Mobile Loaves & Fishes Blog: Karpophoreō: To bear good fruit, to bear good deeds

Steven here of the Karpophoreō Project. Check out the latest KP newsletter written below.

Steven

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Dear Friends and Supporters of the Karpophoreō Project,

My sleep was arrested in the middle of the night by a phone call. Knowing that no one would call at that hour were it not an emergency, I stumbled out of bed and answered as quickly as I could. One of our community members, overcome with a grief that annually reoccurs during this holiday season, considered suicide while being inebriated. A neighbor called the police when the episode became public. Calling me that night was the closest friend of this person, asking if I would allow the community member to stay on my couch for the night. The police had threatened arrest if the community member was found outside again that night. And so, in the early hours of the morning, I was making a bed and asking about the source of that night’s troubles.

What is the Karpophoreō Project? Many of you have asked me that question and I have striven to give you the most complete answer I could. Is it a homelessness project? Is it a recovery project…? Is it a Life skills…jobs…housing…gospel…sustainability project? Yes. Over the course of the last 5 months, I now understand the KP is all of those things and more. Most fundamentally, it is a people project. We seek to see a person as God’s sees them and to maintain, against all accusers, that there is hope for their future; to understand what God would have them do, what he would have us do for them, in order to bring about a unique manifestation of his glory through that person’s life.

Some of you have noticed that my job description is listed as “Good Soil Developer”. I have known that to be my calling for several years now, but am finding it more true every day. It comes from Jesus’ Parable of the Sower. As you likely know the parable well, I will say only this: the gospel seed is scattered along several different soil conditions. Each soil receives the seed as it is able. All but one of the soils is limited in its ability to receive the true purpose for which the seed was planted, being unable to transform it into a fruit-bearing plant. The failure is not that of the seed but the soil conditions as they existed before, and continue to exist after, the soil and seed were wed. What can be done for these harsh soils? Should we abandon them in our search for worthy recipients of these seeds of “Good News”? Of course not. Rather, we develop the soils as we are able, fostering for them an environment that can bear good fruit from the seeds that are sown. That is what we are striving to do at the Karpophoreō Project. And to do this, we earnestly request your prayer intercession for us who are giving our lives to this goal as well as for those who have made it through so much to be here, alive and hopeful about their future. This is not a project that can be built solely by human hands.

On a logistical note, we will be making a trial run at the Sunset Valley Farmer’s Market this Saturday from 9-1pm. We will be selling our very first harvest of the season as well as some winter hats that one of our community members has begun to knit to pay her utilities for the winter. It will be a small harvest but the fruit (or, vegetables and greens in this case) is/are good! If you’re in the area, stop in and say hi.