Pilot Project Part 10 (or is it 11?): Tunakimbia

We've met with the Pilot Project group the last two weeks, and looks like lots more meetings to come in the near future! A couple weeks ago our group decided to try to plant a little bit earlier than the nearest large scale rice growing region in order to try to get the best of both worlds in terms of the season and also in terms of hopefully harvesting and selling their rice just before their competitors do.

Two weeks ago we invited a local bank that does microfinance with farmers to come and try to sell their loan products to our group. Just yesterday we discussed the pros and cons of taking a loan, and Beth, who holds a MA degree in microfinance, made sure that everyone understood that there were real risks involved. Thankfully, because of a lot of outside grants from the Kenyan government and a host of foreign aid types including Bill Gates, the bank the farmers have basically decided to take loans from has fairly low interest rates and works hard to reduce the risk for the farmers (they don't take land as collateral for instance, and allow repayment terms to be set by crop cycles). And while all of that outside money will one day dry up, for the time being, it seems that the farmers may really be able to take advantage of a relatively less-risky business investment through the use of these loans. If they can, that in and of itself will be an accomplishment: we will have helped a group of farmers who have the land and irrigation to really improve their lives through agriculture to connect to a local credit provider who can help them long after we're gone.

The group decided to plant the seeds in the nursery by late June, meaning that tunakimbia haraka haraka (we are running fast) to get everything ready before then. The farmers came up with a list of things that need to happen before planting, including an exposure visit to a research center and another irrigation group, accessing the loans (not exactly a simple or straightforward process), and getting seeds and fertilizer and the like.

Pray for our farmers this week through all of this, because they've committed to a pretty aggressive plan for getting everything together, and we're going to really begin to see how serious these folks are! Also, please pray for our aloe vera farmers, who are hosting a potential buyer tomorrow who, if he goes through with the deal, would put something like 700 bucks in the group's bank account. Especially since these farmers have been working hard for a long time without really knowing if this was going to work out, this would be a huge blessing. Kenyan business is notoriously tricky; there's every likelihood that this guy will back out. So pray!!

This morning I read through parts of Hosea and Psalm 51 as part of my morning devotional readings. Reading through Hosea is like walking into the middle of a house where the wife has just told her husband she's been sleeping with somebody else. And as blasphemous as it sounds, that seems to be exactly how Yahweh characterizes his relationship with his people through the word spoken to Hosea. "Your love is like the morning mist," the Father groans. "Here one moment and gone the next." For all of our theological talk about the immutability of God's character, in this book at least God seems to be wrestling with his hatred of Israel's idolatry, and his literal inability to let them go because of His love for them. "My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. For I am God, and not man . . . I will not come in wrath."

To think that our sin and rebellion wounds the heart of our creator! Can we really grasp it, can we really believe that the Triune God loves us like a husband, grieves over our prostitution like a jilted lover, calls us back even in the midst of his anger because of his inextinguishable love for us?

After reading this I turned to Psalm 51, David's prayer of repentance, and the two passages dove-tailed in my mind powerfully. Here the Israelite king is repenting, but at every turn he calls on God to act; even the acknoweldgement and knowledge of his sin comes only from God. "Have mercy . . . wash away . . cleanse . . . wash . . . let me hear . . . hide your face . . . create . . . renew . . . restore . . . save . . . open my lips!" The verbs pour poetically out of David's mouth, with nearly all the action dependent on God's own divine initiative. We like faithless Israel and lustful David have cursed our creator, have cheated on our divine husband. But it is God alone who can act, He alone who can speak the words of power that will turn the tables and invites us back to the wedding feast. We can do nothing! Not even praise; it is God who must open our lips and allow us to worship Him.

As you pray for our farmers and for us this week, please also pray for the church worldwide, that we would feel Christ's overwhelming love and that we would be able to remain in it, to live in it, to swim in the ocean of that divine love, and to let that love shine out into the world, drawing folks from every tribe and nation to its light.

Peace,
Michael