Sowing Shalom

Mistakes

2011-02-14T04:23:00.001-06:00

Mistakes. We all make mistakes. Wise people learn from other peoples mistakes and smart people usually don't make the same mistake twice.

I made a notable mistake last month. I say notable to differentiate this particular mistake from the hundreds of other mistakes I made last month which, by and large, went unnoticed.

Don't worry. No lives were lost, nor were any baby seals harmed in the wake of my mistake. Although some time and money has been lost, no sub-prime, credit default swap, Lehman-esque repercussions are likely to be felt.

Thomas Edison made mistakes. More than 1000 of them on the way to the light bulb.

My boss is not upset with me about my mistake. (at least as far as I can tell)

But here it is, a little after 2 in the morning, and I'm writing about my mistake.

What I'm trying to say, in my own Dickensonian way is... I made a mistake.

The mistake?!

I mulched.

Mulched.

Like, you know, piled up some chopped grass.

Technically mulching wasn't the mistake. Mulching is an excellent practice that, when done by people who think things all the way through, adds beneficial organic matter to the soil while increasing it's water holding capacity and reducing erosion.

People who think things all the way through.

I know some, even married one (matrimonial choice excepted), but I'm more of the “think things all the way through right AFTER you do it” kind of guy.

So here I am thinking things through. Thinking out loud, so to speak, with those of you still reading.

So, as I said, mulching, or rather the circumstances surrounding what I'm sure will be called the “great mulching incident” or “mulch-gate” must be considered.

Here's what happened.

March and April of last year we planted about 850 African Palm trees in our East field. Young palms ask for very little during their first few years of life. It's simple really. Just feed them a couple of times a year, keep a small patch around them free of competing plants, and protect them from pests. We did the best we could, given budget constraints, to meet their simple requests and, with the exception of one isolated area, seemed to be well on our way to a mutually beneficial working relationship. Then at the beginning of this year we decided to try something. Something that we reasoned would reduce our need for expensive fertilizers and also cut down on, or maybe ever eliminate, our use of herbicide. That something was mulching. We would meet 2 of the 3 simple palm tree requests in one, trendsetting, chemical dependency breaking moment.

There in lies the rub. 2 out of 3, as it turns out, is not enough. All three requests are equally important and non-negotiable.

Remember how I said that we were having success “with the exception of one isolated area”? Well our lack of success in that area was due to rats. Shortly after planting, rats killed about 90% of the palm trees in one small area of the farm. This area is isolated by a seasonal creek bed, and our efforts to keep the problem from spreading seemed to be effective. Rats kill young palm trees by gnawing through the base of the tree. Ask any wise Honduran palm farmer how to avoid problems with rats and he will tell you to keep the area around the base of the tree clean, free of all weeds and debris. Hey, but what could they know. After all I've read over 3 books about growing palm trees and these guys can't even spell Elaeis guineensis.

Waiter, might you recommend a good wine to go with my crow?

You see, by putting a big pile of freshly chopped mulch around each and every palm tree in the East field I was creating the perfect environment for a rat population explosion. Rats know a good thing when they see it and, in just a matter of 2 weeks, they managed to destroy something close to 30% of our beautiful, healthy palm toddlers. That's like more than 200 trees.

So let's recap. Brad has an idea. Brad rejects the advise of people who know what they are talking about, Brad implements said plan. Brad looks on sheepishly as Brad's boss tells him that the neighbor of the palm field can hardly sleep due to the loud chewing noises emanating from said field. Brad seeks advise from people who know what the are talking about (but can not spell Elaeis guineensis) and enacts emergency palm field clean up legislation. Hondurans wonder how much more of Brad's “help” they can take.

Worst part, this won't be the last time.

Best part, whatever good is produced from our palm fields, heck, anything good that results from my time hear in this place will be a clear, unmistakeable witness to God's grace, and He alone will get the credit.

Most funnest jobs

2010-05-18T14:38:00.018-06:00

One of my most funnest jobs is working alongside kids in their school gardens. I love to see their excitement and pride as new plants emerge from the seedling trays. My cup overflows as we dig, rake, laugh and even sing in the hot sun while preparing the raised beds and laying out the drip irrigation lines. I marvel at these little farmers' abilities to grasp big biological concepts and solve problems with them. These gardens have so much to teach us. They teach us that attention to little things can make a big difference. They teach us how to be patient and hopeful. They teach us that God designed a wonderful system to sustain our basic needs, and that when we work with His design, and not try to outsmart it, He blesses us with delicious and healthy food. I see and feel Christ in these little ones. I feel His pleasure as we worship Him with our work.

P.S. I need to say a special thanks to Life Church in Murrieta, CA for helping us get the Gardens going, and to Hope Seeds for generously supplying all the seed we need.

Soap Box

2010-05-05T23:01:00.004-06:00

OK, so I've waited a long time to write this blog. Most of my friends disagree with me on this issue, and, by nature, I dislike confrontation. Not only that, but most of my friends are smarter than me and so when there is an issue of disagreement, odds are I'm mostly wrong. This, however, is just something that won't leave me alone, so I'm going to break one of my “nearly unbreakable” personal codes and speak. (By the way, that code is: It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.)

Here it is; I am opposed to Arizona's new “immigration” law.

I'm not opposed to the part of the law that makes being in the U.S. illegally a state crime. It's already a federal crime, so that part's nothing new. Now it's just double illegal. (As a matter of full disclosure, I find U.S. immigration law to be repugnant and contrary to the high ideals that underpin our freedomocracy.)

Secondly, I don't really care about the arguments that focus on state vs. federal obligations, jurisdictions, et al. To me that is all just political blah blah blah.

What I am opposed to, and what won't leave me alone is this idea. In Arizona, U.S.A., law enforcement officers may (or must as I read it) act on a “reasonable” suspicion that immigration law is being broken by requiring the suspicious person(s)to immediately prove their innocence. And that, tragically, certain people are “reasonably” suspicious of breaking the law solely by virtue of their skin, hair, and eye color.

Not too distant history should cause us to shutter at this idea. We should be nauseated to remember the place that laws and tactics like this one took mankind in it's recent past. I am reminded, as I read some supportive comments of nice Christian folk, that we are not better than the people who chose those paths, no less susceptible to propaganda that demonizes and dehumanizes. If anything we are weaker and more susceptible. If anything the media forces that shape our world view and opinions are more crafty and powerful.

Please, let's turn back. Let's not accept, or worse yet be cheerleaders for, the lowering of our standards of fairness, justice and righteousness, even for the sake of our security and comfort. As Christians, people who's citizenship is not in this world, let's act better. Let's find and promote solutions that bring glory to God and demonstrate Christ's example of selflessness, mercy and above all love.

Chicken Tractors

2010-03-06T21:38:00.010-06:00

Whats that you say? Chicken tractors??!!

One of the best parts of my job is trying out various agricultural techniques to see how they will work here in our tropical lowland climate. My latest experiment involves a device called a chicken tractor. Chicken tractors are small, easily moved, bottomless chicken pens. Each day the pen and chickens are moved to a new area, allowing them to fertilize the ground, eat bugs and generally enjoy a healthier life due to the fresh grass under their feet. My hope in this experiment was that I could successfully raise fryers for sale to the local community. Fryers are a fast growing chicken, specifically bred to gain weight quickly. A fryer can reach market weight, about 5 pounds, in as little as 6-7 weeks. Coming into this experiment I was concerned about several things. Would the pens protect the birds from predators; possum, skunk, snakes, dogs, et al? Would I be able to adequately shield them from the heat? Would I be able to raise them free from antibiotics and hormones and still get the feed conversion ratios needed to be profitable? Well next week we will butcher our first batch of 30 birds. They are progressing towards the 4-5 pound goal very well, with many of the males well over 4 pounds already. I have had no problems with predators and, even on some pretty warm days, the birds did fine. We haven't had one sick bird and all of the birds have been pre-sold. All in all better than hoped for results. Best of all, there has been great interest among local folks in building there own chicken tractors. God willing, we will expand our flock over the next few months. I am hoping to be able to produce and sell 120 birds every 2 weeks. This project if successful will provide one half time job caring of the birds and 1 day of work twice monthly for 3 women butchering and cleaning.

All in all, everyone's a winner. (except the birds)

International Election Observer

2009-12-01T22:42:00.001-06:00

OK, so my resume grew longer and even more varied this weekend as I had the incredible opportunity to participate in the Honduran presidential elections. Lest you think I'm now some kind of big-shot, I should tell you that I was not chosen by some double secret international panel. I volunteered. Secondly, as far as I can tell, my qualifications to receive this high honor were that; one, I am not a Honduran and two, I do not have any outstanding arrest warrants.

That said, participating in this once in a lifetime opportunity was an extraordinarily uplifting and gratifying experience.

All told, I visited 10 different polling stations covering a 25 mile area on Honduras' rural North coast. Polls opened at 7 A.M. And closed between 4 and 5 P.M. (Poll officials were allowed to keep the poll open the extra hour if they saw a need). Observing an election is pretty straight forward. One simply observes and takes notes.

Here is a quick summary of the things I observed:

People smiling
People taking pride in their country
Young people helping their grandparents
People waiting in line
Young soldiers standing in the shade
An Army general casually talking with election workers and voters
Election workers taking great pains to count and document the vote correctly
Press people sitting around with nothing sensational to report
Honest, sincere, simple, profound democracy

Granted, these are things I hoped I would see. Some people reporting on the situation and election were hoping to see much different, much uglier things, and from their accounts, they were not disappointed. I can confidently say, however, that no reasonable or truthful person could have spent the day with me and reported anything other than an orderly, open, accessible and even uplifting day at the polls.

So where does all this leave Honduras?

From a external, diplomatic view, that very much depends on the worlds power brokers. They, not the people of Honduras, will decide how Honduras participates on the world stage.

Internally, even with Sundays impressive showing, I'm afraid little will change. An unjust power base still runs the country, as it did both before and after the “coup”. The poor and marginalized (who make up something close to 70% of the population) will have little or no voice in policy making and will receive little or no justice from the legal system. Corruption is likely to siphon much of the money and most of the goodwill from public projects and international aid.

It doesn't have to be this way. Maybe Hondurans will begin to believe that they can bring about real and lasting, positive change. Maybe Hondurans will reject corruption, not just at the highest levels, but in their personal dealings as well. Maybe Hondurans will demand a justice system that neither favors the rich or the poor. Maybe Hondurans will show the rest of the world what God's kingdom could look like. Maybe this should be the mission of the Church and all Christians in these coming days.

Simple Bucket Drip Irrigation System

2009-11-01T16:11:00.015-06:00

One of the projects that I love best is working in the local schools with school gardening projects. Keeping the garden beds watered consistently can be a bit of a challenge. A neat kit that I learned about last year at ECHO's annual conference is this simple 5 gallon bucket drip irrigation system from Chapin Living Waters.

Bucket Kit
photo credit:
http://www.chapinlivingwaters.org/Bucket-kit-for-chapin.jpg

The kit comes with everything you need (less the bucket) including 100 feet of drip tape. This can be used as four 25 ft lines, two 50 ft lines or a single 100 ft line. I'm testing it using 2 lines on my 3 ft wide, 25 ft long raised bed.

This week I installed the kit onto a newly prepared garden bed in front of our house. I made a simple stand to hold the bucket 1 meter above the raised bed as prescribed in the easy to follow instructions, installed the lines and trip tape and in less than 1 hour had a nicely functioning garden watering system.

Now I just fill the bucket twice daily on non rainy days and the soil under my layer of Rice straw stays perfectly moist.

These kits will be a great addition to our school gardens, and I think the kids will have a great time setting them up and showing them to their parents. School starts back up after the first of the year and I'll be sure to report and share photos of our progress.

Prepped Raised Bed

Drip Bucket Veiw 1

Drip Bucket View 2

Special Connector To Attach Drip Line To
Bucket Fitting (Included in kit)

Agua!

Worm Tea

2009-10-27T16:25:00.008-06:00

Worm Tea. It's not the latest flavor from Celestial Seasons, but it is GREAT it it's own way. We use red worms to compost our fruit and veggie garbage. One of the byproducts of this process is liquid at the bottom of the Rubermaid bin our worms are in. A few nights ago I decided to make a way for us to harvest this nitrogen rich liquid to use on our potted plants and in the starter trays. I made the "tea" using rainwater and the wormy liquid at a dilution of 1 cup wormy liquid to 2 liters of water. The plants are loving it! (For those of you who wondered, I did not use my wife's measuring cups to mix the tea.) (...but only after she told me not to even think about it!)

P.S. Come back later this week to see my bucket drip irrigation system.

two 5/8 inch holes to drain

Plastic container to catch the wormy liquid

Another angle

Mixin "Tea"

Delicious

3 meter Boa

2009-10-25T16:03:00.008-06:00

Boa constrictors eat all kids of things that bother our palm trees. They are our friends. Unfortunately many of our workers believe that they are venomous (only early in the morning and after 3 in the afternoon). We caught this one up near the house and moved it down to the cornfield that is inter-cropped with the palms. Latter, since the workers were very worried about working anywhere near the area we moved it to the edge of the palms where it could find shelter in the jungle.

MacGyver would be proud

2009-10-07T11:51:00.011-06:00

Once agian I was impressed by the ingenuity and "MacGyver-ness" of my Honduran co-workers. Today the tractor's tire lost a battle with a hidden 4" stump. it put a huge hole in the tire and the tube as well. In the U.S. it would have forced a trip down to the tire shop, and $500ish later you would have a new tire on your rim. Here, there is no local tire shop or $500 so we make due. The guys at the shop fixed this like it was nothing, and after lunch I'll be back in the saddle. Great Job guys!

Notice the large bolts holding the repair together. I guess I have studded tires now.

I love my job

2009-10-04T15:58:00.003-06:00

I love my job, I'm just not very good at it. Almost every day I do some task, or make some decision that I've never done/ made before.

For example, last week we brought in our first harvest of rice. As the farm manager, I'm responsible for coordinating the harvesting crew, managing the harvest and determining what to do with the harvested grain. I've never grown rice, I've never harvested rice, and I've never brought rice to market. To be honest, I feel pretty useless and even a bit stupid in situations like this.

Real expert describing the process to his boss

Cutting the rice

Threshing the rice the same way it's been done for hundreds of years

I like to feel competent, to know where I'm going, to have a plan and to have good odds of success.

In other words, I like to live inside the borders of a world that I control.

But I've been called beyond those borders, and if I can just get beyond my ego, I might get to experience a life beyond both my abilities and imagination.

It is in this realm, the realm where the only explanation for the things that happen are supernatural, that God has called me to live, and it is here, and only here, where He will receive the glory He deserves for His mercy and grace.

There are days when I try to maintain control, display my competency, prove my worth. These are the days when deep down inside I feel crushed by the weight of a task to which I am not equal.

There are also days when I simply offer myself to my master. Days when I accept the ever available gift of grace that, when coupled mysteriously with my sacrifice of will, produces supernatural results. Eternal results. Real success. His Kingdom coming!

These are the days when I love my job and God is good at it.

restless

2009-07-01T00:23:00.002-06:00

It’s late and I’m tired, which means I’m breaking two big rules of communication, but I feel restless and I think chatting with you in this format will help.

I sure am confused by the situation around me. The foundation of my world has really been rocked this week. I reach out for information but all I can gather are rumors and reports that contradict what I see with my eyes and feel in my heart.

I hope you don’t mind if I just ramble a bit over some disconnected themes cart-wheeling around in my head.

Last week I saw a group of poor farmers sell their vote for 500 Lempira ($25 or about 5 days pay). For hours this bothered me. I just couldn’t imagine selling my vote, my liberty, my democracy for $25. Then I began to realize that it was because my liberty and my democracy, the equitable rule of law, dependable security of my human rights, the freedom to do and be all that I could aspire to were a priceless blessing. Of course I would be offended at selling these things at any price. The more I thought about those poor farmers, about the injustice, insecurity and bondage that is their daily reality the more I realized that the $25 they were offered was way above market value.

I miss my dad. He would have wise words for me right now.

Over the last few days I have come to discover that many if not all of my opinions that have been formed over the years by listening to and reading the news are quite likely wrong. This is a humbling and troubling epiphany. If I wasn’t in Honduras right now, and didn’t have the front row view to all that is transpiring, if all I had was CNN and the other major mainstream news outlets to tell me this story, I would have a completely different opinion than I have about the situation. This means that over the years all of the other stories I have heard about places and events where I was not an eyewitness have very likely caused me to form a, at least partially if not completely, wrong opinion. This is a worldview shaking development.

What a funny thing it is to be so irritated by waiting. We have all we need. We are out of harms way (as far as I can tell). Other than the fact we had a PLAN to move over the weekend, there is no urgent necessity for us to be in our new place. I guess that’s really it. We had a PLAN. Our PLAN didn’t take priority of all of the other events happening in Honduras last weekend and now I’m ticked. I’m such a spoiled brat, always wanting my own way according to my schedule. How many opportunities have I missed to show someone love, to minister peace and to be bringer of good news all because I was miffed over the delay of my plan. Tomorrow I’m going to make the most of God’s plan for the day and leave the timing of my plan in His hands.

I walked down to get Chinese food for dinner. I had to go early to get back before the curfew started. As I walked through the crumbled streets, past the disheveled shacks and perky middle class houses that seemed to lean on each others shoulders, I got a bit misty. I have come to love the people inside those houses. Sure there will be new people to fall in love with in Balfate, but I can’t help but feel like there is unfinished business here. Did they see Jesus in us? Did they feel His love and draw nearer to Him because we were here? Do they know how much we will miss them?

Prior to Mel Zalaya’s announcement that he would return to Honduras on Thursday, the Catholic bishop announced that day as a day of prayer and fasting for the country. How prophetic. I will be joining in. Fasting has become one of my favorite ways to worship. It is so humbling to live and work amongst people who know the reality of hunger. I am brought low to think my inconvenient hunger can help me identify with them. They are the teachers, humility is the hardest lesson.

Well that is enough for now. I feel like I can take my rest.

Goodnight Father

First Post

2009-05-14T16:14:00.001-06:00

My plan is to blog here starting June 09.