The Harvest. It is the hope of a lot of people in developing countries such as this. About 60% of the people in this country are rural folk. And the bulk of those rural people are subsistence farmers. That is, they grow enough corn and beans to feed themselves and their families (hopefully all year long) and perhaps have a little left over to sell for the things they cannot grow themselves like cooking oil, sugar, a little salt, notebooks for school, or possibly that $1 pair of flip-flops to replace that other $1 pair of flip flops they bought last year that are being held together by a string.
The two dates above were very special. Thanks to 2 Iowa churches, the people of 2 dirt floor very poor communities now have fertilizer. This will nearly double their crop if all goes well.
I mentioned those deliveries a couple of blogs ago.
And I know I’ve talked about this before so I’m not sure how much more I could tell you. Maybe I just want to repeat something about the spirit of love and generosity of the people here.
With the receipt of their fertilizer – people are asked to ‘give back’ about 10 pounds of corn from their last harvest. But please keep in mind; if they cannot do that, they will still get their fertilizer!!
But in both of the communities – Virginia and Corozal – by the time we arrived with our trucks full of fertilizer, the communities had already re-bagged their gift of corn. And it was bountiful! And after all the fertilizer was down-loaded from the big trucks, the community people joyfully hefted the bags of corn up into the same trucks to bring back to the Pastoral House.
So what the heck do we do with all that corn?? LOTS of it gets given away to the poorest of the poor who come to the Pastoral House door. And remember … the poorest of the poor donated this corn. They have the joy of being able to give back to those less fortunate. And for everyone I’ve heard and asked, it IS a joy to be able to give.
Some of the corn gets sold. We cannot keep it here for long because it would get ruined. We have no storage for this. But this money then goes into a fund that purchases basic food stuffs for the people that come to the door needing food. When people come hungry – or they come and say their children have not eaten today, no one leaves here empty handed! If we don’t have something in our cub-boards, we run across the street and buy it.
And we do it in the name of the communities that so kindly gave of THEIR bounty.
The poor of our communities know the meaning of ‘feed the poor’ – and they do just that with their gift of corn given out of their gratitude for their gift of fertilizer.
What a blessing – you in Iowa – that give so generously to your brothers and sisters here in El Salvador. And what blessed people we serve who turn around and bless others with their bounty.
Amen and amen.
Just FYI: The following communities were given fertilizer by their partner/sister church in Iowa this year:
San Francisco, Virginia, Corozal, Muñoces, Casa de Zinc, El Recreo, San Lorenzo and Alejandría.
The following communities have no partner/sister church – and the Pastoral House has no funds to help them to puchase fertilizar:
Las Delicias, Colon, Loma Alta, San Felipe, El Tablón, Santa Cruz, Concepción and Talpetates
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