Countless trees and plants grew in the Holy Land during biblical times, and many are mentioned throughout the Bible for their beauty and various uses. Now, thanks to one Geneva Baptist Association church, south Alabamians have an opportunity to enjoy many of these same plants in a biblical prayer garden at Hartford Baptist Church.
“Gardens are all through the Bible,” said Buddy Guilford, chairman of Hartford Baptist’s five-member landscaping committee. “Jesus went to the garden before He went to the cross. Life began in the garden. The further we get away from gardens, soil and nature, sometimes we get further away from God.”
After landscaping the property around the sanctuary, the landscaping committee began trying to determine the best use of a vacant lot owned by the church and decided to make it a prayer garden.
“The inspiration is from God above,” Guilford said. “We’ve seen God’s hand in the work from the beginning and all the way until today. It has been a blessing to us.”
The team visited meditation gardens for design ideas and looked to churches around the South for fund-raising options. They began clearing the lot in August 2004, and a few months later, the church began a fund-raising campaign that was so widely accepted by members of other churches and denominations that Guilford calls the property a community garden. “We chose to give back to our community because they have been so good to us over the years,” he said. “We have had so many donations and contributions from others outside our church. We have had tremendous response.”
In the five months that he has served as interim pastor, Wiley Richards has enjoyed the prayer garden. “I marvel at the beauty of it. It’s just a nice addition to the community.”
Called Eden, Hartford’s Garden of Prayer, the lot is about one-third of an acre located off Highway 52, one of the city’s main highways. The garden features 40 to 50 biblical plants and trees that grow well in the Alabama climate including barley, olive trees, aloe, wheat, fig trees, pomegranate, grapevines, palm trees, hyssop, melons and lilies, to name a few.
Guilford noted that the garden is a place to find peace and joy. On one corner of the lot is a “prayer room,” hedged in by tall evergreen plants for privacy. The area contains a small altar made of stones and topped with a bronze book displaying a poem about the life of Jesus. There is also a cross-shaped planter filled with flowers.
The perimeter of the prayer garden is made up of flower beds — one an herb garden and the others a mixture of shrubs, trees, flowers and other plants, some of which grew in the Holy Land during biblical times. Next to many of the plants and trees are plaques with Bible verses related to them.
In the middle of the garden is a statue of Jesus surrounded by benches and a circle of brick pavers memorializing loved ones. Recently the committee added a small pond filled with tilapia, also called St. Peter’s fish and believed to be the fish used in the miracles of the New Testament.
So far, the garden has been used for Hartford Baptist’s Easter sunrise service, a wedding reception and a meeting place for Sunday School classes and garden clubs. It has also been visited by groups from other churches.
The church plans to formally dedicate the area in the upcoming year using the Governor’s Prayer Garden dedication as a model. “We hope it will help to unite people in our community and beyond,” Guilford said.
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