Why did you name your farm “Joybilee®”?

When we were registering our business name we wanted Jubilee because of the Biblical ” Year of Jubilee.” In the Jubilee Year slaves were set free and went back to their lands and their home for a fresh start. In the Year of Jubilee debts are forgiven. Everyone was given a fresh start.  And the land was given a fresh start.  Former slaves were loaded up with good things from their former masters to start fresh. There is much JOY, in that.

“Yes, you will go out with JOY,
you will be led forth in peace.
As you come, the mountains and hills
will burst out into song,
and all the trees in the countryside
will clap their hands.

Cypresses will grow in place of thorns,
myrtles will grow instead of briars.
This will bring fame to Adonai
as an eternal, imperishable sign.” (Isaiah 55:12-13)

In 1996 we started our journey, paying off our debts, and saving for our homestead.  We were $30,000 in debt at the time.  People called us the “Queen of Frugal.” By 1997, the debt was gone.

We were already living on 1 acre in the city of Mission, near Vancouver, BC and raising as much of our own food as possible. That is the year we started looking to our own Jubilee Year, when Mr. Joybilee® would quit his salaried job and we would move our family to a bigger farm where we could produce enough to fully support ourselves and serve others on own land.  Then we had no idea what that would look like.  It was just a concept.  We registered our business name in 1999.  In 2017 we registered Joybilee® as a trademark in the USA and Canada.

In 2003 we bought 140 acres with a small log house in the Kootenay-Boundary region of BC, and paid cash.  We are seeing pine trees grow up in the place of thistles.  We haven’t found any myrtle trees but we do have juniper, another evergreen aromatic shrub.  We hope that all we do will bring fame to Adonai.

In a Jubilee Year in the future, the annointed Prince will return to his land.  And all his people will return to their ancestral farms. There will be great JOY throughout the world, when he rules from his throne.  All wrongs will be made right.  And each man will sit under his own grape vine and his own fig tree.  The olive tree will blossom and bear fruit.  This is our hope.