Pilot Project Progress Part 7: The Survey Begins

During the past two weeks, eight of the farmers from the Pilot group have gone to four different markets and two different agricultural offices to study the production and marketing factors for green grams, tomatoes, melons, and rice. This survey will become the foundation for discussions next week about which crops have the best potential for group businesses, and to guide the group in selecting one for this project.


That paragraph, quite frankly, is amazing to me. For the past 14 months we have been thinking, praying, discussing, and yes blogging about how our belief that every person is made in God’s image forces us to do what we do in a certain way. We have explained how despite our best efforts, previous attempts to “do for” the farmers (by telling them what to grow and how to grow and sell it, or by providing outside money for production) have caused tremendous problems and given us mixed results. Although we still have numerous farmers that we are working with under our previous model who we are still hoping and praying will succeed, there is no doubt that the “doing for” aspects of those programs have undermined our theology and our results.

But what we are seeing now is a project that has gone slowly and surely because we are walking a road the farmers have chosen and at the pace that they have chosen to walk it. By forcing our farmers to do the survey themselves, we are empowering them to recognize their own gifts and abilities, and giving them an opportunity to learn new skills and ways of thinking through the survey exercise. Moreover, the farmers seem to be taking responsibility for the project at a much higher level than our other groups, which is so vital, because if we are the ones who are responsible for the project’s success, when we leave the implicit message for the group will be ‘oh that worked because of the white folks. Wasn’t that nice.” And that will be the end of it.

Best of all, we’ve given the group the opportunities to win small victories, and to proceed in such a way that nothing has been lost yet. Eventually there will be risk and struggle and all of that. But we are helping the farmers take on the risk only after careful analytical thought and discussion together. So while we still have no idea if this will work (and remember, in agriculture there are numerous uncontrolled ‘x factors’), we just really feel like we’re on the right track.

One of the market centers the farmers studied was in Nairobi. While the farmers group pitched in to buy lunch for the members of the marketing team in the other centers, we thought that this would be a great opportunity to welcome members of the group into our home. Rebecca donned her apron and became a Kenyan cooking fiend all morning, and by the time the farmers arrived we had heaping hot plates of Kenyan food to share together. We laughed and joked about the latest Nairobi news, and chatted about the rain and how intimidating it is to talk to the traders in the market. And through it all I kept thinking, ‘hey, this is what it’s all about.’ Sharing food together. Swapping stories. Learning new things like how to survey markets and how to cook Kenyan food. In short, learning and walking and growing as equals in a task that goes beyond any individual gain.

One of our frustrations here is that we don’t get that as often as we’d like. Our farmers live far away, and when we’re traveling we are so often in a hurry to get home before dark. But this Pilot has been a constant encouragement, a taste of what it can look like when we really work with each other. Which reminds me of that great spiritual truth spoken by so many that the Gospel never ever preaches independence¸ but rather the interdependence on one another across all racial and socio-economic lines that is part and parcel of being a member of this rag tag body of Christ called the church. Please pray for our farmers and us this next week, as we discuss the results of the survey. Ask God that he would guide us towards success through His wisdom.

Peace,

Michael

P.S.- Don’t miss the post below! We posted twice today.