Hoe, Hoe, Hoe

I've had a quite tiring but very rewarding day today. Our plans to roll out Farming God’s Way to our church members got off to an excellent start. Altogether ten of us spent the best part of the day, (from 9.15 a.m. to 2.15 p.m.), transforming a 10 metre by 10 metre patch of land into a Well Watered Garden. The reference to a Well Watered Garden comes from Isaiah 58. The garden itself is a 6 metre by 6 metre demonstration plot designed to encourage members of the community to develop an interest in Farming God’s Way, (FGW). One of the most important principles of FGW is that the land is not ploughed. Today we put our backs into hoeing the land into shape. It was hard work but there were, fortunately, a good number of hands to do it. Seeing mzungus, (white people), out digging in the fields is a novel experience for most of the people in our community. It is, to be honest, a novel experience doing it. I think I'll have to get a hoe with a specially long handle to keep my back in shape.

I was, initially, quite nervous about running this training. Having had a great week in Lesotho at the beginning of August learning a lot about working and training with a local community I was fired up and well motivated to get going. The main aim of the training this week is to help members of our church to understand how to do the practical bit of FGW and to start them off on a training track that will enable them to train other members of the church.

As well as the practical tasks, (which you can see details of on our website if you follow this link http://www.hopeandkindness.org/ProjectFarming.htm), there are some important biblical principles behind FGW. These focus on care for the land, abandoning traditional practises of witchcraft and ancestor worship, and living a godly lifestyle. The trainees were a very receptive and responsive group – including a curious onlooker who joined us to see what was going on and ended up staying for the whole training session. Grant Dryden, the driving force behind FGW, describes it as “the Bible with boots on”. From our experience today it’s a very apt description. It was most encouraging to receive the rain that we prayed for during the late afternoon – just enough to prepare our holes for placing fertiliser and seeds in tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s session includes a lot of the science behind FGW, with some great practical demonstrations of the benefits of this type of conservation farming. I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m also looking forward to forthcoming visits from Cisco teams – one at the end of this month, two in February and one in March. These teams of volunteers from Cisco, the global ICT company, always go the extra mile to make sure their visits bring maximum benefit to the children and our neighbours in Kosele. This evening I was able to join a conference call via call back from Cisco, (Webex), from Kosele for the first time. I still find it quite mind blowing that it is possible to do this – even though I was an ICT teacher for most of my teaching career. The rapid growth of ICT and communications infrastructure in our part of Kenya is very impressive and will open up many opportunities for our young people. It’s very exciting.