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gardening qualifications, which they can achieve with the Royal Horticultural Society. This could potentially lead to them starting their own business as a gardener or getting work in the gardens of the National Trust for Scotland or the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.’

Karen explains that they plan to assist volunteers by encouraging them to use the pathways to employment model implemented by Edinburgh Granton Corps: ‘They support people to develop skills for the world of work but also ensure they have access to services such as debt advice, a food bank and healthcare. People can start their journey to employability at Granton and move on to here to get experience working with the public. Eventually we want to support them to gain a Scottish Vocational Qualification (SVQ) if they wish, and our long-term aim is to become a SVQ assessor.’

‘It would be great to recruit volunteers from Pilton and Granton, areas of multiple deprivation right on our doorstep,’ adds Callum. ‘People would find it beneficial not just to get involved with vegetable gardening, but also to get practical experience working outdoors.

The Army wanted to do something special with the place

‘Hopefully at some point we will also get some volunteers from the prison in Edinburgh,’ he continues. ‘Currently we receive salvaged gardening tools that the prisoners have refurbished. Previously the tools were old and rusty, but the prisoners completely restore them.’

Both Callum and Karen assert that Ashbrook is a place of respite for people from all walks of life. Callum notes the mental health benefits of working outdoors, saying that it will be a ‘space of calm for those coming from a hard place or a hard time in their life’.

Karen agrees: ‘Our ethos here is based on Colossians 2:2: “I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ (The Message)”.

‘We are accepting of everybody with whatever they come with. Whoever they are, wherever they have been and whatever they have done, none of that matters and there is a place for them here.’

Callum envisages a new life for the house and its estate.

‘Every volunteer is an integral link in a chain,’ he explains. ‘There are the tools refurbished by the prisoners, which will then be used by the garden volunteers to tend the land. From the garden will come produce, which will be enjoyed by the residents of Eagle Lodge and sold in the café to support the Army’s work.’

‘We are all uniquely made and have something to contribute,’ affirms Karen. ‘It’s our hope that the people who come to Ashbrook will know this for themselves and contribute to the rich tapestry of life.’

GEORGE TANTON

Editorial Assistant Salvationist

Search me God, and know my hear

Lieut-Colonel Eirwen Pallant examines the vital signs of a healthy relationship with the Creator

PSALM 139

THERE are some things that just stick in your memory. Sometimes it is a picture, a saying, perhaps a story or even a sermon. When I was a medical student on psychiatry placement, I remember the registrar talking about in-depth counselling.

When he was a psychiatry trainee, he recounted, before he could engage in such therapy with future patients, he had been made to undergo in-depth counselling. In his opinion, to engage in this practice without such first-hand experience would be dangerous and should come with a health warning. The reason – a person has to take a deep, honest look into themselves, face who they are and may find parts of themselves they really don’t like. For some people, that can overwhelm and destroy them.

In the last section of Psalm 139, the psalmist asks God to go deep into his self and search for anything that is against who God wants him to be: ‘Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting’ (vv23 and 24).

Brave man!

PAUSE AND REFLECT

Do you have the courage to look at your innermost being with honesty? What might have given the psalmist such courage?

Perhaps the answer lies in the preceding sections of the psalm.

The psalm can be divided into four. The first section expresses the belief that God already knows the psalmist – he has seen, and still sees, all that he does. Even if he wanted to keep things hidden, he has no secrets from God.

The second section expresses how the psalmist sees God as surrounding him. He cannot escape. God hems him in all around. Wherever he goes, God is there. He cannot hide, as God can see just as well in the darkness as he can in the daylight.

I fell in love with this psalm when I first read: ‘If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast’ (vv9 and 10).

From my first call to officership, I expected to one day go overseas as a reinforcement officer and those words always held a reassurance for me that wherever I went – wherever I was sent – God was with me. I could rely on him.

Through the week with Salvationist

– a devotional thought for each day

by Major Melvyn Knott

SUNDAY

Holy Spirit, come revealing/ All I must forsake, confess;/ ’Tis for light, Lord, I’m appealing;/ I am here to seek thy healing,/ Thou are here to save and bless,/ Thou are here to save and bless. (SASB 770)

MONDAY

Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you doubleminded.

(James 4:8)

TUESDAY

O love that wilt not let me go,/ I rest my weary soul in thee;/ I give thee back the life I owe,/ That in thine ocean depths its flow/ May richer, fuller be.

(SASB 616)