The Harvest is Plentiful (Matthew 9:35-38)
As you celebrate Valentine’s Day this year, here is a story from West Africa that tells of the efforts of Christians working together to love the poorest of the poor in their area, and to also work with them to help them overcome the restraining influences of their culture and traditions. The field teams took new approaches of mixed cropping practices to the villagers and persisted in encouraging them until the harvest of the corn crop. Now this group has more to look forward to – a healthy pineapple crop harvest too!
In most developing countries, villagers practice what is called, “rain-fed agriculture”. This essentially means that the only irrigation the crops get is what they receive from the monsoons. As a result, only one crop can be reliably hoped for! It is therefore very significant that the CHE committee in Dokou Kopé village in West Africa, launched a special effort to grow mixed crops of corn and pineapple, sharing the same rainy season so they could produce two crops instead of one! It was a break from their tradition, and they heard a lot of criticism from other villagers. However, the MAI team and another partner, Trees by the Water International, continued to encourage them until the harvest of the corn crop showed better yields than they had expected. The criticism stopped when villagers saw the result of how they had been blessed by two crops in the same fields!
When resources are scarce, we must make every effort to use them efficiently. This is what we do here globally through Medical Ambassadors International. For the fifth year in a row, MAI has been among the top ten organizations with a high return on investment for the Kingdom of God. Please visit this website to find out more:
https://roiministry.org/medical-ambassadors-international/
Medical Ambassadors International makes special efforts to reach out to work with the poorest of the poor and introduce them to techniques that will help them do more with their limited resources and lead them to sustainable livelihoods.
