"Z-8"

(The following post is from Marlin Rice, a member of our Cornerstone Zambia team who travels to Serenje in order to establish the agriculture project of the Hope Center)

It was a week ago today that I returned from an 11-day trip to Zambia and a visit to the Hope Children’s Center. Zack and Randy graciously allowed me to stay with them in their combination office/kitchen/storage room/sleeping quarters. Accommodations were very tight as James and Jack also roomed there, and then a medical team of three from the University of Nebraska ate their meals with us. But my time in Serenje was filled with joy and encouragement as I worked along side both Cornerstoners and the Zambian nationals to meet the needs of the orphans.



After the worship service at Cornerstone this morning, someone asked what I was doing in Zambia. In short, I am directing the agricultural production for the Center, which I affectionately call the Z8 Project, after Zechariah 8:12-13 (The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will produce its crops, and the heavens will drop their dew. I will give all these things as an inheritance to the remnant of this people. As you have been an object of cursing among the nations, O Judah and Israel, so will I save you, and you will be a blessing. Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong.) This passage from Zechariah 8 is taken as a prayer of hope, that the land would produce abundant food for the orphans, which suffer from the devastation of AIDS, and that the orphans would become a blessing to their nation through the grace of our Lord and the strong labor of the agricultural workers.



Our vision is that the Hope Children’s Center Agricultural Project (Z8) will become a self-sustaining and economically productive resource managed by Zambian nationals for the direct benefit of the Center’s orphans and to the glory of God’s kingdom. Two of the goals are: 1) Cornerstone will establish and develop effective partnership with Hope Children’s Center leaders to train and support farm managers for the Z8 Agricultural Project; and 2) Cornerstone and Z8 farm managers will cooperate to improve food security, natural resource management, nutrition, and health for the children of Hope Children’s Center.

These are ambitious goals, but I believe realistic. As noted in a previous blog, we have many crops planted at the Center: maize (white corn), sweet potatoes, dry beans (similar to pinto beans), groundnuts (peanuts), and cassava. Tomatoes, cabbage and rape (an edible green leafy vegetable) should have been planted this past week. Sunday, a young man helping to manage the farm, and I measured the plots of crops. The best I could determine (because none of the plots were ‘square’) is that we have about 8.9 acres currently in agricultural production. The maize and dry beans should be ready for harvest in 30-45 days; sweet potatoes will be harvested in 3 months. Hopefully in the near future an abundance of food will be ready to supplement the diet of the orphans of Serenje.

Marlin Rice