Whenever you tell someone what town you’re from people often have immediate associations in their mind. It could be a news story regarding your town, the birthplace of someone famous, or have some kind of landmark that is oft-visited. Conyers, Georgia has quite a few associations. Some think about The Lost Children of Rockdale County, Holly Hunter, The Dukes of Hazzard, the monastery, and every once in a while someone will mention “The Farm”.
Think about your town. What comes to most people’s minds when you tell them the name of it? Now, have you ever actually engaged the site, news story, or bizarre thing that most people name? If not, I would encourage you to go out and explore it.
For years I heard about the visitations of the Virgin Mary to Nancy Fowler that occurred on her farm in Conyers. Students would come late to school because traffic was so bad from the thousands of visitors. Locals would speculate whether this was real or some scheme. Newspapers would publish stories. And people would go drink water from the well on the property hoping and praying for miracles. But until last week I had never even read about or been to this place that was less than ten miles from my house.
The Farm ended up being a place of solitude and beauty. Much different from the sprawl right down the road. There were acres of property to stroll, meditations to read, and lots of information in the welcome center on the site itself. The story of The Farm is quite interesting, but I will spare the details and let you read about it at Conyers.org.
I was able to spend some great time in prayer there and capture some of the beauty, mystery, and icons of this place with my camera. Click “Continue Reading” below to see more photos.
I’m still unsure exactly what to think of this pilgrimage site, but I do know that thousands have lifted prayers and sought after God on this property. And when I stepped from the grass onto “Rosary Hill” to get some better photos of Jesus on the Cross my feet began to feel like they were on fire. I looked down and they were covered in fire ants. Needless to say, from that point on I gave the hill much more respect.
