Farming for the Win!

Shortly after moving to a home from apartment-living, I discovered that I had a knack for keeping plants alive and keeping my grass green (even in the desert).  I never thought of myself as a farmer, but when we moved to the DRC over five years ago, we were struck by several disturbing factors.

1. Many people lack access to food.
2. Many people are unemployed.
3. Most food is imported.
4. The Church lacked a means for supporting itself.

At this point, we looked around and noticed lots of open space combined with great weather and made the decision to do something about it.  We were met with lots of resistance about starting something with agriculture.  After all, in a dominantly mining area, agriculture seemed an awful lot like "small potatoes."  We settled on buying one banana plant and prepared a place for it in our yard.  The dogs quickly destroyed it and we ended up replacing the plant a few days later; which they also happily destroyed.  The plants were resilient and kept sprouting amidst the constant attacks, so I finally thought to put protective fences around them and they evolved well.  Eighteen months later, the banana plants had given fruit and 36 additional banana plants had sprouted in our yard.  This lot of bananas became our factory of sorts, and we have transplanted their offshoots dozens of times.  Today, we no longer live at that home, but we have shared and replanted hundreds of plants from these first two.  

The small success with banana production in various locations encouraged us to keep going.  Today we have goats, chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs and talapia that we are raising.  We also have planted pineapples; passion fruit vines; sugar cane and orange, guava, avocado, mango, soursop, and pomegranate trees.  We've even expanded to include several other varieties of bananas including red, 3-inch and 20-inch bananas.  In several locations we have grown everything from corn and sweet potatoes to strawberries and raspberries (smuggled into the country in my suitcase of course).

It hasn't all been easy and we have been met with a fair number of challenges.  God has also provided partners from home and abroad to help these projects succeed.  We are learning what works and what doesn't while we are also discovering that communities are transformed by farming projects in their area.  Churches are being planted and meager support given to the church through these efforts.  Please continue to pray for the DRC and for the agricultural projects going on there; that the Lord would give an abundant harvest and transform lives through divine grace.

Check out these photos of what we've been up to over the last year of serious farming initiatives.

Small Vegetables Beside Fish Ponds

Cross-bred Local and Imported Chickens

Rabbits, Not Just For Cuddling

Harvesting the Fish Ponds

First Crop of Pineapples

Transporting Banana Plants