For those of you who are praying regularly for our projects, here’s a quick update from the last two weeks of travel that can guide your prayers:
1. Ngare Ndare: We visited these folks for the first time since November this past week. They are doing well, and should harvest onions within the month! If they manage to repay their loans and give out new ones with their crops, they will have gone farther than any of our other groups. There is, however, a new and at least for me totally unexpected problem: too much rain. The el nino effect has caused flooding and unexpectedly large rains that have the potential to damage the crop seriously. Please pray fervently these next few days for the rain to stop!
2. Sunflower Groups: We also visited our group in Meru where, after a year of trying to get a sunflower processing machine up there, we found out that the station wasn’t set up to run it. That issue got so complicated that I finally told our coworkers that we wouldn’t go to the group again until they had gotten their seed processed and returned as pure sunflower oil. This past week that happened, and we had our annual general meeting with them. Their counterparts in Embu have also processed now. Please pray that these groups, which have just been tremendously encouraged by the arrival of the oil after enormous delays that were totally not their fault, will mobilize quickly, sell the oil, and make well informed decisions about how to go forward with oil production as a business in future.
3. Pilot Project: We had a great field trip with these guys to a government run research center devoted to rice production and to another cooperative style group that has been running for almost 30 years. This was very encouraging and informative for everybody, but complications with the lending institution mean that these guys need to mobilize and act fast in order to get the capital they need for planting. This also means that they will have to self-fund planting in the nursery. Please pray for energy, efficiency, and good communication among Planting Faith, CCS, the bank, and the ministry of agriculture as we try to get these seeds in the ground in order to harvest before the nearest other rice scheme floods the market.
4. Aloe Vera: We had an order that some of you have prayed about for over 2000 aloe vera seedlings. The buyer has delayed, which is common here, and also could easily mean he’s backing out. This would be a real loss for a group both financially and in terms of morale. Please pray that this guy would commit and buy the seedlings, giving our farmers the opportunity to experience some long awaited success!
Peace,
Michael
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