The help God brings

Beer-Sheba is a work in progress. It is a big vision. Its a vast amount of land with an abundance of potential. Its so easy to sit with a group of dreamers and talk the night away about what could be. Oh, the dreams! Its good to have visionary's working on a project such as this. They look at a mass of thorny trees and see a grove of lemon trees producing the most juicy fruit imaginable. A prickly desert is instantly turned into the Garden of Eden in the mind of a visionary. Visionary's that love the Lord are even BIGGER dreamers, because they know that with God all things are possible, so why NOT shoot for the moon!

The obstacle is, and I say obstacle because I'm avoiding the word 'problem', in order for a field of thorns and thistle to turn into a lush garden, we need workers. Workers to pull the weeds, cut down the thorns, plant the trees, love the ground. And THEN we need rain. That's Gods job.
At this point at Beer-Sheba we don't have a lot of full time workers. Its three families, plus a handful of Serer guys that work at the project. Things are moving, but at a very slow, but steady pace.

We have prayed for workers to come. Its interesting how in my mind the workers I expect are full time, committed people who want to make this their passion and their goal. However, God has brought a different kind of worker. He has been bringing us people from Dakar, who have other jobs/ministries, but want to get out of the city for awhile and plant trees, or weed, or trim bushes. Its amazing how many of these helpers have called up and said "hey, what can we do this weekend?"

Another type of worker are the dear friends that wrote us and said "We have a free summer and we want to come and put some time in at Beer-Sheba". Thanks to them, our corn was planted. Our Zai Holes dug. Our barn for the cattle started. Our spirits lifted.

So, here I am envisioning how the work is going to get done and God is getting it done quite differently from what I expected. So much for visions:)
Visions are important and lovely and fun and inspiring and hopeful. We'll still hold on to those to prompt us, but we'll hold those dreams loosely, allowing them to be shaped differently if needs be.

Lucena

Today we went out to Beersheba. Last Friday we had major rain. We noticed, today, that the corn was pretty hard hit by the flow of water. Many of the stalks were flattened by mulch material (sticks, hay, leaves). Thank goodness for the Lucena that was planted a few years ago, otherwise the whole of the garden would have been washed away.

We did more Lucena planting today. Thirty more in the ground. More to come.

Lucena Trees from twiga on Vimeo.

Cow Stable coming along

We're on a roll now! We've got internet, we found our Flip camera that we thought was stolen, but wasn't, and we've got a new Vimeo account, so we're fired up!
Here is some footage of the stable being built for the cows we are eventually going to get. The bricks are 'earth brick' and new thing here in Senegal.

Untitled from twiga on Vimeo.

Moringa Trees...see how they grow!

Moringa Trees from twiga on Vimeo.

Beersheba Corn

Hi folks! Its only been almost a year since we wrote last! Not too bad! Here's a little clip of the corn field at Beersheba. We used Zia Holes and so far, the results are pretty impressive. Gary, Brett and Grant came out all the way from the US to help plant. Thanks, guys!
The process was dig a hole, mix manure, add Gantec (all natural), and the seed in these Zai Holes. Hard work, but we hope the yields will make it worth it!

Beersheba Corn from twiga on Vimeo.

A look into the peanut plant

Here we have an expert in peanuts explain to us the way a peanut plant works.

A look into a peanut plant from Aaron Toombs on Vimeo.

Have you had your Hibiscus today?

Did you know that you can eat Hibiscus? Well, you can, but only a certain kind. It is a shrubby perennial from Indonesia. You can eat it as a lettuce, in soup or cooked alone. It produces easily and its grown solely for its leaves. Its high in nutritive value.
Interesting thing about this plant, you can't propagate from seed. It has to be propagated from cuttings.
Here's us in propagating action.

Need a snack? Grab a leaf. from Aaron Toombs on Vimeo.

Untitled from Aaron Toombs on Vimeo.