Growth Beyond Measure

I was desperately seeking salvation. Who could have predicted it would come from an urban farm?

- DARON BABCOCK

I live on a farm—a real farm—in the middle of one of America’s largest cities. You can see the skyscrapers of downtown Dallas from the fields near my home.

If that doesn’t surprise you, maybe this will: I knew nothing about farming when I moved to this neighborhood. I didn’t know much about life, let alone farming. I’d been too busy destroying my life.

Now I am, by the grace of God, a farmer. I live in a house once owned by Habitat for Humanity, and I oversee Bonton Farms, a nonprofit enterprise that grows organic produce, operates a market and a café, and employs people from the neighborhood it serves.

Bonton is one of the most challenged neighborhoods in Dallas. Its per capita income is $24,000. Almost a third of its residents live below the poverty line. Many have been incarcerated. This is not your typical farm community.

Why would someone who knows nothing about farming start a farm in a challenged neighborhood in the middle of a big city a decade after entering recovery from substance abuse? Sounds crazy, right? Yet I’m living proof that God can take the driest, deadest husk and transform it into a source of life—be it a person or the land itself.

Two decades ago, my wife, Marcy, and I lived in Portland, Oregon, with our two elementary school–aged boys, Beau and Cole. Marcy and I ran a chain of Schlotzsky’s restaurants. We’d met in college, and I was still head over heels in love with her.

Our family fell apart when Marcy was diagnosed with cancer. She died after two years of grueling treatment.

I had grown up going to church, but I never took faith that seriously. I was more interested in my own ambition. After Marcy died, I had nothing to fall back on. Her death left a hole I didn’t know how to fill.