Dear Friends, Let’s do this!
Fifteen years ago we (John Creasy and Evan Clendenin) helped start Garfield Community Farm in Pittsburgh’s east end. Hundreds of youth and adults continue each year to experience this place of community and care for land and people, through healthy produce, education and service programs, and simply being there.
Our first guild after planting our first oak tree!
Now we want to extend the vision of faithful people restoring creation to a broader network of faith communities. In 2024, Wild Indigo Guild worked with five groups of youth and adults from four different churches and organizations. We guide them through our eight learning themes in contemplative christian ecology, forming a ‘guild’ of people growing further in their connections with creation and God. We accompany them to discover God’s restorative being in their land, community and lives. Each guild uncovers the missional call for their community of faith, a call that always brings together creation care and people care in their neighborhood.
By God’s grace Wild Indigo Guild has already born good fruit. We have worked with seven-year-olds and seventy-seven-year-olds. Individuals see anew how their land, lives and congregations can demonstrate God’s restorative love. They yield healthy food, clean water, habitat for wildlife, and places they and their neighbors reconnect with the peace of God.
The beginnings of a food forest at Beulah Presbyterian Church!
We hope to see Wild Indigo continue this work in 2025 and beyond. We believe that the Spirit is calling all of us as followers of Jesus to experience and to demonstrate God’s love for people and all creation. We expect to begin work with several congregations and groups, accompany our 2024 guilds, collaborate in youth-work, and offer opportunities for fellowship in tending the earth with all our hands. Your support nurtures this work.
This feels like a huge risk. We move away from the comfortable routines and pay of pastoral ministry to a less predictable mission “field” with plenty to harvest. And we laborers need to provide for our families! We take this risky step in ongoing discernment and fidelity to our vocations. This work has shown itself valuable for others. So we trust God and a wider community.
John and Evan on a hike at Wolf Creek Narrows.
Would you consider becoming a foundational donor toward this new work? Your monthly gift would support our families as we pursue this new work. It will expand our reach and continue to make ends meet as we get this new ministry off the ground.
Help us create this new endeavor together! Just scan this QR code with your phone’s camera, or visit www.wild-indigo-guild.com/donate
Trusting in God’s Provision,
Rev. John Creasy
Rev. Evan Clendenin
1400 Hawthorne Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15201
