33. God’s birthday gift

Branislav is a farmer at heart; he loves gardening. Once, as we were driving through Stuttgart and looked at the vineyards he made a comment, “If only I had a garden to give me great pleasure and stress relief.” To that I just smiled and remembered.

Some of our church members had town rented gardens. They told me about the system how to get one. You register in the town hall in the garden-rent office and normally have to wait for a couple of years until there is an available garden.

Branislav’s birthday was a few days away and I remembered his wish. We lived in the small town of Kornwestheim on the outskirt of Stuttgart. I told my parents and the girls about the idea and they thought it was brilliant. My parents were keen gardeners and said that would too give them something useful to do while staying with us. So, five of us prayed and I took Miriam with me. Her German was excellent I still struggled with mine, so in case I needed some help she came with me.

As we walked to the town hall we stopped in a park and Miriam prayed. “Dear Father you know how much we would like dad to have a garden here in Germany. He doesn’t have time to exercise but he loves gardening and that would help him. Please, let us have the garden for his birthday, let nobody steal from the garden and make it cheap for us.” I just smiled at Miriam’s specific and practical prayer. I could only say a big “Amen” at the end.

We went to the garden-rent office where two ladies were working. I told them the purpose of my coming. One of them explained the procedure, which was the same as the church friends told me; you register and have to wait until there is an available garden. The waiting period in Kornwestheim was two to three years. I enquired about going to other nearby villages or towns. They told me that the local inhabitants always have priority. At the point of giving up I gathered strength to tell them why it was important to me, “In four days my husband is having his birthday. He is a pastor and his job is stressful. We are looking for a birthday present that would help him relieve his stress. Getting a garden would be an ideal present for him. “

The ladies smiled to that and one of them said, “If that’s the case then we have a garden just for you. We’ll give you a map and a key to go to see it, but you need to be back in half and hour before we close the office.” The garden was on the other side of the town from where we lived, at the very edge of the town. So, as soon as we left the town hall, Miriam and I started running to make it in half an hour. We came to fenced and locked up gardens that looked so orderly in a nice and quiet part of the town. We had the key to the main gate of our part of the gardens, and ours was the last one. There were some plum trees, hazelnut trees, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and black currents on our plot. There was also a big toolbox. It all looked somewhat neglected but there was already so much in the garden. Miriam and I were ever so happy, we ran back to say that we wanted the garden.