AdAgrA 2015: Restoring the Waste Places

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Plenary

David Obermiller

From the Ground Up

Good evening everybody How are you doing you happy to be here I've had a wild ride to get here I had quite the journey to get here.

I was teaching intensive at Sols West for the last 3 days, crammed in 15 hours of class, jumped on a plane this morning to fly here and got here at 4 with 3 other people to get here at 6.20.

I want to ask you to entertain my curiosity for just a minute.

Much, much better weather here right now.

Actually warmer here than it was in California when I left.

It was 73 when I drove into the campus here this evening.

And let me ask 1 other question, if you would entertain my curiosity 1 more time how many of you are here as Professional or farmers as a vocation Okay, and how many of you are just here as gardeners?

So, farmers in the making, somebody said up front here, I think.

Well, this evening, I'd like you to pull out your brochure for the conference and tell me what is the theme for the conference?

I see the screen up there and you didn't need your bulletin at all.

Restoring the waste places, and you're familiar, that scripture comes from where?

And this evening, almost said this morning, this evening I'd like to play upon that theme.

The title of my message this evening is From the Ground Up.

But we're playing upon the theme of the conference and that is to restore the waste places.

I know the floor might be hard, I don't want to push my luck being that we're strangers, but could I ask you to kneel with me for prayer this evening?

Father in heaven, I was really impressed driving into this campus to read that sign in the loop that the Lord our God walks in the midst of our camp, and therefore the camp should be holy.

What a potent reminder of the very real and intimate presence of Jesus Christ.

And a reminder of how much we need that presence.

Not as a company of individuals, but as individuals privately.

Lord, it is my request here for myself that you would join me.

I'm in need of you teaching me as much as anybody else here.

And my life has been a journey of dependence upon you or learning dependence upon you.

Lord, I'm so grateful for where you've taken each of us and where you've brought us to.

You brought us here to meet you, to learn about your plan, to talk about the scriptures, and the life that is to come in the garden in heaven.

Lord, I pray tonight that you would be our teacher because you're the master gardener.

And as an agricultural conference, we need your hand and your touch upon us as growing plants, as we grow in faith and look to bear fruit, will all be the result of your intimate knowledge of growing the human heart into a beautiful, beautiful garden.

So Lord, this evening we ask this because I think you promised in Scripture to be our teacher, to guide us into truth, and to join us with your presence.

And Lord, I take you this evening as a man of your word and ask you to fulfill your promises for us because we are dependent upon them.

In the name of Jesus Christ, we all together pray and say, amen.

I would like to, this evening, start with a little bit of a review, A brief review of Israel's history.

You'll remember that the Israelites desired a king, and their first king was Saul.

And Saul started his career, his political career, as a converted believer.

But temptation came to him, and you know that very quickly Saul went from being a good king to a bad king.

And then for 38 years, Saul maintained his throne, knowing that it was going to be passed on to King David.

We know that David was a good king, that he, as the Bible says, was a man after what?

Though he had a few bumps in the road along the way, David passed on his throne and his legacy to his son Solomon.

And Solomon, for a while, walked in the steps of his father David.

Solomon made a few mistakes, mistakes that cost him very dearly, didn't they?

And it's here where we sort of pick up and move towards the theme of the conference as God beheld Solomon's departure from the faith.

God had to relay the unfortunate consequences of his disobedience.

In 1 Kings chapter 11, if you have your Bible with me you're welcome to turn there.

1 Kings chapter 11, God passed on the word to Solomon.

He says there, I believe this is verse 12, that I will surely rend the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant.

But I won't do it because of David my servant.

I won't do it in your days, but in the days of your son." And here, upon Solomon's death, we have the split in the kingdom.

Remember, there were 10 northern tribes that became Israel, and the 2 southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin were passed on to the descendants of David.

The unfortunate thing is that never in Israel's history, that is the northern 10 tribes, did they ever have a good king.

You can search the Bible through, they lacked 1, even 1, decent leader.

And several hundred years later in the year 721, the Assyrians, being the world power of the time, came and took Israel, took them into captivity, and all that remained was the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin.

Judah's fortune was a little better, but not great.

They went through a sequence of good kings, bad kings, good kings, bad kings, sometimes several good kings, then several bad kings, and that takes us to the story of Hezekiah.

We'll pick it up in verse 4, but while you're turning I'll tell you the first part.

Now Hezekiah did the commendable thing, He got down on his knees, shed some tears, and as the prophet Isaiah was still leaving the facility, God said to him, Go back inside and tell Hezekiah that I've heard his prayer, that I've heard his cry, and I will extend his life for 15 years.

What would you say to that if that was you?

You know what Hezekiah said now, and so what would we say if that happened to us?

We would hope to be a little better and we'd say, praise the Lord.

You remember the sign that Hezekiah asked for and the sun moved backwards in the sky.

That Hezekiah was healed and that was the sign of the miracle of the healing.

And yet over in the country of Babylon, certain men who liked to watch the heavens discerned the movement of the sun and became very curious as to what happened.

And word got back that Hezekiah had been healed and that there was an association between what happened to Hezekiah and what they had seen in the sky.

And so a delegation was sent from Babylon to Israel and they came and inquired at what had happened And Hezekiah made a decision.

He made a decision that was permanently to affect the tribe of Judah and the city of Jerusalem.

A decision that I hope, though I am tempted, that I will not repeat.

And that is to take credit to myself for what God does for me.

Verse 4 says, this is the prophet Isaiah speaking, he asks of Hezekiah, what have they seen in your house?

All that is in my house they have seen, there is nothing among my treasures that I have not showed them.

But I have to protest at this point that Solomon, excuse me, Hezekiah was not telling the truth.

He was not telling the truth to the prophet Isaiah.

He indeed did not show the Babylonians all the treasures of his house.

He neglected the most important treasure in his house.

He failed to tell them that the Lord was his treasure.

Eric Johnson

It’s Time

Thank you for the opportunity this morning we have to come together to be here in your presence.

Lord, as we share and as we talk and as we dialogue here this morning, specifically about what you are asking of your schools For these times we're in, Lord, I just ask that your spirit would be in this room.

Do not let Satan be here, Father, and take away any distraction from our minds, Father.

I ask, Lord, that you would bless, you would guide, and that we would be able to be clearly understand what you're calling us as a people to do and to be.

For your soon return, in your name I pray, amen.

So before I dive into what we're doing at Fresno, I want to share a little bit of my story, a little bit about who I am, so you can get to know a little bit about where I come from and maybe start putting the little dots together.

I graduated from Southern Adventist University in 1997 with a degree in physical education And I was teaching at Atlanta Avist Academy, and teaching PE, and I was vice principal, and my oldest daughter was getting ready to be in kindergarten age, and My wife and I were just so convicted, we were so convicted that we did not want my wife working when our kids were being raised.

And she's a nurse and I was a teacher and on a teacher's salary, That's very difficult, very difficult to do.

And so we transitioned, I transitioned out of education for about 7 years.

Went into business for myself, was a mortgage broker, a banker, worked at a local bank.

And were able to have our kids raised at home during that time.

And about, I guess it was 2010, no, 2011, got an invitation to come out and speak for the SoCal Camp Meeting in Central California Conference.

And I was on the board for a ministry called Kids and Discipleship about how we can, how we can disciple our kids better to Jesus Christ, family worship time, and being intentional about our own time alone with God.

And so through that journey, got connected with the education director of the Central California Conference.

Found out my degree was in education, background and administration as well as teaching.

I've got a school that's going to need a principal.

If you've ever been to Chattanooga, to Collegedale, there's a term, it's called Happy Valley.

It's a huge conglomeration of Adventists, and it's a mecca there.

Our kids were going through the school system.

I said, no, I never want to go live in California.

But God made it crystal clear, crystal clear that he was calling me and my family to Fresno, I had no idea.

I had to look where exactly Fresno was on a map.

So Through much prayer, we transitioned to Fresno Avis Academy.

And this is my fourth year as the principal there at FAA.

On the campus, we are blessed with 40 acres.

We have 40 acres on the campus and while those 40 acres are in, it's a lot of land, it's right in the smack dab of the city.

It is surrounded with, the airport is right there.

So you think, wow, 40 acres, that's amazing.

But it's 40 acres that's been there for a long time, but everything else is built up around it, if you can get the picture.

And when I came to FAA They had about 12 acres roughly That was just a big dirt field and a huge field and Also, there's some citrus some citrus trees that are there as well.

They had citrus products that they were selling at the Oranges from the school.

And we had, I met with my board and I said, what should we be doing?

And I was at this time, this was my second year at FAA, I was starting to dive into some of Ellen White's counsels even more.

I said, what is God, what is Ellen White saying, What is the Bible saying that our school should look like for the times we're in?

And as I was doing this, I was also convicted that we need to sell our home.

When we came to Fresno, we bought a house about 10 minutes away and we were living there but there was an old home that was on the campus that was built in 1912 but it had gone into disrepair.

And I was convicted along with my wife that we needed to sell our house and then help with renovating this property on the campus.

We could move to the campus and it could be a center of influence for the students.

We could have vespers, worships, we could have our community come together there at the school.

The community got together, we renovated the property, and I moved onto the campus on my second year at Fresno Academy.

And as I would get out, I enjoy getting up early and I enjoy walking.

And just walking and spending time with God as I'm walking and we have this property while it's in the city, it's actually a little refuge there and I was, I walk in in the mornings and I'm looking at this vacant land out there, I'm like, Lord, what do you want?

And I've got board members are saying it should be an RV park.

And nobody could come together as far as what we should do with this just dirt.

And at the same time, I was having these strong convictions, strong convictions that God is desiring, He is desiring a school that can be raised up as a model to the world of what he wants to see happen when a school is standing for the right and is willing to put all aside and abide by what God's Word says and what the Spirit of prophecy teaches us.

And so I can distinctly remember 1 morning I was walking and I looked at that and it just was just like, I've never heard the audible voice of God.

So I will be clear, I've never heard God speak audibly.

But if you're listening and you're praying and you're in tune with God, You can know when his spirit is speaking to your heart.

And you can know when God is saying, move, it's time to move.

And I can tell you distinctly, God said, Eric, raise up a farm.

And teach these kids about agriculture and about work and do it in a manner that's gonna integrate it into your curriculum, hand in hand, so it's not just an industry that's separate from the school but weave it into everything you're doing.

So I went and shared this with my board and I got to first give you a preface.

I know very, very little about agriculture.

My wife, Trish, would tell you, you know nothing, okay?

And I will tell you, my learning curve has been very sharp and I still have Much to learn, much to learn.

But I believe, I believe that God does not call leaders that are experts in every field, but God asks leaders to be wise and surround them with experts.

And find people that are knowledgeable, that are living according to God's principles, according to God's word, and surround yourself with those individuals who are gonna uplift you and support you.

And so I went to the board 2 years ago and I shared with them this vision.

And I can tell you that I had some people who were on board and I had some strong naysayers.

And they started ticking off how, Eric, agriculture and education does not work in 2000 and this was 2013.

It just you just it just fails every time and they started ticking off school after school who have over the years closed their farm for whatever reason and and schools that have tried it and it's gone by the wayside.

And money's not there and it was shared with me how no you need to have this big monocrop and the only way to do this is to do it on a large scale and you're not going to be financially viable.

And so I came back and I said, I said, Lord, help me.

I went back to education, the book education.

And I was more convicted than ever that no, it is what God has asked us to do.

And the reason that we failed in the past is because it's been our own doing and we have not been truly in line with what God is asking of us and God is wanting of us.

And it's been too much of, well, I think it needs to be this and I think it needs to be this instead of what does he think?

And what is his goal for our schools and so I went back to the board and share this again and my board caught the vision.

And this was in November, I guess it was, and 2 years ago.

And they said, well, okay, Eric, your first step is you've got to find somebody that knows something about farming.

It’s Time- Q & A

There's an individual that met with me last week and they said, Eric, they said, I've been waiting so long, so long.

And they just met on Tuesday to sell their practice.

And they're going to come and volunteer full time, full time on the campus along with her wife to partner in this and growing this.

I tell you guys, I believe this with all my heart.

God does not lack for his school and his church for resources.

We lack because we lack the faith to step out of the boat and trust him.

Too often, too often we only want to move when we see the money in front of us, or we see the way provided.

And if we know we are standing on biblical principles, And if we're standing on Spirit of Prophecy principles, we can move in faith.

And we can know, we can say, let's move forward.

And I believe that God is going to pour out resources on this campus, on our school, as we continue to be aligned with where he's going.

I've shared this with my board, and I've shared this with many individuals in the constituency.

You can't just flip a switch and turn a massive institution overnight.

But as I've shared with David many, many times, we just continually keep turning that rudder.

And you keep turning that and continually day by day, month by month more and more in alignment with what God wants to see and as we do so more and more people that have been on the sidelines, Their money has been on the sidelines.

And they're coming on and they're coming and saying, you know what, we need to be involved with this.

And the farm is spurring us, spurring us in many other areas.

Last year, last year, for the first time ever in the history of Fresno Academy, we had a student-led revival series.

It didn't come as a result of a faculty sitting around saying we're gonna do this.

Students came in my office and they said, can we do this?

We had area pastors that came together and they mentored them and worked with them.

And for an entire week, we had kids who were standing up preaching the Word of God.

And then last spring, after the series, they came in my office again.

And last year, the theme was knowing Jesus.

This year, the theme was knowing the truth in Jesus.

And We had our students standing up sharing what we believe as Seventh-day Adventists.

From the Sabbath to the resurrection to eternal hell to all those different biblical principles of what we believe when you, what happens when you die and those type of things.

They're standing up and preaching God's Word.

And can I say that it's a direct, can I have a point of reference where I say, this is because of the farm?

I don't have any direct collaboration other than I know that what God is doing with our farm is breeding and fostering a spirit on our campus where our kids are searching and they're wanting something deeper.

We are just scratching the surface of what God really wants to see happen.

Because a lot of our effort over the last 2 years has been putting the infrastructure in place.

And a lot of the energy has been poured into getting it up and going and running.

And we're going to be now shifting and pouring more resources into the kids and into the program and into the school as we continue growing this.

Our prayer, you're going to get me, okay, there's another question, let me just share this real quick.

Our prayer is not that this is just a farm, that it's a successful farm.

But I will share with you a day because David asked me point blank, he said, Eric, he said, what's your buy-in?

And I said, we have to be looking at this from a much bigger scale and my prayer is that this school can be a model that we can bring teachers 1 day if God holds back the winds of strife 1 day we can bring teachers from all across the North American Division to Fresno Academy and say, hey, here's what God has led us to do.

We don't want to hold it in and say, well, it's our little secret and we're going to do it here for our blessing.

Share that so that other institutions who are maybe in similar situations can take it, can be inspired, and can be led to move in faith as well.

But next fall, I've already spoke with the director of the Pacific Union of Education and my plan is to be able to, at our fall principals meetings, We all come together from all the schools of the Pacific Union and I would like to have a breakout session on what we're doing.

But I wanted to make sure that we had enough time given so that I could give you know here's where we're at and here's where we're going.

Bakersfield Academy, for example, Bakersfield Academy, they have land right there on their property and would like to look at how they can implement this as well.

The principal from San Gabriel Academy met with me And he said, Eric, he said, we don't have much land.

We're down here in the middle of the city.

But he said, could I provide you with resources so that we could help you grow things and then you could then provide us with produce that we can sell to our parents, organic produce.

So using, in San Gabriel, a school that really practically can't have a farm because they're just wall-to-wall concrete, but how can they partner with us in our farm and then use the produce to meet the needs of all those people there in their school.

So a lot of creative ways that we're looking at.

Well we have no accreditation issues and I will tell you I am a full supporter.

I believe that's important but we're getting ready to have our WASC accreditation visit here in February.

We had our accreditation visit 2 years ago.

We're getting ready to have our mid-cycle visit.

Series

Plenary

It’s Time

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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