Earth Day celebrations may last over a weekend but what about the long-term? Here are three examples of Spirit in Action partners promoting techniques that benefit the earth and their communities:

Ester shows the bounty from her family’s farm.

1. Intercropping in Malawi

Have you heard about the Three Sisters? Beans, squash, and corn grown together get the blue ribbon in the intercropping category. Corn stalks grow tall, beans use the stalks as bean poles, and squash leaves provide shade that  stunts weeds and locks in the soil moisture. Also, the nutrients in bean plants keep the soil healthy year after year.

More and more people in Manyamula Village are adopting this beautiful combination that is good for the heavily-used farmland and reduces the amount of fertilizer needed. We visited Saul and Ester’s farm in 2011 where we saw their flourishing intercropping of beans and corn.

Saul and Ester are members of the MAVISALO Savings and Loans cooperative and they share and learn with the other 150 group members about intercropping and other sustainable farming techniques.

Beans planted at the base of the corn use the stalks as support.

SIA partners from 5 countries are enthusiastic to try new bio-intensive agriculture methods.

2. Ukweli Training Centre in Kenya

Anyone who has met Samuel Teimuge knows his passion for simple methods and technologies that can help people produce more food and protect the environment. At his Ukweli Training Centre in Eldoret, Kenya, local experts show groups of people from all over eastern Africa a sampling of these beneficial technologies. For example:

• The kitchen garden plots use double-digging (a method of turning the soil before planting) and composting;
• A chicken pen extends over a fish pond and chicken droppings fall into the water to provide nutrients to the fish, increasing the size of the fish (more about chicken-fish farming);
• An agroforestry display shows about starting seedlings, and replanting and caring for trees; trees provide shade, fruit, and fencing, and absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The poultry house over the fish pond provides plenty of nutrients!

Joshua shows off the great crops grown with compost and no other inputs! More food and less expensive to produce.

3. Side-by-side Comparisons

With such good results from simple agricultural techniques, why doesn’t everyone take on the methods? Joshua Machinga and his team at Common Ground know that old habits die hard, so they have planted two sets of crops to convince people to change.

The 5-year experiment places crops that use conventional fertilizers next to crops that use rich, organic compost to display tangible benefits of using compost for long-term soil health. The evidence right in front of people is pretty convincing!

*Spirit in Action has a number of resources about composting, double-digging, organizing model farm days, and intercropping available for free. If you would like me to send you any of these materials, please email the SIA office.

Related Articles:

• A Better Way to Grow Food (About methods that benefit small farmers)
• How does your garden grow? (About the farms we saw in Malawi)
• Planting trees for a “greener Kenya” (About the reforestation work of SIA SBF Coordinator, Dennis Kiprop)

Our partners are cooking up big change in their communities and there are so many inspiring stories, photos, and quotes to share! I couldn’t fit them all in the Spring & Summer 2013 Newsletter, so today’s blog is a bit of newsletter leftover stew…

(The newsletter went off to the presses yesterday but you can download a PDF COLOR copy here today.)

1. Women Starting Businesses in Kenya

SIA Small Business Fund local coordinator in Kenya, Dennis Kiprop, is excited about the new cohort of 5 women-led business groups:

“I thank God for such an opportunity to serve and train these small business groups. The greatest joy is to see them grow in God and be able to support their families in the long run with the businesses they are doing. Most of them are the key providers in their own families. Thank you for the great support, prayers, and love.”

Rose and Salina fill out their business plan after attending a training session led by local SIA Coordinator Dennis Kiprop.

Goats are kept in elevated pens in Malawi.

2. Forestry Project in Malawi

The front page of the newsletter has a story about 5 Small Business Fund groups in Malawi that are collaborating to start a forestry project.

The tree-planting business will not only help reforest the area and help the soil retain more water, the trees are also important for infrastructure in the rural Manyamula village. Tree poles are used for building houses and also for penning goats.

This photo shows the elevated goat pen which keeps the animals safe and allows the owners to collect manure for their gardens!

3. Short (and important) Supporter Survey

We want to hear your preferences! We have a short 9-question survey for our supporters. Will you tell us how you want to hear from us and what you like about SIA? Take the survey here. Thank you!

4. Memories of Del’s Encouragement

I asked Camily Wedende, a solar cooker entrepreneur in Kenya, about what words of inspiration from Del still stuck with him. (See the newsletter of how Camily is helping others promote solar cooking in Kenya.)

“Del used to write about letting go. To let go is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.

To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires but to take each day as it comes and to cherish the moment.

To let go is not to deny, but to accept.

To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.”

5. Giant Cucumber!

I LOVE this photo of SIA local coordinator Canaan Gondwe (Malawi) with the giant cucumber that grew in his community with seeds sent by our dedicated volunteer, Aileen Gillem.

Seeds were given to needy families in the community for them to use in their kitchen gardens (small garden plots with many types of vegetables growing). Cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions all thrived, supplementing the staple food, maize (corn).

Seeds are amazing things: from a tiny beginning comes growth, blossoms, and fruit. In a way, Spirit in Action is a seed that Del Anderson planted in the world. He was fascinated with the way that nurturing people and developing encouraging relationships could produce fruit far greater than what we see in a humble seed.

This past July, the SIA Board of Directors met for a weekend retreat at a Board member’s home in Placerville, CA. During our discussion of Spirit in Action’s heritage and future many of our thoughts related to seed and growth metaphors.

Seed Grants

We saw the grants we give and the projects we support as seeds. Indeed, we often call them “seed grants” because they are meant to be a beginning from which much can grow. We nourish organizations at the grassroots (seeds!) level with small grants, information, encouragement and sustaining relationships.

Then we draw hope from the inner Life, as describes in the devotional book God Calling, “Think of the tiny snow-drop shoot in the hard ground. No certainty even that when it has forced its weary way up, sunlight and warmth will greet it. What a task beyond its power that must seem. But the inner urge of Life within the seed, compelling it – it carries out the task.”

Beautiful cabbage in a Kenyan garden

Growing and Outgrowing

We see some of these grassroots organizations growing bigger than Spirit in Action. One beautiful example is Samuel and Rhoda Teimuge’s Samro School in Eldoret Kenya. Del Anderson shared with and supported this couple many years ago and they have since grown independent of SIA, building a model school self-sustained though school fees. The Teimuge’s are also spreading the SIA seed to another generation – our Small Business Fund Coordinator Dennis Kiprop was trained and mentored by the family.

Indeed, our Sharing the Gift program spreads the seeds of opportunity beyond the people who receive SIA Small Business Fund grants to other people in their community as business groups pay-it-forward to others in need.

Woman in Malawi shows the bounty from her family’s farm

Bearing Fruit (& Vegetables)

In a very literal tie to seeds, one of Spirit in Action’s first activities as an organization was to send donated seeds to contacts overseas. For 16 years we have received seeds from Thomsen’s Garden Center in Alameda and sent them to people starting kitchen gardens and community gardens.

We are always thrilled to hear of their fruitfulness, like this note from Canaan Gondwe in Malawi, “Tell Aileen Gillen [SIA’s seed volunteer] that we are greatly surprised with the performance of the seeds that we received from her. The vegetable seeds of tomatoes, pumpkins, onions, cabbages, and all other vegetable seeds are good.”

SIA started as a seed planted and tended by Del. Now, we take new directions, incorporate new ideas, and send up new shoots. Gardens of supporters grow throughout the US, nourishing gardens across the world. Spirit in Action is a healthy plant and we appreciate all your loving care.

SIA SBF Coordinators watch a presentation about tree seedlings and reforestation.

Spring is in the air all over the USA this week! To celebrate the rain and the warmer temperatures, I am reposting this discussion of agro-forestry from last April on Spirit in Action’s blog.

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Our international partners working in Kenya have long recognized the value of agroecology. This type of farming system, also called bio-intensive agriculture, uses techniques that help to replenish the nutrients in the soil and uses minimal amounts of chemical fertilizers and other inputs to grow vegetables and fruits. Agroecology methods bring greater crop yields while using much less space, water and energy, than conventional, high input methods.

In Africa there is great hope for the widespread embrace of agroecology technologies, especially because it benefits “small farmers who must be able to farm in ways that are less expensive and more productive.”

“But, [agro-ecology] benefits all of us,” says a NY Times op-ed, quoting a UN Human Rights Council Report, “because it decelerates global warming and ecological destruction.”

The UN Report shows that “small-scale farmers can double food production within 10 years in critical regions by using ecological methods” including compost, double digging, and relying on beneficial plants, animals, and insects for pest management. Indeed, Olivier De Schutter, author of the UN report, said that “Malawi is now implementing agro-ecology, benefiting more than 1.3 million of the poorest people, with maize yields increasing from 1 ton/hectare to 2-3 tons/hectare.”

Samuel Teimuge talks to a group about agroforestry to combat deforestation in Kenya.

Samuel Teimuge, who worked with SIA to start his Ukweli Training Center many years ago, teaches bio-intensive methods and has seen how they can increase production while having a minimal affect on the environment. He also leads workshops to help reforestation efforts in the Rift Valley. Trees are important for slowing erosion on the steep slopes.

Mark Bittman from the NY Times urges us to consider agriculture from a global perspective, understanding food as a human right and sustainable agriculture as a high-priority for the world.

In addition to supporting bio-intensive agriculture training in Kenya, it is just as important to support small-scale farmers here in the US, like these young farmers in Oregon.

Do you use bio-intensive methods in your own garden or farm? Share your stories in the comments section!

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Related posts:

• How does your garden grow? (About the farms we saw in Malawi)
• Planting trees for a “greener Kenya” (About the reforestation work of SIA SBF Coordinator, Dennis Kiprop)

Last year, Jacky Buhoro of the Democratic Republic of Congo told me, “As Christians, we are called to change by doing.” Where does this responsibility come from? I’m far from being a Bible scholar and so I love it when someone can make the stories come to life and inspire me to action. Recently, this inspiration came through Will Brown, a graduating student at Yale Divinity School, in a sermon about Jeremiah answering God’s call to serve others. In 6th grade, Will got his first pair of glasses. A small change and yet, to his great amazement, little Will could now see everything clearly: the leaves on the trees, and the chalkboard in the classroom!

But with the new ability to see clearly he also saw the rough spots, the stain on the floor. These are the places where the reality of what we see doesn’t match God’s reality for the world. As we begin to see how people in our neighborhood and overseas struggle to pay for education and to get a job to support themselves, we become responsible for reacting to make this different.

We know that God’s reality is not want and despair but rather prosperity and hope. Our world’s dark corners need our attention to bring them into God’s perfect peace and potential for the world. Spirit in Action was created to address those needs with compassion, love and action.

A Model of Compassion

One great model of compassion is Jacky Buhoro, who says, “It is my duty to help unable persons.” In her village near the DR Congo-Rwanda border, Jacky works with war widows to grow food in a community garden that was started with a SIA grant in 2007. “The community garden project for women helps us a lot to feed orphans. It serves as a demonstration site to help children understand the importance of gardens and the role of working together.”

Jacky sees the world with God’s clear vision – she sees both the vulnerable women and children without land and without access to education AND the opportunity to encourage each of them through action and compassion in the garden. With people like Jacky who are so hopeful for the “vulnerable people created in the image of God,” the least I can do is support her as she actively seeks God’s reality of peace here and now. I can see that much clearly!

Related Posts:

Interview with Jacky Buhoro: A Mother to Orphans in DRC

From Del’s Journal: There Must be a Sharp Focus on Compassion

People Helping People – about the book The Poor Philanthropist