I can’t begin to recall all the people I have met in our community all the way from Georgetown to San Marcos who when I mentioned our church looked puzzled until I mentioned 1626 and the Pumpkin Patch. Immediately, they have grinned and said, “Oh, I know where that is!” often followed by, “My family goes there every year!” It never ceases to amaze me the instant bond that revelation makes.
Having read Stories in the Patch over the years, I have been a first hand witness to the young minds of our CDC and the preschool through kindergarteners from nearby schools delighting in the story time and having their class pictures taken in the patch. Their curiosity, their laughter, their joy is totally infectious and makes my heart sing.
Selling pumpkins in the patch brings me a gentler kind of joy and I must admit sometimes a touch of boredom. It can be hot in the patch, but the shade under the awning with the cars on 1626 swishing by followed by a cool breeze makes everything seem right with the world.
And to think along with all the benefits it brings to us, it is helping a Navajo tribe in New Mexico sell their crop and paying a truck driver to bring it to us. Also, even the pumpkins that go bad help a nearby farmer feed his animals.
All of this is thanks to the hard labor of Joshua Teague, Kyle Landry, and a host of others who organize the members of our church every year into an assiduous work crew who offload the pumpkins from the trucks onto the pallets throughout the lot and freely volunteer their time to sell the pumpkins and gourds throughout the spectacular fall days of October.
~MUMC Sesquicentennial Committee
Comments