By Paul Collard, Executive Pastor, Columbia Grove Covenant Church
It all started during a Men’s Connection Group Bible Study when Pastor Andrew Thompson of Columbia Grove Covenant Church in East Wenatchee, WA. came to our Bible Study and asked what we thought about “putting white rocks on our hillside which said Love Like Jesus” and to catch his vision of what the hillside area could look like. As it was just a weedy almost ugly mess, not very attractive as people looked up to our church on a hill, where thousands of cars drive by daily.
I was in that Bible Study and let my mind wander….What if there was a 2 x 6 wooden form on edge for each letter, filled the forms with good topsoil, and then planted privets for a hedge? Hmmm….
Just a few obstacles were in the way…..how to fund a $4,000 project which wasn’t in our annual budget. We also needed a bulldozer to push up the dirt that had sluffed off over the years into our stormwater retention area. Manpower and womanpower for lots of labor would also be needed.
One of our members had a bulldozer and mini-excavator, so in about 6 hours on a Saturday, the dirt was pushed up the hillside. The next Sunday during the announcements from the stage, I told the congregation of my thoughts on what we could do and showed a photo of what the letters would look like after a few years of growth. Within one week we had raised $3200 and the next Sunday another $900 came in for this project.
The letters are made from 2X6’s on edge and are 16’ tall and the entire project is 163’ wide. One of our members helped do the layout of the letters, several dozen men helped to assemble the 2X6s and carry them down the hillside. We then had a local business come and place the new dirt with a conveyor system into the letter frames.
We then needed to run new irrigation main lines to the area, connect to our irrigation timer, and also a drip irrigation system inside the letters to keep the “privets” moist, as we get very hot summers and they get the “west” exposure during the heat of the day. We planted over 600 privets, and when they were planted were about the size of a pencil, they were planted 12” apart.
The first few years the “LLJ Project” needed lots of TLC and care, making sure irrigation lines were working and lots of weeding. Now that the project is 5 years old, the main maintenance is trimming the privets about 3 times during the summer to keep them looking good.
Thousands of cars drive by on Sunset highway every day, we have signage along the road “points” to see the Love Like Jesus. We are happily referred to as the “Love Like Jesus” church, or for those who don’t know where our church is located, we just say “you know the church that has Love like Jesus on Sunset Highway”.
It was a fun experience to get this project going and completed. While people were weeding the letters, it was fun to hear all the cars honking showing their love for Jesus and our project.
One afternoon, we received a phone call from some people traveling on Sunset Highway on their way to our airport en route to be with an ailing parent. They said how they needed to see Love Like Jesus at that very moment and thanked us for showing our love for Jesus.
Hope you enjoyed learning more about our hillside retention project! If you’d like to learn more, please reach out to Paul Collard, Executive Pastor at Columbia Grove Covenant Church, East Wenatchee, WA paul@columbiagrove.org or visit the Columbia Grove Covenant Church Web Page.
