Community Garden project – Promise Land Pastures

Food TEAM

Reuben Smith — Mon, 25 May 2026 23:51:31 +0000

Powhatan Owen: Our Camp Cook Extraordinaire!

Powhatan Owen is a camp cook extraordinaire!

As the men’s firewood fellowship events grew into a regular occurrence that always included a hearty meal, Powhatan began stepping up more and more as a key member of our food prep volunteer team. It soon became clear that this was his true gift and passion. God has blessed Pow with a special talent for preparing delicious, hearty meals for large groups of hardworking, hungry people.

As a result, we have joyfully entrusted him with increasing leadership over our food service. At recent events, Pow has prepared all the food from his “man cave” and delivered it fresh to the site when the chow bell rings — much to everyone’s delight!

Powhatan and his wife Carol have also taken on another important role. They volunteer to wash, pack, and deliver eggs for our donations to The Storehouse food pantry. They sometimes handle as many as 60 dozen eggs at a time! In addition, they are official volunteers at the pantry, holding a key to the warehouse and helping place the eggs directly into the walk-in cooler.

Powhatan’s role as our Food Team Leader continues to grow in importance. As we prepare for larger-scale stew events this fall — using the farm’s own meats and vegetables — his excellent food service skills will be invaluable.

In a time when food prices continue to rise, our goal is to expand our teams that produce, prepare, and provide food to meet the growing needs around us.

Thank you, Pow, for your faithful and flavorful service!

God story that started 30+years ago

Reuben Smith — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 18:12:41 +0000

When Debra and I were in the youth group at Mechanicsville Christian Center in the mid-80s, long before we were married, our youth pastor, Carter Goolsby, took the teens on a cross-country adventure to a youth rally called Youth America in Oklahoma. It was a 30-hour charter bus ride that our church co-chartered with the youth group from Lighthouse Christian Center, another area church affiliated with ours. The experience left an indelible impression on our lives and the lives of all the other students and youth leaders on the bus.

Recently, a young person reached out to me about our programs here at Promise Land Pastures. She had seen our website and was intrigued. She shared that she had always had a passion for farming since she was little. She also shared that she was a Christian whose dad was a pastor of a local church in Henrico, and our concept of a farm that was also a Christian mission outreach excited her. She asked if she and her grandmother could visit the farm and volunteer with us.

We set up the visit, and this girl, her grandmother, and her sister spent a few hours with us. As we introduced ourselves and shared our stories, it turned out that the girl’s grandmother was one of the youth leaders from Lighthouse Christian Center who had been on that 30-hour bus ride with us back in the 80s! We couldn’t believe it. She knew our pastor well, and we had many other significant ministry connections. Her son had become a pastor of a church plant in Henrico County, and It was his daughter, Trinity, who had found our website and reached out to us. It became clear to us that this was more than a coincidence—it was a divine appointment. We believe God led Trinity to reach out to us for a future partnership between our two ministries, and for us to help her fulfill her God given destiny as well.

Trinity, her sister, and her grandmother helped Debra and me harvest sweet potatoes from our community garden, which we share with the Chickahominy Tribe. The harvest was very successful! We had a whole tractor loader full of perfect sweet potatoes that we will use as part of the farm’s food production in creative ways to serve and inspire people in the community.

Wesley Adkins from the tribal garden was also there working, and we were able to get to know one another. God is weaving a tapestry of churches, cultures, and community!

Chickahominy Tribe Joins PLP to Establish Community Garden

Reuben Smith — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 15:35:15 +0000

The Chickahominy Indian Tribe plays a vital role in Charles City County. As a deeply Christian community, they embody strong family bonds and a commitment to caring for one another and their neighbors. From the outset of our presence here, we’ve recognized God’s call to honor and partner with the Chickahominy people.

Troy Adkins has been a steadfast ally and friend since our beginning. Troy is a tribe member, and he sits on the Tribe’s governing council. He recently agreed to join our board of directors with Promise Land as well! We are so excited to have this influential brother and representative of the Chickahominy serving on our own leadership team. Troy reached out to us about collaboration on the tribe’s community garden efforts. The Tribe’s plans for community gardens align perfectly with our long-held vision of creating ministry gardens through teamwork with local residents on our property.

The tribe’s goal is to cultivate healthy, organic produce—especially for the elderly and those in need—while promoting unity among tribal members and neighbors. We enthusiastically embraced this opportunity to host some of the gardens here.

Consequently, Dana Adkins, who oversees the tribe’s agricultural initiatives, worked alongside us and two other tribal staff to launch the project. Using their tractor and tiller, they prepared two adjacent 50-by-50-foot plots here on the farm: one for the tribe and one for us.

Several weeks in, both gardens are thriving. We will be working to encourage more and more volunteer involvement and expansion of the efforts. We’re currently growing heirloom Virginia corn varieties for meal grain and decorative crafts at powwows. This corn is so significant! The name, “Chickahominy” means, “the people of the coarse ground corn.” This tribe was known for their crops of corn–it is their very identity as native Virginians. They are one of the first contact tribes with the English settlers, and their corn was a special new food to these first colonies. In fact, it was the Chickahominy’s corn that saved Jamestown from starvation during that first perilous winter the settlers faced.

Along with the corn, we are also growing butternut squash, sweet potatoes, beans, tomatoes, watermelon, zucchini, and more. Above all, we’re fostering joy, unity, and love as we work side by side.