Johnny Appleseed

Read a novel based on a true story, during the time America was a new land. One of the New World Pioneers, John Chapman believed that his mission from God was to plant apple trees all over America, because when he was a little boy, the apple trees that his father planted brought the family out of poverty, and they were able to share the apples and seeds with their neighbours. He believed that apples would rid poverty, want, and -get this - war. Apples would bring peace to mankind!

So he quit his job, sold all he had to buy supplies, and travelled alone to plant apple trees in the wild for others, for free. Although people ridiculed him, were suspicous that he didn’t want anything in return, and although he suffered all kinds of hardships in the wild and in the winter, he did this for forty years. He became famous and was known as Johnny Appleseed. And years later, people testified of how they benefitted from his apple trees. Johnny Appleseed is now an American legend, a real hero.

Perhaps one of his greatest contributions was evacuating people to safety during a war. This happened 13 years after he began his mission:

“Our Shawnee friends told me you ran from settlement to settlement, from farm to farm, warning them about their raiding parties. Their warriors tried to catch up with you. They said you ran without stopping for three days and three nights. One hundred and fifty miles, maybe more. The Sawnee are a proud people, not easily impressed. They’re impressed by you.

If you hadn’t planted all those orchards, you would not have known where all those people lived. And living in the wilderness has made you strong…Who would have run, for three days and three nights, in your place?.... Your apples have changed everything, John - everything but the human heart. Perhaps your mission is just beginning.”

The Sun, The Rain, and the Apple Seed: A Novel of Johnny Appleseed’s Life” by Lynda Durrant

We need more visionaries like John Chapman, who are not afraid to take a simple task as a great mission from God, to do simple things with great love - no matter how difficult the task, and to keep persevering in it until God says stop. I, for one, want to be like him.