WELCOME TO THE FARM
In June of 2022, our family moved back to the farm. We returned to our roots, to the land on which Bethany’s family has been established for over one hundred years. We came back to restore and renew, we came back because family and community and the land matter. We came back for you.
What we are building in the hills of western Iowa is for you, it is for your children, it is for the Church. The Lutheran Institute of Regenerative Agriculture exists to teach the young people of the Church how to care for the land, how to raise food for themselves, their families, their congregations, and the world as a whole, growing, processing, preserving, and preparing wonderful food for their families.
We are all about roots at the Lutheran Institute of Regenerative Agriculture. Our family is rooting on our fourth generation farms to preserve the heritage of the past and hand it over to the future. Caring for the earth and stewarding the land is part of what we do as God’s people to pass on our treasures to the next generation. We are rooting our family, but we are doing even more.
We are passionate about passing on rich treasures to the next generation: regenerative agricultural techniques, traditional classical education, and, the greatest treasure of all, our deep roots in our traditional Lutheran heritage. Here at the Lutheran Institute of Regenerative Agriculture we know the importance of what we are rooted into. We exist to cultivate and instill these treasured teachings to create rich soil of the heart and mind.
We have an incredible opportunity to share the best of what our times can possibly give. We are offering unique experiences essential for our time. Our family is blessed to connect with you. Welcome to our farm.
We invite you to take a journey with us in the words that follow, a journey into the future of LIRA. We are so excited in what the future holds, and we want to give you a glimpse of what we will teach and do here. All of this leads up to our big emphasis in 2023, creating a center and hub for LIRA and those who will teach and learn here.
This website is only a taste, only a glimpse, of what we have in store for you, for the Church. The world needs LIRA, and LIRA needs you. Come join us!
-LIRA Co-Founder, Pastor Christopher Maronde
Our Family
From left to right: Bethany, Rachel Lauren, Samantha, Charlotte, and Pastor Christopher Maronde
The Lutheran Institute of Regenerative Agriculture will teach the rich heritage of Western civilization alongside the rich heritage of pasture-based agriculture, providing summer work and apprenticeship opportunities for young people and hosting conferences and retreats for the Church and world.
THE PLAN
Hosted by Legacy Farms, a farm located on over five hundred acres of farmland in western Iowa’s beautiful Loess hills, the Lutheran Institute of Regenerative Agriculture will provide summer work and apprenticeship opportunities for Lutheran young people, in addition to holding conferences, retreats, and posting web content for the good of the Church.
Our Goals
Teach young people to raise their own food!
Create families that are resilient, self-sufficient, anti-fragile!
Rebuild rural communities and congregations!
Our Projected Timeline
Spring 2022
LIRA is publicly unveiled
Summer 2022
Maronde family arrives and begins work cleaning and restoring the property and installing farm systems
Spring/Summer 2024
First LIRA conference or retreat takes place
Summer 2025
First summer workers arrive
Summer 2027
First apprentices arrive
AND GOD SAID THAT IT WAS GOOD
With His great work He was pleased. Man, the height of God’s creation, was set amid abundance of good. His great design set man with all that he needed within his reach.
The rich bounty of the earth would provide health and prosperity. God’s great design, a beautiful orchestra of systems, reflects His nature; all of nature giving forth and allowing the whole to reach the greatest good.
Man was blessed to receive the
bounty and was in turn blessed
to return care to the earth.
In connecting with our food, we, God’s redeemed, return to this task even after the fall into sin.
Our knowing where our gifts come from and who tended them, is a great part of who we are as God’s creation. The system that God put in place with man caring and tending the earth and the earth giving its bounty is one that cannot be matched.
When we know where our food comes from, we are participating in the grand orchestra that God put into motion. We are meant to connect with creation.
“WE SEE THE BEAUTIFUL DESIGN THAT GOD CREATED FOR OUR ENJOYMENT AND THE ABUNDANCE THAT HE GIVES TO NOURISH US”
In doing so we know who we are and know who our creator is.With thankful hearts we see the beautiful design that God created for our enjoyment and know the abundance that He gives to nourish us. We learn to experience greater joy as we live in this manner, finding pleasure in the fresh picked strawberries in June, delight in juicy cherry tomatoes in July, refreshment in crisp crunch from a cucumber in August.
Throughout the year as we reach for what is in the garden, or our local farmer’s garden, we rejoice in thankfulness of what has been given, knowing the love and the good our gracious Father has intended for us.
We receive abundance as we set our hands upon the earth or as we receive it from our neighbor, who does joyfully bless others through their love for the earth. Eating fresh food that is intentionally grown with all of creation in mind is for our health and vitality; it is the joyful plan set into motion for our utmost good.
