From seed to harvest: Jana’s testimony

Jana shares her testimony of God’s grace and other harvest goodies

by Jill Pearson

Jana Pecinovsky, sporting a long dark braid and a comfy apron blouse, seemed right at home on her four acres in southeast Rochester when I visited recently.  Her three kids welcomed me enthusiastically, showing me their display of artwork lining the entry. In the bustling kitchen, a pressure cooker full of freshly-picked beets rattled on the stove.  Jana handed me a spoonful of wild plums cooked down to a tart jam, poured me a sample of homemade kefir, and set about making us a fizzy drink called a “shrub,” made with apple cider vinegar, honey, and herbs with peppermint.  It was delicious and refreshing. My gut never felt so loved!

Jana epitomizes the homesteading lifestyle with massive gardens, free range chickens, and shelves of books for homeschooling, which begins yearly, “after we put the garden to bed.”  She exudes a peaceful, unhurried vibe, though it’s certain she and her family work extremely hard to maintain it all.  She is humble about this work of her hands, this great harvest born of loving labor, which she shares generously.  She is continuously learning, experimenting with new plants, and even sampling weeds for flavor and texture (she had me eating all kinds of stuff I try to kill in my own yard!)

Jana expressed child-like delight as she told me to pop a tiny cucumber resembling a watermelon into my mouth, and she sent me home with a jarful, referring to them as “fairy watermelon pickles.”  Jana also showed me her favorite room in the house, which is half laundry room and half apothecary, where shelves of dried herbs, berries, and flowers bedeck the walls.  She and garden-bestie, Sarah Satterblom, are planning to turn all that dried goodness into medicinal teas.

As we walked through her extensive gardens, Jana told me what was growing, what was struggling, what was new this year, including an ancient grain that looked like it was growing fuscia dreadlocks, and what she planted for the bees to enjoy.  Yup, she and husband Carl are also beekeepers, and will be ready to “spin the honey” any day now.  I was exhausted just thinking about the responsibility and physical labor required by this lifestyle, but Jana is thrilled with the life God has blessed her with, because, you see, her life could have taken a very different path, one edged not with echinacea and raspberry bushes, but with pain and addiction.

After our garden tour, Jana and I settled on swings in the shade, and she opened up about her life before children and chickens and bees and Jesus.  Jana moved out of her house at age 16 due to a strained relationship with her mom, bounced around, lived in her car, experimented with drugs, dabbled in crime, and barely graduated high school.  At 19, she was pregnant and in an abusive relationship, and what she desperately wanted was a fresh start.  So she and her mom moved from New Mexico to Alexandria, Minnesota.  It was little baby Oliver, so beautiful and perfect, that God used to soften her heart and make her yearn for a new way of living. 

That’s when Jana started to seriously investigate Christianity.  She talked to Catholics and Pentecostals, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.  She tried different churches until she settled at a non-denominational church, bought herself a bible, and allowed God to transform her life.  She had a Saul-to-Paul experience, moving from mocking Christians and vandalizing churches in high school, to surrendering her life to Christ as a young adult.  

When Oliver was 18 months old, Jana heard about the Minnesota Bible College, and was flabbergasted that a person could go to college to study the Bible.  “Sign me up!” she said.  She and Oliver moved to Rochester and she attended the school.   She chose not to date men for the next 15 years, devoting herself to parenting and living for Christ.  It was on a mission trip that she realized her long-time friend, Carl, was the kind of man she wanted to spend her life with, and they got married shortly after, moving to the acreage and bringing three more beautiful children, Sadie, Evan, and Aidan, into the world.  

I was struck by how Jana’s tour of the garden, full of stories of growth, blight, toil, and harvest, so closely paralleled her own journey; how the seeds she planted in the garden this spring are not unlike the seeds God planted in her heart during her own “spring”;  and how with time and warmth and watering, the fruit becomes ripe and ready for harvest.