This may seem silly to you, but I’m writing this on my knees… at 4 a.m.
Perhaps you don’t know the looming threats against our community, or how amazingly special of a place Athens, OH really is, or how desperately we need the might and majesty of God to protect us right now!
As we speak, the powers that be are rapidly approving a plastic plant, a massive fracking operation in our local national forest, and (although I don’t think it’s been approved yet, and I’m not sure where they are planning to put it) a data center. This is insane! This will, not only be a MASSIVE risk to our water supply, it will also devastate the sweet community we have come to love and cherish.
Perhaps you grew up here and don’t know what we have going for us in this creative little place, full of colorful souls who wave at one another (whether friend or stranger), where smiles are more common than furrowed brows, where friendships are formed at the grocery store, where you can buy almost any type of local food or art from your neighbor (as someone who is also a producer, I realize how special it is that my neighbors fought so hard to keep my business alive when the entire world shut down, and how uncanny it is that something like a small soap business could thrive like mine does… unless you have really wonderful and supportive neighbors).
Back in the 90’s, Smiles and I were traveling the country. We’ve been to every single state. And there isn’t another town on this continent I would rather live in. This is where we chose to raise our kids, and where our kids have chosen to raise our grandkids. This is where we begged God to send us to settle down during our times traversing across the country, and even when He nestled us among the Redwoods for nearly a decade. Perhaps you don’t know how special this place is… but I do (and I probably don’t even realize it to the full extent).
But all of this beauty dies when we begin making precious, thriving, vibrant communities into plants and data centers and frack sites. We no longer have sweet neighbors. Our cherished community will turn into factories and factory workers and traffic and poisoned farms and water and chaos. Our traffic will no longer be spending an extra ten minutes to get from one end of State St. to the other. The people who love this place and have made it what it is will leave, trying to find some other place as special as this one, and will lament that they have lost friendships forged over decades and can’t find another community that feels like home.
May God have mercy on us!
Christian, this is why I am addressing you: If you’ve never read Judges or Kings or Chronicles, they contain story after story of God granting His people victory against all odds when they lifted up their voices and souls to Him… sometimes without His army ever having to lift a finger, but rather watching the opposing armies simply slaughtering one another.
If you’ve never prayed for your community before, now would be the time! But not only for deliverance and protection from these mountainous industries who threaten the sacredness of our small community, but also for all the souls here who don’t yet know how glorious God is! This is a greater threat to our precious neighbors: to spend their one, short life in the woes of trying to make their own lives purposeful and delightful apart from communing with their Maker, and to face the impending wrath of a life spent rejecting Him. May He prove Himself mighty to save!
Lord, spare Athens, OH from these greedy industries, please! And spare our unbelieving neighbors from continuing in their unbelief!!! You are the same God yesterday, today and forever!
“For we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming
against us, nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on You.”
2 Chronicles 20:12
~Space Welch; Athens, OH 9/25/26
