ECHO Conference and Haiti News, Post by Cory

Martin Price giving a tour of the ECHO demonstration farm

The 3 day ECHO Agriculture Conference in Fort Myers, Florida was a refreshing time. About 200 people gathered from around the world to get to know each other and hear speakers tell about successes and experiences in the areas of agriculture, appropriate technologies, health and faith - people escaping poverty, health and family life improved, God honored in lives and service.

A few highlights: Visitng a 10 acre organic fruit and vegetable farm near ECHO run by a former intern friend. Learning of varieties of Macadamia that are much higher yielding than the ones I knew about.

Giant bamboo

 Learning more about using certain kinds of beans to double or even more than triple corn yields, while also often getting a high value bean harvest or forage in addition to the corn . 

These beans grow with or slightly after the corn, helping to control weeds, adding fertility to the soil and greatly reducing erosion. The kind of beans widely grown at Delice do not add much soil fertility or erosion control.

Devotions each morning were on the story of the Good Samaritan. People in Jesus’ day wouldn’t have put those two words together since Samaritans were despised. The priest choosing to pass by made a logical decision since he was probably hauling a load of his portion of sacrifces as wages for a couple weeks work in the temple. It would become “unclean” and wasted if he touched a bloody beat-up person laying by the road.

 A respectable Levite did the same. Then Jesus, instead of using  an average person as an example, told of the Samaritan helping, and he also paid the inn keeper to continue the care. It was probably a large sum of money, so the cost was high to help the person in need.  The lawyer that Jesus asked who the neighbor was couldn’t even say “the Samaritan” he just said “The one who had mercy”

Light at the end of the tunnel?  We are told the main person responsible for the current unrest in Haiti, accused of stealing 125 million from Haiti through his big electric company, is in hiding and won’t be coming back to Haiti. Traffic is returning to many streets as barricades are removed but it is still dangerous to travel in many areas.

Cap Haitian had heavy rains and flooding this week. I was told this week by a pastor in north Haiti that many people are hungry. A recent news article reported that a million Haitians are starving. Keep praying!