Jesus teaches us, in The Parable of the Talents, to make good use of what He has given us. In Y-Malawi’s most recent project, that is what we are aiming to do. This project’s objective is to establish a farm with the aim of combating the hunger season in Malawi. Hunger season is a period of time lasting up to several months when the corn flour that Malawians harvested earlier in the year has run out. Since they can only plant corn once a year when it rains the most, they are often rendered hungry if they didn’t harvest enough or it didn’t rain as much.
To aid this issue, Y-Malawi purchased 96 acres of land to plant corn in order to provide nutrition throughout the year. This is part of Y-Malawi’s long-term plan to have the areas we’re ministering in function independently and provide for themselves. We managed to plant our first crop, corn, last year, and with the rains that Malawi received the past few months, the corn is growing well as seen in the picture above.
Our vision moving forward is to plant a second crop after this corn is harvested, using a temporary irrigation system to keep it growing. In addition to this, we have also built a new greenhouse to grow vegetables year-round. Ultimately, both these agricultural projects will allow the people in these areas to be self-sustaining. In Genesis 1:29 God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” Through these projects, we are putting to good use the seeds and earth that he gave us.