It all started the Sunday before Easter.
Or, did it really?
During sharing time at the Hagerstown Church of the Brethren, I told the congregation that, as our Mid-Atlantic district’s new plant sale coordinator, I needed help.
“As you cast your flower and veggie seeds this spring,” I said, “please cast a few extra, and raise them, pot them, label them and bring them to me on May 2, so I can take them over to Westminster. And, there, on Saturday, May 4, we will sell them at the district’s annual Disaster Response Auction fundraiser to benefit Brethren Disaster Ministries.”
That very night, alerted by a church neighbor that six cardboard boxes had been left that afternoon just outside the church in Hagerstown’s east end, I drove my wife Ann and me back to HCOB.
We could barely believe what we found!!
Inside each box were row upon row of red Solo cups, containing good soil mix — a small green plant we judged to be nearly two weeks old, sprouting up from each. In all, that night, there were 122 plants. And, while we didn’t know it then, many hundreds more were yet to come!!
This is the story of what seems unfathomable, and yet of what we have come to believe surely must be the work of God, and of what has already resulted: seeds of new caring and of new ministry. And, who knows what else will yet spring forth?
Like a parable, this story has a central character you will NOT expect. But let me tell it the way it happened.
That first night, as ever since, the boxes were found huddled together on the sidewalk off the church parking lot, near the doors leading to HCOB’s Fellowship Hall. Ranging in size from what might have held a case of soft drinks to what might have contained two pairs of shoes, the boxes are used but in good condition.
Inside or out, there are no obvious clues to a specific donor. Shipping labels are addressed to various people at various places. The only messages, hand-printed on sticky notes inside some boxes, read: “yellow pepper”, “red pepper” or “Small round watermelon”.
Yet each box has been packed with obvious care. Lined with the thin black plastic of a new trash bag, each has been filled with either red Solo plastic cups or smaller, clear plastic ones. The plants arrive already watered and, with the plastic sheathing and box flaps drawn over them, protected, too, against whatever that day’s weather.
A couple days after the first batch arrived and Ann and I hauled them home to a tarp I laid out below windows in our guest bedroom, a second group of boxes was found in the same spot outside the church. This time, there were eight boxes containing several dozen more plants and the same sort of notes as to peppers and watermelons.
Once again, there was no note of explanation and nothing in writing telling who was giving us these plants, let alone how they knew our district now had a need for them.
The plants seemed so well-cared for and the boxes so sturdy and carefully placed, I began to think the donor a good citizen, someone who enjoyed growing plants, had gotten an early start on spring and who maybe lived in our church neighborhood. And, if not someone who attends our church, and heard my March 24 appeal and wanted to do this good deed anonymously, then, it seemed a pretty obvious theory that our mystery donor had just tuned in that Sunday to HCOB’s Facebook Live broadcast.
Then, we got a break. The church’s security camera feed provided a surprising answer: the boxes had been brought by a woman, with long, light-colored hair who looks to be in her 60s, pushing a grocery shopping cart across our parking lot. The cart held a suitcase, a pocketbook and other belongings – on top of which were strapped two or three plant boxes.
And, later that day, the cameras showed, the woman had returned, pushing all that, with even more boxes atop the cart.
Could she be homeless?
What is her name? How’d she get started, growing plants? Does she know God?
Does she know us through our ever-expanding outreach – our neighborhood fests, clothing drives, free breakfasts once a month, Vacation Bible School, work at the local homeless shelter, and more?
I don’t know. I didn’t know then – and I still don’t know now.
That Saturday, when the church was busy with volunteers in and out, preparing for Easter services, I learned she must be something of a chameleon, too. A member, arriving at 9 a.m., found more boxes and carried them inside. An hour later another surprise: a new load of boxes had arrived!
By now, there were roughly 250 red and clear cups on the tarp in the Platous’ guest room. What little spare time I used to have, was being devoted to watering each plant and turning every pot 180 degrees to correct the previous day’s lean toward the light, giving each “pepper” or “watermelon” bright incentive to straighten up. Better posture equals better sales.
The next day was Easter Sunday. In just that week, we’d had three days of plant deliveries since the previous Sunday. Once again, I stood before the congregation, this time telling the incredible story of what had begun happening. I told them that nothing about this really makes sense to me, except that God must be in this. I said God must have “planted” this woman in our neighborhood and told her to begin planting TWO WEEKS BEFORE I asked for seeds to be cast!!
Looking directly at our worship’s FB camera, I thanked our unknown benefactor and told her we have quite enough peppers and melons now. So, THANK YOU!!
But she – or God – wasn’t done.
That night, the church’s security cam guy texted me: “Looks like you have some more,” he wrote, attaching a photo showing four more boxes next to the church. “Today was 3:34 p.m.”
I was too tired to go in that night. So, the next morning, it having rained overnight, I got two calls from church members, both reporting the same: Arnold, you have more boxes. They are VERY wet. So, in I went, taking a snow shovel – just in case the boxes and contents were too wet to pick up and put into my truck bed, otherwise. But, cradling them in my arms, I was able to load them, their contents sloshing water. Knowing our church money-counters would be inside, I went to reassure them that the boxes, if not, the situation, were well in hand. I told them that while I still believed God is in this, I was starting to feel frustration.
“For awhile last night, after I got that text,” I told them, “I started feeling like Noah – that the rain… the waves of plants… were STILL coming! But the difference is, Noah had a plan. What I need is a plan.”
Then, God gave me one.
No kidding. Walking out into the parking lot, I was standing by my truck bed, looking at all the soggy boxes of soggy plants still there. I heard a school bus stop at the street end of the lot and saw five little kids get off, gather around their waiting mother and begin walking across the lot toward the houses on the other side.
I called out, motioning them over and exchanging names. “Would your children like to have a plant to each raise themselves?” I asked the mom. “A woman here in our community gave all of them to our church, to share.”
Moments later, the little group left, proudly carrying their plants – and the message that “Mr. Arn’s church will be offering Vacation Bible School soon and they are all welcome!”
That new little parking lot ministry didn’t end there. More plants have been given out to more moms and kids. And, with so many plants – we now have more than 600 – I have begun giving them out to our churchgoers after Sunday worship services, in return for donations to disaster response.
This all has been personally rewarding in a soul-lifting way to me, too. One member took three plants, warming the hearts of three women she visits Sunday afternoons at the local rehabilitation hospital. And, after three children with another member, had each taken a plant to raise, my own heart was deeply warmed when the oldest boy, who is 13, took a bill from what his mom said is his birthday money – and put it in my donation jar.
Others have stepped up, too. As the Plant Lady, as I now call her, continued her silent deliveries, I’ve stopped getting calls and texts to come and take them home. On arriving at church one day for a meeting, I learned later, one of our church couples saw more plants had been delivered – and took them home to raise “so Arn doesn’t have to do that,” someone else told me later.
Meantime, with our spare bedroom’s floor space filling, Ann and I converted one of HCOB’s big-windowed, Sunday School rooms into a greenhouse for 220 new arrivals, with me visiting two or three times a week to turn and water what I’ve begun calling “my kids.” As I left the room one day, I noticed the placard on its door: Kindergarten Class. I grinned. Sure sounds appropriate.
The weather becoming warmer, the plants have been moved from the Kindergarten room and from our bedroom to our carport. Now, that’s where I water, turn and – on the couple nights when a frost or freeze warning has been issued – covered all 500 or so with old sheets, box lids and whatever I can find. So far, most have survived and I’m making plans to haul them all down to Westminster to offer for disaster response donations at our district’s big May 4 fundraiser.
All this, obviously, has been quite a chore. What may not be so obvious is that all this has been quite a gift to me. I type that with tears in my eyes because it truly has been a gift. I have learned that when something doesn’t make any sense to me, that it just may be God’s hand. With these plants, I’m learning to lean into that feeling. And, I’m feeling each new part of it as a true God blessing.
And, all this has given me many reasons and increasingly, opportunities to share this story and thus, my faith.
It’s also given me some good soil mix. Not all the plants have made it, so last week, I used much of the mix the Plant Lady had provided for them… as good starter soil for the shoots I pruned off my red raspberry bushes and replanted to fill in their rows.
Who knows? This time next year, I might be potting up some of my raspberry plants to bring to Westminster to sell at our plant sale.
Thanks, Plant Lady!!
An adapted version of this article appears in the July/August 2024 print edition of Messenger.
Arnold S. Platou, a retired newspaper reporter and, later, an editor, has been active at Hagerstown (Md.)
Church of the Brethren for more than 25 years.