homesteading it can be a lonely experience at times
living in a rural area with neighbors who think i'm crazy because i don't want to
spray poison on the pasture where my animals eat that can feel isolating
the homestead can be a place of great fellowship and teamwork
a place of learning and getting to develop new skills a place where life begins for some and
later a place where life ends so an animal can fulfill its purpose and provide for our nutrition
a place for parenting mentoring and discipleship there is peace beauty love romance sacrifice sweat
and hard work in all of this but truthfully for me this isn't my everyday reality
it's almost the exception rather than the rule i am a single dad i only get to see my son 50
of the time working on the homestead the other 50 of the time is often a reminder of what's missing
that's why finding community off the homestead is important for me everyone's situation is
different but what we all have in common is our need for community we are designed for it we are
designed for interdependence not independence staying connected with community is the antidote
to the isolation and loneliness that can often come with homesteading being part of the youtube
homesteading community has not only resulted in having relationships with other youtubers
but it has also connected me with local viewers on the same mission
viewers who are now dear friends a youtuber friend of mine who excels at building community is martin
johnson from martin johnson off-grid living i first became acquainted with marty when he and
his wife julie invited me to join their monthly youtuber meetups through this my friendship with
the johnsons was born which eventually led me to making a 30-minute documentary about their story
for the new abundance plus network the johnson story is so amazing and compelling i sent the
film to justin rhodes for a review and he absolutely loved it except he wanted to hear
more about the community aspect of it a couple days ago i packed up my film gear and went over
to the johnson's homestead to film that additional content for justin's request marty what do you
think of my new camera rig here wow it's nice man it looks super fancy super professional i like uh
like the big battery can power everything you've got your little mic thing here you've got your
monitor here with the hard drive built in it's pretty cool well we're on abundance plus man we
gotta go big you gotta go big or go home that's right we touched on community in the video but we
didn't touch on it enough apparently justin wants a little bit more yeah how did you start building
community here well we started i think with the congregation here so that was our that was our
initial community you know we didn't know a lot of people there uh when we moved here we knew a
few and we you know because we've visited over the years but when we come up to visit we would only
visit we'd only be here a few days you know each time but through that you know we got to start
building relationships you know through youtube we got to meet more people and you know we're friends
with you now and you know and heather and all the folks living out there in her homestead and so if
somebody is interested in living this lifestyle or maybe they're moving from the city leaving behind
their network do you have any advice for how they might be able to find community in a general sense
number one in my opinion would be to find a good solid congregation there you know to be a part of
the other is to become involved in the community in some way you know i mean we get to be involved
through youtube not everybody wants to do youtube a lot of people don't want to put their presence
on you know social media at all you know they don't want to be out there doing that
but there's a lot of different organizations that you could be a part of you know like there's
probably um a farm co-op in the area possibly that you could go and be a part of and go to their
meetings and get to know all the other farmers in the area you know stuff like that i would say
where did your desire for creating community or building community come from the different
lifestyles that we choose to live right either lends itself to a really easy way
to make community or or not you know and and we were doing mission work in indonesia
so we left our community in america so you have your nuclear family as one part of a community
but then maybe you have the people that you work with that's another community that you're a part
of your congregation is a part of a community just being an american you know living in
america there's a whole community right there of of shared experiences and history that we all have
but when we move into another culture all of those connections are basically gone
you know you have your family but the congregation that you're a part of is back in the states you're
establishing a new congregation and a new culture and so you really have to work hard
at building that community so i think for us the conscious part of needing to build community
came from removing ourselves from our current community and then when we moved here to our
property you know we we again we moved removed ourselves from a community that we're a part of
when we needed to establish a new one here and so with every move that we did in our marriage
there was the opportunity and the need to establish more community what were some of your
struggles biggest struggles that you had to deal with in those efforts of community development
okay let's see some of the biggest struggles that we had with trying to establish community
really depended on where we were at that particular time for example in indonesia
you know part of the the struggle there was the cultural differences and the language differences
and when you're trying to build relationships with people that you can barely speak the
language of course we learned it over time but in the beginning you could barely speak the language
and then the cultural differences where they they don't even necessarily view the world the same way
that you view the world that can be difficult when we moved here to our to our homestead and started
building up the homestead here one of the major difficulties with that was is that the lifestyle
that we chose to live kind of isolated us from the rest of the the natural community that you
would be a part of right we didn't go to a job five days a week eight hours a day this
was our job and so we had the local congregation here that we were a part of and that was really
encouraging but there was still there was still a piece missing our first priority is always
the church and so we always have the friends that we make in our local congregation there
but outside of that we all have interests and so for me at one point in our life
running was a really big part of my life and so i had a lot of friends in the running community
and so i think that's just one of the main things the key is to discover what your interests are and
then go find a group of people that also have that interest filming went great and the final version
of the film is set to release september 10th 2021 exclusively on abundance plus i will also
be doing a public screening with the johnsons on september 10th at 6 pm pacific time in sandpoint
idaho if you are in the north idaho area or the surrounding area and would like to come out to
the screening watch it for free and connect with other like-minded individuals in the community
come on out send me an email dan grassfed homestead.com give me your name and the head count
for your party so we can know how many to expect and i will send you the exact location of where
the screening will be do you ever feel lonely living on the homestead sometimes i kind of do
how do you manage that feeling sometimes i usually like just coming out you know spending time with
the animals because then i don't feel as alone i have a friend who lives nearby like through
the woods or something over there in that general direction but with the community stuff i've also
started taking karate lessons i am really grateful to be a part of this virtual community i'm really
glad that you guys are here too you guys have done so much for me during some hard times i
also encourage you to get involved in your local community if you haven't done so already and also
try the abundance plus community there are some big plans in the work for really expanding that
community aspect on abundance plus so come join me be a part of that community as well and you
can do so by clicking the link down below in the video description it is an affiliate link which
means i get a commission if you choose to click on that link and sign up thank you in advance
you