AdAgrA 2021: Hidden Treasure

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Pamela Dysinger

Chantee Fisher

Darryl Hosford

Donald Martin

Thom Mayer

Gabriel McClover

Kendra Nystrom

Agriculture and Evangelism Panel Discussion

Welcome to the afternoon evangelism panel.

Father God, thank you for the opportunity to be together.

And we thank you for the opportunity to share.

I ask your blessing on these panelists as well.

Bring the stories back to their minds that they need.

Okay, so panel, I appreciate each 1 of you being part of the panel.

And what I'm going to do for the first question is let you each respond.

So this one's going to be in order instead of out of order.

But the first 1 I'm going to start with you Pam since you're close to me and I'm going to ask your name, where you are, and why you love gardening.

So if we could go through the list that way, your name, where you're from, or where you're currently at, and why you love gardening, and then we'll throw it open to some stories after that.

My name is Pam Dysinger, and we live in Middle Tennessee, on Bountiful Blessings Farm, And I love agriculture, number 1, because I love the lifestyle, and number 2, because I love the contact I have with people through the farm.

My name's Tom Meyer, and I'm a Daystar, 6 years.

And this is the start of our sixth, middle of our sixth school year.

And 1 aspect that I love about farming is the failure aspect.

It's like every year that comes by, we get a redo.

Like right now, we've got an acre of potatoes that we never dug up.

Half the field didn't get irrigation, the other half we cultivated in the beginning and then the weeds took over and, oh, well, we get another try next year.

So it's a lesson in falling down, but getting back up.

My name is Donald Martin, and I currently am at Red River outpost in Stanton, Kentucky And 1 of my many favorite aspects about agriculture is just how much of a character-building Activity it is you know not just for us But you know for the students and young people that, you know, we are able to work with.

And you can just teach so many character and practical life lessons through the various aspects of agriculture.

My wife and I own a restaurant called the Vineyard Vegetarian Cafe.

We run a program called the Fit Challenge where we put people through a plant-based diet for 10 days.

We've been doing it for the last 4 years.

The reason why I love agriculture, because I look at it in terms of evangelism, I love evangelism, agriculture is the heartbeat of the health message.

And if people do not have good, high-quality produce, they're not gonna see the results.

So that's the reason why I like, I love agriculture because it's such a powerful entering wedge using the health message into people's lives in order to inhibit total transformation so.

My name is Kendra Nystrom and I'm from Idaho and I really love agriculture because it's something that allows me to live the health message but also be a blessing to others and I just love the witnessing opportunities.

I am from Bristow, Oklahoma where my husband and I run an organic market garden business.

And there's so many things I love about gardening and agriculture, but I think 1 of the things that I love most is it's a lifestyle that allows us to work together as a family and to really connect with the Lord and with others.

So, and you can cut mine off after I ask my question.

This is not easy to balance this many microphones.

So my question for the panel next is, witnessing might be seen as uncomfortable.

Like, oh, I'm gonna go out and, you know.

But from your perspective, how can you turn that, or explain how you view witnessing in your context and give it that positive spin that I know each of you have?

So I look at witnessing in a different spin.

I love the verse in Exodus chapter 3, verse 11, when Moses asked God, when God told Moses to go unto Pharaoh and go tell Pharaoh to let my people go.

In Exodus 3, 11, He says, who am I that I should go into Pharaoh?

And God had to remind him, because I sent you.

So oftentimes when we do our FIT Challenge in different locations, I go and try to find the mayor the the attorney the power You know most prominent people and I said I need to have a conversation with you and let you know what we're doing And I said, yes, because I'm an ambassador for God.

We have a health message that can literally transform people's lives So that's how I look at it.

I put a different spin on it and plus I got a sales background.

I spent 10 years in corporate sales so that probably helps me out a little bit.

But I look at it as I'm an ambassador for God because Moses was not confident going into Pharaoh But he says I'm sending you, I'm equipping you, so you should be able to go in confidence.

Well, I think along the lines of the story of Moses, I tend to be a shy person, but you know, God, like He said, God said, who created man's mouth?

And so for me, what I really like doing is, especially at farmers markets, I would just go around and talk to everyone that I could and just get to know them.

And once I got to know them, and they realized that I cared about them, I would start dropping spiritual conversations, dropping things to try and get them to look towards God.

And you know, sometimes that was a little scary.

But we know that when we are following God's will that He equips and He enables, and that is just really encouraging to me.

1 thing that we often do is separate the practical from the spiritual.

And in agriculture and in health food work and in ways that some people don't realize that we are actually witnessing to people.

Like let's say that you're teaching young people how to grow food, you know, the different things in agriculture.

Well, even if these young people are irreligious, don't know anything about God, don't care anything about God, they are actually learning the principles of salvation through their work in the field.

You know, when you're planting seeds and you know they're waiting for those seeds that they've sown to grow, they are actually learning about how seeds that are planted in the heart do not always immediately germinate.

They have to be cultivated and watered by the Holy Spirit.

You know with healthy food, when we prepare or grow healthy food and we sell it to people, we are actually educating them with the health message and we're helping them to be closer to God by having healthy food in their diets, and just different things like that.

A couple of years ago, we experienced a unique situation.

We were working on, actually, an agriculture-related project in a country that was closed to evangelism.

And we were in a position where we were very watched all the time through probably any avenue you could imagine.

And I remember There was another person who had been there longer than us who was trying to kind of help us learn the ropes of how to operate in this country.

And he put a very positive spin on the situation, whereas the natural feeling would have been to feel like, you know, very vulnerable or feeling like your personal and private space was very much being encroached upon.

He was like, this is an incredible opportunity.

We don't even have to pay for a hall to have meetings or, you know, pay for some radio time.

Our lives are being watched all the time.

Every single thing you say or do could be heard by somebody, and our lives are showing them what Christianity really looks like.

And I remember that really made a deep impact on my mind, and I've kept that thought with me as we've come back to the states.

And I really love agriculture, cuz I feel like our lives are on display all the time.

And because we're able to make such close connections with our customers, with our community, with the people around us as we're providing a service that's really needed and wanted, our lives are continuously witnessing, we continuously have opportunities to show others what a connection with Jesus really looks like.

And it's been a wonderful opportunity to reach out to others.

So along with that, I'm wondering What has helped you form strong relationships with your customers?

If evangelism is really just being a friend, what are some thoughts and stories about how you form those strong relationships?

Well, at Daystar, having a school in a community, a very small community, Castle Valley is basically the size of Manhattan, almost identical size footprint of Manhattan, with 300 people living there.

And a lot of elderly people and people who need help.

And we do outreach into the community as much as we can.

When they send us emails, we have an email that they can send requests to if they need any help with cutting wood or anything.

And They're always so appreciative that we're there.

They're so appreciative that there's a farm there in their community.

I've heard nothing but positive feedback from people in the community of how grateful they are that we have this school and a school with a farm.

1 thing that we do every Thursday at Red River Outpost is something called TCI, total community involvement.

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Agriculture and Evangelism Panel Discussion

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