What is Growing Hope?

Healthy Food

Healthy Hearts

Healthy People

It All Started with a Question:

In the end of 2010 Josh had a conversation with one of the head nurses at the local HIV/AIDS clinic where she challenged him by saying something like, “it’s great that you come here and preach and pray for the people but these people need proper food for their medication to work and wouldn’t it be great if you could do something about that.” This statement went right to our hearts. And we began to ask God the question, what can we do to get food into the hands of the hungry?.

The in the beginning of 2011 our pastor here suggested we go and visit another ministry that was helping people start vegetable gardens. We went and visited and felt that this was something that we could do to not only get food to the people but that it could be used to bring restoration, confidence and dignity to the poor and unemployed. It is also an amazing way to build relationships with people that we might not encounter otherwise and show the love of Christ to them.

So for us that was the start of something new.

The Garden Project, Mossel Bay South Africa:

Since April of 2011 we have been helping people to grow their own vegetables. We get contacts through the local HIV/AIDS clinic of people who would like to start gardens. We follow these people up and provide them with everything they need to prepare their ground for the seedlings that we provide. We then follow up with these people continually, building relationships with them and teaching them not only how to plant the garden but to care for it.

Our Goals:

- to provide people who are lacking, especially people living with HIV/AIDS with healthy and nutritious food

- to encourage unemployed people to provide for themselves through gardening

- to bring a sense of purpose and dignity to the gardener

- we also have a desire to develop relationships with people our church wasn’t reaching. And through those new relationships show the love of Christ and discipleship in the ways of Biblical living

Current Number of Gardens: we are getting close to 50 as of April 5, 2012

This video shows our vision and progress as of November 2011