October 1, 2007 Buchanan, North Dakota, United States …. [Elizabeth Lechleitner/ANN]
Called the “pumpkin miracle church” by locals, the Marripalli Seventh-day Adventist Church in Southeast India is one of 11 churches in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh paid for by pumpkins from Maranatha volunteer Cheryl Erickson's 1.5-acre backyard patch.
“These are God's pumpkins,” Erickson says. “I just pick them.”
And by “pick,” the self-deprecating North Dakotan means plant, cultivate, water, pray over, harvest, haul, wash, load, unload and sell with her husband, Dwight. The couple receives help from their four kids and a slew of neighbors, friends and church volunteers ranging from age four to 89. Erickson's crew lifts an average of 60,000 pounds of pumpkins four times during a typical harvest.
“It's a wonderful way to connect with the community and serve the Lord,” says Doug Opp, a longtime friend of the Erickson family and pastor of the local St. John's Lutheran Church. For three years, students from the church's confirmation class and their parents have helped plant and pick pumpkins as their annual service project.
Erickson began growing pumpkins eight years ago when the region's farm economy withered. “I started looking into specialty crops I could grow a lot of in a very small space,” she says. After considering dried flowers, herbs and lavender, Erickson settled on pumpkins. Given ideal growing conditions, just a quarter of an acre's harvest could fill enough pies for every bakeoff in the county.
That first year, Erickson decided to put her “pumpkin money” toward an outreach project, but says she never guessed she'd end up supporting Maranatha-built churches in India. Then she heard about that country's need for permanent houses of worship during Sabbath services at her small church in rural Cleveland, population 100.
Erickson learned each church cost between $3,000 and $7,000. With pumpkins selling for $2 a piece, “I knew I had a whole lot of planting to do,” she says with a laugh.
The next year, all those deep-knee bends — Erickson plants every seed by hand — yielded 5,000 pumpkins that first fall in 2000. Because most local groceries were already stocked with pumpkins grown by area farmers, Erickson worried she'd be stuck with a barn full of rotting pumpkins until a farmer's market owner in West Fargo said he'd buy them all.
Since then, Erickson has trekked the 100 miles to Fargo every fall with a trailer full of pumpkins that manage to one-up the mice, bugs and other pests — not to mention uncooperative weather — of North Dakota.
One year, the produce manager at Hugo's Grocery in nearby Jamestown called and told Erickson he wanted to stock her pumpkins by early August, a month before they typically ripen. She panicked. “Only two of my pumpkins were ripe. But I told him, 'OK, we'll have them ready.' And then I went home and prayed like mad.'”
The following week, Erickson says temperatures spiked to the upper 80s and two weeks later, she had 2,000 ripe pumpkins picked and loaded by forklift onto pallets ready for delivery. “The Lord just outdid himself,” Erickson says.
When the produce manager learned the whole story, he told her, “'I think God is in your pumpkin patch.'”
Jeffrey Wilson, who directs Trust Services for the Adventist world church and makes sure Erickson's pumpkin profits build churches in India, says the concrete and steel structures don't have pews, so locals bring rice sacks to sit on during services. They often show up Sabbath mornings with gifts — clocks, candles, plastic lawn chairs, even communion sets — to equip the churches.
Wilson, who also oversees the church dedications, says members readily donate their last rupees toward car battery-run loudspeaker systems for their churches. With most other buildings and businesses in India similarly equipped with rooftop speakers, church services vie for airspace above boisterous, crowed streets, Wilson says. But the message gets through –“If you don't come to church, church will come to you!”
During a visit to India two years ago, Erickson met members of one church where she says a pumpkin patch out front “keeps the miracle growing.”
“I'm going to do this until the Lord comes, or my back gives out,” Erickson says. Recently, her doctor diagnosed her with osteopenia, a bone disease, and prescribed weight-bearing activities.
“I think hauling pumpkins qualifies!”
Copyright (c) 2007 by Adventist News Network.
