Transforming Visit to St. Jude

The memorable 7 day visit to St. Jude Family Projects & Training Centre in March was a dream of opportunity and promises come true for the team of pastors, church workers, and GROW members representing Kobwin subcounty. They had waited patiently since last September when the ARISE team suggested the farm visit.

This suggestion was made following the September 2010 leadership conference at the Living Learning Centre in Tilling, led by the ARISE team. "We are coming along side the people to give a helping hand," is what Ted, an ARISE director, always emphasizes.

The people have land and labour. What they need is support to efficiently and effectively maximize its productivity. The results will be long term food security, sustainability, and eradicating poverty. The St. Jude training is one of the ways ARISE is coming along side.

Josephine, the founder & executive director of St. Jude, welcomed the team to St. Jude and strongly emphasized the importance of being determined and taking their training seriously, and that they should return [home] with a determined effort, bearing in mind that someone, somewhere, funded the sponsorship for the training.

At the conclusion of the training, she advised the group not to be selfish with what they have received but to humble themselves to God and share with others when they got back.

Rev. Opolot James assisted in translating, since Josephine did not speak Ateso, the local dialect of Kobwin, nor did the group speak Josephine's local dialect. And only some of the group spoke English!

Following the Welcome & Introductory session, the group was taken on a farm tour and shown a number of wonderful project activities ... vegetable sack gardens ... various irrigation methods (water bottle, bucket, tank & polythene pipe) ... goat project (collection of urine & droppings for making manure) ... kitchen gardens ... an apiary ... zero-grazing ... cassava (tuberous starchy plant) cement making ... biogas production from animal waste.

In the photo the group is peering into an underground storage tank used to harvest run-off water.

Pastor Okiror David is checking out a space-saving tiered vegetable garden, that can be easily irrigated with upturned water bottles and a layer of mulch.

It was Pastor David's request, on behalf of the local pastors, for sustainable development ideas that prompted ARISE to propose sending a group of people from Kobwin to St. Jude for training.

One of the many practical sessions was on how to make a kitchen garden. The team is tying cut-off pegs together to form a compost basket. Using bricks, they will mark off an area surrounding the compost basket, which they will mound with soil ready for planting.

The kitchen garden grows lots of vegetables in a small area all year round, right next to the house. It saves many steps and is easily maintained.

One kitchen garden ready to plant! During the visit, I (Winnie) was told many times a day, "Isirereng esi Edeke, usete kesi ikaru kere." In Ateso, their local dialect, this means "God bless you. Let God grant long life to the people who have sowed this gift to us!"

The team went to visit a few neighbouring farms of families who also trained at St. Jude and went back and implemented the projects in their homesteads. Everyone was encouraged to go back [home] with the hope of putting into practice the knowledge achieved at the training and what they had seen at the family farms.

Classroom sessions included many topics ... Organic farming ... Basics of Modernization of Agriculture ... Water Management on the Farm ... Vegetable Growing ... Piggery Farming ... Family Hygiene ... Reproductive Health including HIV/AIDS testing.

So keen were the pastors that they requested for late evening sessions until 10 pm on some nights!

Always work on fertilized soil ... one of the ways to do this is to make compost manure. The first steps is to pound in 4 corner posts and dig a base.

Manure compost has several layers. Starting at the bottom ... dry plant material ... water ... animal droppings ... top soil for insects & worms ... green plant material ... wood ash

Adding green plant material ...

Thank you for coming along side the people by funding the intensive training at St. Jude. The specialized and customized sessions are a valuable resource, which will have stunning success. The community participants from Kobwin came back armed with, not only theoretical, but vast practical knowledge and ready to implement on their families and farms.

(Thanks to Winnie, the ARISE Coordinator, members of the GROW team, and Pastor Okiror David for contributing the informative text and photos for this post!

Check out the August 2010 posts in the Blog Archive to learn more about Josephine's story and St. Jude Family Project.)

A Gift of Wheels

Building relationship is one of our top priorities when we visit the ARISE project in Tilling, which is located in the subcounty of Kobwin, Ngora district. During our 2010 visit, we had the privilege of connecting with a group of 6 pastors, whose churches make up the Kobwin Assembly.

One of the things that came to light over the course of our stay, was the need of the pastors for improved transportation. They basically relied on bicycles, the one speed model with pedal brakes ... real calorie burners!

ARISE was thrilled when funds were donated to purchase a motorbike for the Kobwin Assembly pastors to share. With the help of Godfrey, our friend in Kampala, the motorbike was purchased and delivered to the pastors in Tilling on March 19th. Pastor David (R) and Rev. James (L) accepted the motorbike on behalf of the Kobwin Assembly pastors.

Here's Rev. James all set to hit the road. While rubber boots may not be considered essential gear for bikers in Grande Prairie, they're a definite plus in Kobwin. The dirt roads that narrow into footpaths are marked by deep wash-outs and small lakes that cover the roadway during the rainy season.

This offroad 2002 Yamaha Serow 225 WE is exactly what we were looking for. It has a 20 HP single cylinder, 4 stroke engine, single disc brakes, front and back, and a fuel capacity of 10 litres. (I know, for some of us this is more than we need to know!!!) The cost of the bike, including 2 new helmets, was about 3.5 million Ugandan Shillings, or about $1500 Canadian.

Going for a ride on the new bike is already on the "To Do List" for our next visit to Tilling!