds, oranges, a beautiful tangle of ripening vegetables. The garden framed at thirty by a hundred feet is brimming with steady activity throughout the growing season. I am working until dusk when the mosquitos make their invisible presence known. I am planting, weeding, harvesting, watering, in a kind of circular dance. Pam and the kids joining me off-and-on in the sunkissed revelry. We eat by the sweat of our brow – but the taste of our sweat becomes part of the flavor of our days.

Sheep and goats are grazing on the hill. Chickens peck around in the compost pile. Nothing is still, but there is no frenetic pace. It all moves serenely, sometimes sporadically, but like a constant give and take, driven along by rain and sun and the breathe of God. New lambs and kids make their debut, adored by my own children, friends, and farm visitors.

Seeds become seedlings and mature with fruit , feed us, and then pass back into the soil. Converging creeks sparkle and meander in delight, while other times, swollen with rain, go raging through, unstoppable, maddened, and inconsolable – sweeping along large rocks as they go loudly cracking by in the rush.

I can see a table full of food. Nearby a fire throws sparks upward into the starry night. Conversations overlap in a ragamuffin patchwork of laughter, inquiries, and ricocheting stories. Teenagers and young children play games in the dim lights here and there. Mothers nurse their babies. Men are speaking passionately of how the world should be. Everyone drinks deep from the overflowing cup of fellowship around the fire. Time seems suspended in eternity.

I am back in my living room, weeping. Tears of bitterness mix with a well of longing. I have to put the lid back on the memory because I don’t want to wake the house with sobbing. I sit dazed with tears running down my face. My chest burns as I contemplate what is so easily lost: community, friendship, intertwined lives. I feel alone in the dark morning. I have to move on. I bottle my despair and force myself back into these distant thoughts – both memory and prophecy.

I can see a couple fighting, then embracing, then sitting on a bed facing opposite directions. The space between them widening. Their house becomes pressurized and begins to crack. They open the front door to leave and a great groan of mourning rushes into the empty suburban streets. Suddenly I see them on the farm. And at once they disappear. In their place I see a young man, confused, wondering what’s next. His form fades and a young family appears, looking for solid ground. These are the wounded, stuck in the ‘in-between’. These are the weak, those on a long journey looking for rest and healing, care, and space to breathe again. We are eating together, comforting them, praying with them, encouraging them. Their demons no longer dominating them. Their past no longer defining them. They are ready for the journey again. We bless them and feel blessed by them.

Again I slip into the present. I can’t shake the sense that these aren’t just memories, I am speaking of the future – of what could be. I can’t shake this vision of a farm – like a city on a hill, like a lighthouse in a storm, like a monastery in the midst of a collapsing empire, like an outpost in the wilderness, like a colony of a distant kingdom, like a garden where we walk with God. If there is any substance, any truth to what I see, may it resonate, may it be a signal, a bell ringing, calling those who are willing to a life of worship, service, and sacrifice.

 -JDF, Bedford, Virginia