Check Out Kira King’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kira King.

Hi Kira, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I was born in Atlanta but moved to Savannah a few months before I turned one, so I still claim to be a native Savannahian despite my birthplace. I grew up in a large Catholic family of Irish heritage. Sunday dinners with extended family were commonplace, and my best friends were my cousins. My now-husband and I started going to Catholic school together when we were four. We started dating at 14 and married at 23 in the same Church we grew up in. I attended the all-girls Catholic high school in Savannah, then went to the University of Georgia, where I earned a Journalism degree in Public Relations and a minor in Art History.

While at UGA, Arthur (my husband) and I started an online cooking show called Cookin’ For College, where we filmed easy, budget-friendly recipes for college students. YouTube was in its infancy, but we had strong numbers for the time and were featured in numerous collegiate newspapers around the country, local news stations and newspapers, Fox News’ show Fox and Friends in NYC, and eventually on Paula Deen’s Paula’s Best Dishes. Though we never made any monetary profit off of Cookin’ For College, it jump-started my career in journalism and Arthur’s career in the food industry.

Fast forward through the years, and we now live on a little 4-acre homestead in Savannah. We love buying homes with potential and renovating them to either rent or live in, and this home was no different. We envisioned a life full of fresh eggs, horseback riding, milking the cow, animal husbandry, and hard work for our future children and us, and now we get the indescribable joy of living that vision every day. We have three children- two daughters and a son. We were blessed to bring our son home via adoption last year.

We let our farm set the rhythm of our life, but we let our faith be its foundation. After a period of laziness in how we approached our faith, we had a full reversion to the faith of our childhood in our early 30s. This led us to join our Deanery’s marriage preparation program team, Pre-Cana, which we gradually took over as leaders. We find so much joy in meeting and helping engaged couples prepare for the Sacrament of Marriage in the Catholic Church, and couples come from all over Georgia and beyond. We’ve had people from the far corners of the USA and even from Brazil and Argentina come for retreats. We host them at the Villa Marie Center in Savannah, an incredible stretch of land on Isle of Hope that has so much history. We even have a ballroom dance lesson in the retreat, which most couples aren’t excited about at first, but by the end is one of their favorite parts! We end the retreat with Adoration and Mass in the historic chapel overlooking the water. It recharges our spiritual batteries and renews Arthur and I’s commitment to marriage every time. We love walking with these hopeful, loving couples on their journey to marriage, even if it’s just for a couple of days.

We felt called to extend hospitality even further and founded Farm to Jesus, a bi-monthly supper club where we open our home, families gather to talk about our faith and what it means in this chapter of our lives, and we all share a homemade (and often home-grown) meal. Farm to Jesus has taken off, and we are immensely grateful to have met so many wonderful people through it. It’s been filmed for our diocese and for another adventure that’s in the works, which we aren’t allowed to fully disclose quite yet. The idea of welcoming people into your home isn’t new, but combining our Southern roots and our homestead with our faith has been life-changing for us and others, especially after the era of Covid. Community and fellowship are vital to human life, and they can’t be replaced by time on a screen. You feel that when you’re amidst the chaos and beauty of us all being together at Farm to Jesus.

Shortly after our second daughter was born, I started volunteering to teach a course on Catholic marriage and motherhood at my high school alma mater, St. Vincent’s Academy. This seemingly spontaneous class took more defined shape when I published my first book, Veiled In Goodness, and then created a curriculum to accompany it the following year. I now go into the senior class there every Spring semester to walk through God’s design for marriage and motherhood. I never would have thought I’d be doing something like this, but it’s so fulfilling. The students and I have wonderful and insightful conversations about their relationship with God and what it means for them in their current chapter and possible future ones (even if marriage turns out not to be some of their vocations).

These adventures have led to other speaking engagements for parishes or retreats on a range of topics related to living the Catholic faith. I started the Savannah Village of the Militia of the Immaculata, a global prayer initiative and consecration to Jesus through Mary that dates back to St. Maximilian Kolbe, who was killed during WWII at Auschwitz when he volunteered to take another man’s place in the starvation bunker. I also published my fourth book this past year, a simple guidebook for newcomers to the Catholic Mass. I have two more books underway, and they will be published in God’s timing. When I earned that journalism degree, I never expected to become an author, but here I am.

I homeschool our children, and watching life through their eyes as they learn and grow is one of the greatest gifts I could have ever been given. I honestly didn’t take my faith seriously for a long time, but after the dreadfulness of Covid and its repercussions, and after having our children, Arthur and I realized the giant hole in our seemingly perfect life. It was a faith-sized hole, and our lives have been transformed with more meaning and purpose in every waking moment.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Of course not. It’s been a ton of hard work and grit, and when I think back on it, I don’t know how we got through some of it. One year, between real estate dealings and house issues and seven family members passing away within a 9-month span, we quite literally bumbled our way through. With owning multiple properties and a hobby farm, we expect a certain level of chaotic unknowns to crop up. You get semi-numb to some, like a late-night plumbing issue call or another “your goat is out” text, but some still catch you off guard and rock your world, like “your horse’s cancer has spread, and he needs to be euthanized” when you’re 9 months pregnant or the exciting text that a calf unexpectedly was just birthed when you weren’t aware that your heifer was even pregnant to begin with.

We think work is a privilege, so we take on every project we can ourselves, and that comes with its ups and downs.

We’ve experienced two miscarriages, which made us grow in ways we never anticipated growing. I was advised to be “couch-ridden” for my second pregnancy, which was extremely humbling when you’re used to tending gardens and taking care of animals.

There are always obstacles and challenges, but thankfully trust, surrender, and prayer get us through.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I have become a writer. I’ve always enjoyed writing. I started a homestead blog nearly ten years ago, and since then, I have published four books. We also have a homesteading/faith-filled podcast. I often joke that I don’t particularly specialize in anything, really, but I’m highly adaptable and focused. I ran my own social media marketing company for many years out of college until I decided to close shop to focus more on my children.

Some in our community know me as the “pig lady” because every Fall, everyone in our area brings their leftover pumpkins to our pigs for treats, but in terms of being known for work, I’d guess I’m known as the lady who writes about and talks about marriage and faith and who shares about her farm in the process.

I’m most proud that our home, my books, or our farm stories can serve as a resting place for others to unwind and fully enjoy themselves. I write and talk about some serious topics, especially in today’s world, but ultimately, I’m trying to be loving and kind to whomever I come across, with a little humor and wit thrown in. I’m also super grateful I can homeschool our children.

The only thing that may set me apart from others is my lack of fear of failure. The fear is always there, but how do you know what you can’t do unless you try? I don’t confine myself to a black-and-white career box. I let my creativity and determination to make a change guide my career decisions. If my goal is always to help and serve people in the capacity that I’m able, then I don’t really mind where the path takes me. I used to think differently. I aspired to work in a professional setting and climb a ladder, but I quickly realized that the linear career world wasn’t for me or my brain. It might look semi-chaotic to outsiders, but to me, the journey has been quite the adventure, and I’ve enjoyed it and continue to.

Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
I think we often get caught up in the treadmill of life, in what we’re expected to do at certain ages. When we let go of those expectations, keep learning, and strive to grow, we end up in places and situations with opportunities we never imagined. I honestly could never have envisioned that my life would look anything like it does, and that’s a good thing because it’s better.

I take immense joy in our family and our home. I love it when my girls and I have tea and poetry time, or when I wake up on a random Wednesday morning ready to rearrange and freshen up the whole house, repaint a room, or tackle the vegetable garden. I love waking up and watching our horses graze their hay through the windows, and hearing the kerrflop sound our favorite pig, Cora, makes when you rub her belly and she flops over for more pets. I love the way our son claps in excitement when his father walks through the door, and the sound of the cicadas on a warm summer’s night when my husband and I quietly sit and reminisce about all we have built in the last 13 years of our marriage and 24 years together. I love when we dream of all that we still have in mind, knowing that many of those dreams may only live in our imaginations, but that doesn’t make them any less meaningful. And, I love when someone is inspired to step outside of their fear to get closer to God, try their hand at growing food, touch a goat for the first time, fight a grumpy chicken to get her eggs out from under her, are so excited for their marriage, eager to meet new friends, and so much more, all because one day, maybe not so long ago, we overcame those very same fears ourselves.

What I’d like to leave readers with is this: to live. Simply live. Have faith, trust, and gratitude for every moment we are gifted here in this time.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kiragking.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/kiragking
• Other: https://www.farmtojesus.com