The poor will eat and be satisfied;
they who seek the Lord will praise him.
Psalm 22:26 |
As you know, the price of food has gone up quickly and shortages are anticipated for a variety of reasons. Rice has gone up over 50% in just a few months.
 Rising food prices are an annoyance to those who can afford it, but to those who cannot, it is a life and death issue and the situation is only getting more difficult in the years ahead.
Please pray about this situation. We are working with the local pastors to find ways to help the people plant rice and beans. The land is free to use, and rain is plentiful. A small amount of capital in the hands of willing people could do wonders.
 The discipleship groups are doing well. Some of the younger kids are not being very faithful, but we have been blessed with some good leaders who are not easily discouraged.
Our ministry building is progressing. We have almost finished the fence, which had been a long project, but necessary. We also put another section of the driveway in and began working on the footings for the garage.
 We are planning on putting a fairly large shop above the veranda and garage. It will be about 20 ft by 30 ft. and will contain all of our woodworking tools. We are going to try to make wood products using the beautiful woods that they have here.
The picture to the right is a bat made out of grenadilla wood, a very hard dark wood that we can buy here for less than a dollar per board foot. This could make some very nice home accesories, picture frames, etc.
 We found out yesterday that this region is setting up a foundation that can assist us in exporting wood products without all of the government red tape.
It is still a major undertaking to develop products and markets and work on shipping and customs, but we are going to just take it slow and ask God to open doors, so that we can create jobs for these hard-working needy people.
If you have an ideas for products, please forward them to us. We have thought about items for churches such as offering plates, communion tables, pulpits, etc. We have also thought about picture frames and custom cabinet fronts for kitchens. Those would be really beautiful.
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