I'm going to try something a little different today, since we haven't figured out how to include video content in our new website yet. The cover photo for this week's update is a picture of some of our brothers and sisters standing around a borehole that was just installed at a far northern location called Chasefu. In the Facebook comments I am going to post two videos. The first will show the villagers in the area collecting their drinking and cooking water from a local stream. The second will show them around the new clean water source, and will include the local pastor, Timothy Ndlovu, thanking us for changing their lives. And, in somewhat of an interesting twist, encouraging us to replay this scene in other places.
As we wrap up our third week in September, we have had feeding reports now from nearly two thirds of our communities. And we have concluded our clean water work for the month. That would be a lot to accomplish in any month.
But in both countries, there is a tremendous amount of planning underway that would fall under the banner of DEVELOPMENT.
First of all, we met as a group with Tracy, our ZIAP agronomist, once more this week, and continue to plan for the expansion of the training program he started a year ago. Plans are solidifying for him to go back - possibly as early as October - to kick things off and oversee in person the beginning of what we are planning with 15 Zambian trainers using 31 training plots to train as many as 10,000 Zambians throughout the coming growing season. While Tracy provides the technical expertise, our role will be to provide logistics support in the form of our Zambian team throughout both his time in country and the remainder of the growing season.
Second, a different group of us met with Dr. Curtis Youngs, another expert out of Iowa State University, to discuss what he saw and learned during the August trip and consider how we might be involved in a project that begins to interject more animal protein into the diets of our Zambian brothers and sisters. Current thoughts seem to center around some sort of a local cooperative farm site that might be several hectares fenced for chickens and goats. I don't want to say too much more because this is in the very early stages of conversation, and I know many of our Zambian leaders read the blog. This effort would likely start with just ONE training farm, and there is more talk of American travel in early 2026 to support this concept.
As I said a couple of times this week, BOTH of these efforts are a bit overwhelming to me, as I don't have either the technical expertise or, apparently, the FAITH to envision the long-term impact of these efforts among those that we are loving in Zambia. My commitment, as it has been for the past five years, is to use my own technical expertise (which typically involves a spreadsheet) and what little FAITH I have to keep track of the progress and encourage participation via this blog.
How, you might ask, could we in America participate? Thanks for asking!
On the maize training project, at this point we are unsure of the exact nature of any government participation. We have some indication there may be some support coming, but we don't know at what level it will come. So, for now, we continue to encourage any interested patrons to give towards some portion of INPUTS so that many of those who experience the training this season but couldn't participate fully because of a lack of personal funding can still be involved. In the past, without any participation of the Zambian government, this has been around $100 per farmer for a 10kg bag of seed and a couple of bags of fertilizer. Stay tuned as we get farther along and know exactly what our part will be in the coming weeks.
As to the animal protein project, it is too early to start talking about too many numbers, but we are dreaming of a site that may include, besides the animals, a home for a caretaker family and whatever enclosures may be needed for the animals. We are in the very early stages of building out that budget, but it may be that $25,000 is required to start up a project like this. For this first year, with our focus on one test plot, that sounds manageable enough. But compare this to our maize training project that was at one site last season and is becoming 31 sites this season and you can dream about where this is going.
If this combined effort of development and current care for our struggling brothers and sisters in Zambia gets your attention, and you just want to let us know you are with us, the donate button on the website will allow for either a one-time gift or for a recurring monthly gift that will go a long way towards strengthening us as we move forward into this exciting future.
Surplus for deficit. We have SO MUCH surplus in material STUFF that I am often embarrassed by it. As we try not to OVEREAT, can we share some? We currently have 32 monthly donors that AVERAGE around $125 per month. That's an average, so I'm not saying that's YOUR number. What could you spare?
Surplus for deficit. We have SO MUCH deficit in FAITH because of the material stuff. We believe every dollar we SHARE brings with it a little more FAITH. And our Zambian brothers and sisters have PLENTY of FAITH to share with us. Can you even begin to imagine the FAITH that grows when you PRAY for FOOD because you don't know where the next meal for your family is coming from, and you go to your local church and learn that someone you have never met in America has provided the answer to that prayer?
Be sure and check out this post in Facebook, as the comments will include the promised videos. Thanks for your interest, and we would love to have you partner with us.
