Uganda Experience Part 1-Guest Post by Kimberlyn Pace
I have been living with the Ostermanns for two weeks now and I am convinced of this- the Ostermann family is one of the most lovely and hospitable families I have ever met! They took me in and have taken care of me so well. Wow, I am thankful for them.
I am a student at Texas A&M University and I was presented with the incredible opportunity to do my required internship with Heart for Uganda. Being a Soil and Crop Science major, Farming God’s Way is actually the coolest thing I have ever heard of! Especially considering I want to do something very similar to what they do as my career. So, you can imagine how excited I was to be able to come here.
I would like to take a minute (well, maybe several minutes) to give y’all some insight into what is currently going on. Heart for Uganda has purchased land around 45 minutes away from Jinja. Being the end of the rainy season, there isn’t much you can grow, so we are taking this time to prepare the land for planting before the next rainy season, which will come around August/September. This means clearing the fields of vegetation and in turn using those plants as God’s Blanket (mulch covering). The goal is to have the fields 100% covered, which is definitely easier said than done! Especially because all work here is done completely by hand, so it naturally takes longer.
Klint has also drawn out a plan for the land and where he wants everything, so we laid out stakes and began to measure out the different fields. He has space for a Well Watered Garden and several small scale demonstration plots, as well as space for a larger scale model of what an entire field would look like if it was planned using Farming God’s Way as a guideline. In the future, he is also planning on putting pigs and chickens out there, as well as several buildings. The goal is to bring students out there to attend classes and workshops, that way they can not only learn how to do the techniques, but also see the end results and what they are working towards.
And, luckily, Heart for Uganda’s land is right up along a fairly busy road, with many people walking by throughout the day. They will have no choice but to see the HUGE difference between traditional agriculture and Farming God’s Way! Hopefully soon they will come to a place where they are ready to change their practices- because with Uganda’s rapidly increasing population and rapidly decreasing number of farmers, the need is very present.
If you could, be in prayer for the farmers here. Some see the crops produced through Farming God’s Way and opt to change their practices, but many do not. They have a lot of trust in the practices they have always done, even when they are yielding hardly anything, making it hard for them to just abandon those practices in favor of something new and different from the status quo. Also, pray that the Gospel would be proclaimed through this program and through this land! Because every technique and practice in Farming God’s Way is backed up with scripture, the Truth is written all over it and anyone who inquires about the farming will be answered with God’s wisdom.
In conclusion, the Ostermanns are helping meet a tremendous need here in a really great way, and I am so thankful to be able to have a small part in that for the next five weeks. I also want to thank y’all for your support, because I can see the good that it is doing here and y’all are making
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