Sorry we've been out of commission for a few weeks. Last week we had a week long seminar called "Intro. to Tropical Agricultural Development" that I was involved in.
What was really cool about it was Joell Friesen, our friend and co-worker in Senegal, was able to come to Florida for the seminar. We were able to bounce ideas off each other and do some practical research for our upcoming project in Beersheba. Pretty exciting.
Here is just a short list of what was touched upon during the seminar:
1) Principals of Community Development
2) Mind frame of poverty stricken communities
3) Stewardship of land and soil
4) Appropriate technology in the area of water filtration
5) How to manage a nursery in tropical/semi-arid zones
6) Grafting techniques
7) Principals of roof top gardening
8) Different Dry land techniques for farming
There are bunches more, and tons of sub-category topics.
What I loved about this week, what reflected very well on ECHO and its vision, was that every instructor for each of these topics brought all things discussed back to the Bible. Everything was Biblically based. It was phenomenal the parallels.
The class was made up of all sorts of people. Missionaries, Peace Corps workers, new believers, surfers with a desire to grow better gardens, etc. Very diverse group.
It was a great week and I am so thankful to be able to be apart of this right now.
The clip I'm putting on is of Sara a few weeks ago. We (our family) all took turns milking. Its pretty hard. There is a very special technique. Sara was able to squeeze out more than me.
Little Goaty Milk Maid from Aaron Toombs on Vimeo.
We actually got to drink some of the milk. I loved it. The kids and Sara were not so keen.
Aaron,
ReplyDeleteOnce again thank you for taking the time to write & post the videos.
I was especially happy to read how every instructor brought the topics back to the Bible. Our daughter Hilary served in the Peace Corp at a cancer clinic, in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan. And as she tells it, the Bible and the Peace Corp are not in league with each other---even a little. To have the Peace Corp workers hear and experience the relationship of what they are learning and the Scriptures is AWESOME!