mosaic - Spring 2015

A publication of Canadian Baptist Ministries

Spring 2015

Also in this issue

Short-term Mission:

4

Navigating Culture

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

14

The Silent Killer: Stories of Fighting Chagas Disease in Bolivia

18

Give Us Our Daily Bread: Food Security in India

mosaic is published three times a year by Canadian Baptist Ministries. Copies are distributed free of charge. Bulk quantities available by request.

c o n ta c t 7185 Millcreek Drive Mississauga, ON l5n 5r4 Tel: 905.821.3533 mosaic@cbmin.org www.cbmin.org Managing Editor Jennifer Lau Editor Laurena Zondo

cut to the chaise

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Short-term Mission: to go or not to go?

God changed my life through a short-term mission, and ever since I have lived more simply and generously.

vs

Wouldn’t it be better to take the money we spend on short-term missions and just send it directly to those in need?

Art Direction Gordon Brew

This is the sort of lively debate that is taking place in the North American church Connect with us

www.cbmin.org @canadianbaptist facebook.com/cbmin.org

about the efficacy and wisdom of short-term mission (STM).

Estimates indicate that over 1.5 million people from North America go on a short-term mission trip every year, spending approximately $2 billion. That’s a lot of people – and money!

CBM believes that the benefit of STMs is this: there is nothing else that so powerfully helps a Canadian individual or church develop a global vision. Our exposure to different cultures causes us to learn about our own culture, and how to be a follower of Jesus in it. We may discover how materialistic and consumeristic we are. We may be challenged to live as stewards of the resources given to us by God. And we are encouraged to see that God is active all over the world!

At the same time, there are downsides to poorly-run STMs. They cannot replace longterm relationships, financial investment, and strategies. They may disempower local communities if rich Canadians parachute in for a week to do a few things and then leave.

An STM may harm the local labour economy if not thoughtfully planned out. For example, if STM participants are painting a church does that mean local painters will now be unemployed?

At CBM we are very aware of the harm that poorly-planned and run STMs can bring. We work hard to ensure that our STMs are part of a larger strategy of global discipleship that brings transformation to churches in Canada and elsewhere. Our STMs are embedded in longer-term partnerships that empower individuals, churches, and communities. And our international partners like meeting Canadians and working with them!

Grace and peace, Rev. Sam Chaise Executive Director of CBM As partners in the Canadian Baptist family we exist to serve the local church in its grassroots mission. Together we impact our communities and beyond through the love of Christ.

Connect with Sam and what’s happening in CBM’s global network of ministry.

Follow Sam on Twitter @samchaise_cbm.

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Summer 2015

Global experience pre-flight checklist 1

Am I prepared to go as a learner?

Want to build relationships?

Open to being changed?

Go

No

learn.. .............................. 4 Navigating Culture

10 Leaving the Revolution: An Update on Cuba

2

I will go with curiousity, not judgment and to be respectful of other cultures, customs, beliefs and ways of doing things.

Go

No

3

I WILL NOT do a job that people can do for themselves.

Instead I will do it with them, to build partnership and learn from one another.

Go

No

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5

Do I understand that rich people (materially) can be poor, and need to learn from those who are poor (materially) but rich in other ways?

Go

No

I am not going to “produce” a result, but to “pursue” a process of walking with others so that we are all better stewards of our lives and communities.

Go

No

just think......................12

14 The Silent Killer: Stories of Fighting Chagas Disease in Bolivia 18 Give Us Our Daily Bread: Food Security in India

the view.........................21 A Dedicated Health Worker in India

see ................................ 22 Parting Shot 23 Facing the Lens: Filling the Frame with Sensitivity touch............................. 24 Grassroots Heroes

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I plan to keep growing as a global disciple. To find ways to be involved in local mission. To financially invest in mission.

To learn more, and not stop learning when I return home.

Go

No

You are clear to go! However, there may still be bumps along the way.

Buckle up and enjoy the experience.

At this time please use the exit nearest your seat.

Thank you.

mosaic is a community forum of local and global voices united by a shared mission. mosaic will serve as a catalyst to stimulate and encourage passionate discipleship among Canadian Baptists and their partners.

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mosaic—summer 2015

IG AN CRA pment Develo

BY BRI o ership i ad ar or, Le of Ont Direct n Baptist a Canadi c e & Queb

mosaic—summer 2015

On a recent trip to serve alongside CBM partners in Lebanon, I was describing this attachment to maps. CBM Field Staff Elie Haddad just laughed. “That’s not exactly how it works here. We just don’t tend to use maps like that.”

The blank look on my face prompted him to explain that the combination of topography, politics, construction, and traffic nightmares means you follow from one landmark to another.

You adapt and change routes as you see what’s happening around you. Along the road, you may decide a different destination would be a better choice. You know where you’re going by what you see along the way.

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I’ve had the privilege of being part of many short-term mission experiences over the years, mostly with Canadian Baptist Ministries’ partners, spending time in 14 different countries where CBM has worked. There in that conversation about Lebanese travel planning, I spotted a metaphor for lessons I’d been learning through those experiences over the years.

As a North American person, raised on beautifully drawn atlases with time estimates right in the back of the book, I may want my life and work and ministry experiences to mirror that predictability.

I want new cultures to follow the rules I’ve come to expect. But what if the best way to experience the world is more of the Lebanese way? What if I could navigate culture, and navigate these short-term mission experiences by moving from landmark to landmark, adapting and finding new and better destinations all along the way?

Based on the experiences I’ve had through being on a dozen or so international trips with CBM, some key landmarks have become apparent to me, helping to navigate culture, and finding the way to meaningful ministry and new friendships with global partners. Let me offer some I’ve spotted along my travels, because I suspect you’ll find these, too.

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Before ever undertaking a cross-cultural experience, whether here in Canada or internationally, realize all that you don’t know, and do some intentional study about the people group or country or circumstances where you’re headed. While I may not be able to hold a foolproof map in my hand, I can learn the basics of what I may encounter ahead. Do I know the basics of politics, foods and customs of the place? Do I have some idea of things like weather and major locations I’ll visit? Even if I don’t know the language, I can at least learn some basic greetings and how to say “thanks.”

The goal of learning ahead of time is not to think that I understand on any substantial level. It is to lay down a roadbed for what I’ll learn along the way. The goal is to know enough so I might have some categories for interpreting what I’ll experience along the way. If I know for instance, that the current government of a Latin American country is a left-leaning populist one, then when I hear either strong support for similar attitudes (or for that matter angry opposing ones) from a new friend there, I can be wiser in how I listen and more careful in how I respond.

If I’ve begun this trek with an attitude of preparation and learning, throughout the experience I need to continue as a learner, first and foremost. Many who head to a shortterm mission experience, and many who are supporting those who go, ask with great urgency the question, “So what are you going to do on this trip?” Our tendency is to think we must first do something for others. More often, the first task of a short-term mission participant is to be a learner. Find out all you can about the partners you’re meeting. Seek to understand the challenges and opportunities of believers in that place.

Wonder about all you’re seeing. Be a learner first. Then be an encourager, cheerleading for the ministry you see. Then, be a servant, taking cues about what you can contribute from the partners and new friends you make. And then, maybe then, you can bring some expertise to the situation, something you can uniquely contribute.

The idea of bringing expertise points to one of the road hazards that’s often encountered on a short-term experience: the tendency we have to bring what we believe others need from us without asking first. Too often we pre-package North American solutions or approaches and subsequently we undermine work being done by local leaders and mission partners. If our goal is primarily to “do” there’s a danger that we’ll do the wrong things. Perhaps your experience will have a significant “doing” component, like leading a children’s program or building something. Excellent! But be a learner first. Being a learner is the first landmark on this road.

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Maybe there’s a festival or a wedding or a political rally happening. Signs of local culture are all around when you’re on a mission experience. Are you seeking to engage with the wonders of how communities work together and how people understand each other? Are you grappling with how communication flows? Are you aware of simple manners and ways of greeting others? What’s likely to be seen as rude or offensive?

And then take that even deeper: think about some of the cultural values that are present where you are.

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David Livermore, in his course, Customs of the World, points to values like individualism vs. collectivism: is this culture more about “I” than about “we?”

Or is communication direct or indirect: how much meaning is carried by words or how much is conveyed by gesture or context? What about attitudes toward time: is the clock the arbiter of all things, or do relationships say when we start and finish something? In terms of authority, are people here interested in hierarchies or are we all on an equal level? The list of these sorts of traits could go on. We all tend to

be so immersed in our own cultures, that when someone holds other values, we first see their approach as “wrong.” Livermore urges that we fight that tendency by asking ourselves the question, “I wonder what could be behind that?” The account of the travels of early Christians from the book of Acts shows how, for the sake of the Gospel, believers crossed cultural barriers all the time, allowing their message to be translated into the idioms of different languages and customs and practices. How does our account read with regard to crossing barriers?

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The Wall is as much a landmark as any other experience. In all the attitudes of adapting to culture, most people encounter at least a moment of feeling overwhelmed by all the effort, by the hard things witnessed, simply by experiencing all that is new and different. Can’t I just relax? Do I have to learn one more thing? I can’t process any more stories of human need! Some simply shut down emotionally. Some try to downplay the significance of what they’ve seen and experienced.

Some turn on other team members with anger. That landmark calls for talking it through with others, praying it through with God, understanding what has so burdened you.

The Wall is actually a sign that the short-term experience is doing its work in you, and most often, that indeed God is doing his work in you. When I can push through the challenges and remain open to God’s work in me and in those around me, the possibilities are remarkable. The imbalance I feel at the Wall becomes a place of vulnerability where God can teach me. My awareness of growth becomes a place where I have more to offer others, both during the mission experience and upon my return home.

A day or so after Elie taught me about his approach to navigating, as we wound our way along the hillside, he pulled up in front of a tiny bookstore. He returned with a small map for me, downloaded by the store owner. “Better?” he asked. Now we both laughed at my issues. But before we started driving, he asked, “So where are we now?” I looked out the window. I saw the shop that roasted the pistachios where we’d stopped before. I saw that interesting roundabout with the fountain and sculpture I’d commented on yesterday.

There was that police checkpoint. And I spoke the name of the community where we were. I brought the map home as a souvenir, but I needed it much less. Someone had helped me learn to navigate by the landmarks.

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N O I T U L O V E R E H LEAVING T An Update on Cuba

by Terry Smith,CBM’s Director of International Partnerships

by Terry Smith,CBM’s Director of International Partnerships

“THERE IS A WALL AROUND THIS ISLAND AND IT’S CALLED THE US EMBARGO,” I suggested to a group of Cuban pastors recently, “and soon, that wall will collapse. Are you and your churches ready for everything that is going to come flooding in?”

We were meeting in the house church of Rev. Javier Perez, President of the Fraternity of Cuban Baptist Churches (FIBAC), CBM’s newest global partner, to discuss the future of CBM’s ministry on this island that has been painfully isolated from economic development for 56 years. Over the past three years, we have been forging a new way of working in mutuality for the spiritual, social and economic development of the local communities where FIBAC churches are present. They are a dynamic and passionate, yet near povertystricken, group. I stand in admiration of the way this progressive Baptist fraternity has pursued its mission, despite the grave hardships they have experienced, most of which are the result not only of the embargo, but also the antiquated centralist policies of the Castro regime.

“Terry, you are only partly right,” replied Pastor Maykel, one of the members of FIBAC’s Executive Council, “because inside that wall which is the embargo is an even stronger, more tenacious wall which our own leaders have

erected. Positive change and progress will only come when there is a breach not only in the outer wall, but also the inner wall. And frankly, the tidal wave of change coming will bring both the best and the worst elements of Western culture.”

In the ensuing conversations, I learnt that the mood of Cuba has changed drastically. While the older guard holds dearly to the Communist ideology of ‘la revolución’ espoused by the Castro brothers and incarnated in the images of Che Guevara, the younger generations see only the dismal failure of the State to meet their most pressing human needs. The poverty of the most routine goods in any store (we visited three towns to find a tube of toothpaste for purchase), the dilapidated state-owned factories, the braindrain of Cuba’s educated elite (doctors, it is commonly said, are Cuba’s number one export), the inordinate number of people coveting jobs in the tourist sector where they can obtain the more desired Cuban convertible pesos (the currency for foreigners) are all testimonies of a longing for something other.

In secret discussions brokered by Pope Francis with Cuban and American leaders over the past seven months, a normalization of relations and a new openness is prevailing. But what will this mean for the churches in Cuba?

… the tidal wave of change coming will bring both the best and the worst elements of Western culture.

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FIBAC, along with many other Protestant denominations are bracing themselves for a rapid growth in mission-based tourism. Before long, the queues of North American Christians flocking to Cuba will potentially overwhelm the small churches which have had so little for so long, as was evident when the Iron Curtain fell in Eastern Europe. And too often, our good intentions can bring bad practices. In a social context that has, for 56 years, favoured collectivism versus individualism, our Western mentality that places “me” at the centre of our deepest longings will likely destabilize communities, families and churches. Our benevolence can so easily be patronizing in a culture that has grown up resisting American imperialism. The Church is not immune from such sentiments. How can we help our Canadian churches cultivate a spirit of being co-learners and not dispensers of fast-andeasy charity?

Secondly, and we have already witnessed this, wide open doors into Cuba also imply easy access for the departure of gifted Cuban leaders seeking a higher standard of living, better education for their children and more opportunities for promotion.

Thirdly, our partnership with Cuban churches should encourage us to see how our Western,

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How can we help our Canadian churches cultivate a spirit of being co-learners and not dispensers of fast-and-easy charity?

consumer-driven culture has entrenched us in very un-Christian forms of idolatry. Stripped of anything but the hope of the Gospel in a time of dire hardship, we can learn from our Cuban friends what true discipleship really is, and how to live with less and sacrifice more for others. I was struck by a story shared by one of the local church leaders who told us that all her church had to offer the poor in her village were the hard wooden benches (all 6 of them!) so that when a funeral took place in the village square, the people would have a place to sit. Her faith and generosity leaves us all humbled and eager to live more simply.

However, as in any partnership, we are mindful not to put our Cuban church partner on a pedestal. They too have their struggles and tensions. They are small and young with rough growing pains. But we believe that God has called us to walk alongside them in this time of transition, helping one another become something different – embracing Christ and a broken world through word and deed.

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just think

A V_ C AT I O N Your perspective fills in the blank

O

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THE

SILENT KILLeR IES OF FIGHTING STOR

cHAGAS DISEASE I N B OLI V I A

Chagas disease is little-known in North America, but it’s estimated that 14 million people carry the parasite globally. See what Canadian Baptists are doing to help combat this deadly disease in Bolivia.

MOST CANADIANS ARE UNAWARE of the threat of Chagas disease that affects people in 21 countries of Latin America. Chagas parasites infiltrate the tissues of the heart, digestive organs and even the brain. The World Health Organization indicates that up to 30% of infected people will die of heart failure and another 10% will suffer digestive and neurological disorders.

Bolivia has the largest number of cases in the world with about 10 percent of the population infected. The disease preys upon the poor who live in inadequate housing. It is spread by the vinchuca insect that lives in the cracks of mud brick walls and the spaces around thatched or loosely tiled roofs. The insect comes out at night and bites people who are sleeping. The initial signs of infection are a slight fever, headaches and the swelling of an eye.

After a short time, the disease lies dormant for at least a decade before it starts to debilitate and kill people. The drugs that treat Chagas are most effective in the early years, when victims do not realize that they have been infected.

CBM works alongside our partner in Bolivia to provide assistance to communities where people are dying from this disease. The Chagas project is located in the areas around Mizque, where it’s estimated up to 80% of adults are infected. Along with

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st o ry

#1

a LocAL ResPoNSe pAStORS

The centre of the response in Bolivia is through local churches like this tiny rural one in a poor and heavily infected area.

These churches are playing a key role in the prevention and treatment of Chagas disease.

EDUcAtoRs

They hold awareness meetings in the community to share news of the disease and how it can easily be prevented, with house repairs such as plaster walls, cement floors, and tin roofs, that protect the family from further infection.

Bolivia has the largest number of cases in the world with about 10 percent of the population infected. the valued contributions of several parties, including the Ministry of Health, Doctors Without Borders, and the local government, we provide assistance through the funding of home renovations and the sending of Canadian and Bolivian volunteer teams to work alongside the homeowners. This includes putting in cement floors, plastered walls, tight doors and windows and the installation of ceilings.

The following three stories show how Canadian Baptists from accross the country have responded and affected real change in word and deed.

nurses

They encourage people to get tested. Early detection of infection is crucial as Chagas disease is treatable. In children and youth, development of the disease is much easier to deal with and can take only about one year to cure. If left untreated for many years, treatment can take up to five years to decrease some of the debilitating affects of the disease.

HELpeRS

Their efforts are supported by CBM and short-term mission teams from Canadian Baptist churches who assist with house repairs that are unaffordable by poor families who are most at risk.

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#2

a ChurcH Responds

by Gordon King, CBM’s Resource Specialist

Other teams from LCBC travelled to Bolivia in 2011 and 2013. They worked side by side with community members and Bolivian volunteers.

Deep relationships were formed in spite of the barriers of language and culture. There was a beautiful dignity seen in those whose homes had been retrofitted, as they were able to show the teams what they had done with their homes, and how they had been kept up since first made safe.

Some of the vivid memories include watching a widow serving the team chicken head soup, which for her and her family was a precious and rare meal with meat; a peasant farmer who in thankfulness and generosity wanted to give the team bags of beans from his crop; the uncomfortable exposure to extreme poverty; and the satisfaction of completing the 600th home of the Chagas project.

LCBC is currently raising funds to send its fourth team to Bolivia to contribute to the Chagas project.

LEDUC IS A VIBRANT URBAN AREA on the edge of Edmonton. The city has experienced unprecedented economic and population growth in the past decade. Leduc Community Baptist Church (LCBC), led by Pastor Tim Kerber, is an exciting place to explore and nurture faith.

The congregation speaks about being changed

by Christ in order to change the world. CBM’s Chagas project in Bolivia is an expression of the church’s commitment to act as God’s agents of change in a broken world.

The first group of Canadian Baptist volunteers to participate in the Chagas project traveled from LCBC in 2008. “We were the guinea pigs,” fondly recalls team member Jake Giesbrecht.

Local people marvelled that “gringos” from Canada would travel such a distance to care for people they had never met. Team members quickly developed skills mixing and applying plaster, although the first days there was more on the floor than on the walls. They also dug out dirt floors, collected and placed river rock, and mixed and poured concrete; all by hand! But despite the hard work, they vowed to return.

“There is something powerful about going back again,” shares team member Rob Unrau. “We know the conditions, we know the work, but it doesn’t matter. The cost is small in comparison to the work God is doing in Mizque. This is about more than making homes safe, it is about sharing the love of God.” “One of the other great experiences was connecting to the local church…Five nights we spent worshipping at the church…each night we went we saw more and more people arrive, until our final night when the church could not hold everyone who came. CBM Field Staff later told us that our presence and singing were a great encouragement to the local church.”

LCBC volunteers have experienced that witness to faith takes place through word and deed.

The Chagas project has opened doors to be able to speak about faith in Bolivia and Canada. In addition, each Chagas trip has provided a context in which volunteers from LCBC have formed deeper personal relationships with one another.

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#3

liFe ChANgE

by Rev. Adrian Gardner, Associate Pastor, Grand Bay Baptist Church

IN MAY 2010, I had the opportunity to study

I came home with a renewed sense of what the gospel looks like and a special place in my heart for the Chagas project.

Adrian Gardner, pictured centre top right, and the 2010 CBM Praxis team in El Alto, Bolivia.

and reflect on integral mission with theologian Dr. Rene Padilla and a team of pastors and seminary students as part of CBM’s Praxis program. The study was coupled with the chance to observe the theory being put into practice by the local church in Bolivia. We witnessed how Canadian Baptists are partnering with the church in Bolivia in order to help enable local congregations to implement integral mission in their own contexts.

The example that impacted me most was the Chagas project. I was overwhelmed as I met families who had benefitted so greatly from the project. I was moved as I played with children whose lives would no longer be cut short by this disease because of CBM’s partnership with their community’s local church. I was struck by the injustice of the sheer numbers of people affected by this disease and the fact that most North Americans (myself included at that time) have never even heard of the disease. I came home with

a renewed sense of what the gospel looks like and a special place in my heart for the Chagas project.

Integral mission became central in my approach to ministry. As pastor of Grand Bay Baptist Church (GBBC) in Saint John, New Brunswick, I had the opportunity to preach and teach around these themes and share stories from my experience – and this all helped us as a church to focus our approach to mission locally and globally. One result was an informal partnership with the Chagas project. GBBC has since sent two short-term mission teams to Bolivia and is currently preparing to send a third team in February 2016. Over the past four years, all ages in our church have rallied together, raising over $25,000 for the project.

But the story is not in the number of teams sent and dollars raised. The story is life change.

Life change personally, life change in our congregation, and life change for families in Bolivia who no longer live with the reality of this disease.

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Give Us Our Daily Bread FOOD SECURITY IN INDIA

by Stefan Cherry, Bi-vocational Church Planter in Canada and Consultant for CBM Food Security Programs in Africa and India

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IF JESUS IS THE DOOR, THEN PRAYER IS THE KEY. It's a powerful concept that I’ve tried to incorporate into my daily life since accepting Christ and being discipled and re-baptized by a small Baptist church in rural Cameroon in 1991. Prayer has led me to follow Jesus from Cameroon to Cornell University, from Cornell to Mozambique, from Mozambique to Tyndale Seminary, into marriage and family life in Canada. In 2008, prayer led my wife and I to move from Guelph to the Vanier neighbourhood of Ottawa to plant a multicultural church where we've been serving and learning together for the past 6 1/2 years.

As a bi-vocational church planter with two young children, prayer led my wife and me to our knees to discern how we could keep paying the bills while serving the Lord in such a low-income neighbourhood. In the summer of 2012, we were specifically asking God to show a way to use my gifts, education and passion for international agriculture in a way that honours and glorifies Him. Within two weeks, I was contacted "out of the blue" by CBM and shortly thereafter I was joining a couple of agronomists from Nova Scotia to go to Rwanda to help facilitate a food security workshop with CBM partners from DR Congo, Rwanda and Kenya.

That successful trip led CBM to ask if I might be willing to go to India to work with CBM's partners in developing a Canadian Foodgrains Bank-funded food security project in Andhra Pradesh state. My first thought was to pray, "Lord, give me wisdom as I seek to serve you and your people in India". The Lord reminded me that one of my old professors from Cornell had been involved in promoting a new system of rice intensification (SRI) developed in Madagascar while I had been working on my graduate studies. I reconnected with him and he put me in touch with SRI contacts in Hyderabad, India. The trip was a success and, after more prayer and hard work, the Foodgrains Bank approved the project and the ball began to roll.

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gocbm 1 day ago

I just returned to India this past November to see the fruit borne out of prayer and hard work. In the first year of the project the number of demonstration farm plots has gone from two to 150. Not only did the farmers appreciate the reduced water (80% less) and fewer inputs (80% fewer seeds, and fewer pesticides in many cases), they were also enjoying higher yields and, according to the women (who do the lion's share of the work), less labour.

food_security_india gocbm Reduced inputs + less labour = higher yields! #foodgrains_bank

Write a comment...

I just returned to India this past November to see the fruit borne out of prayer and hard work...Not only did the farmers appreciate the reduced input...they were also enjoying higher yields and, according to the women, less labour.

gocbm 1 day ago

food_security_india gocbm Rice cultivation using new methods has proved effective. Weighing the yield of less inputs.

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gocbm 1 day ago

A few weeks before my visit, the state of Telangana (where there is another CBM/Foodgrains Bank project) was hard-hit by a cyclone. The farmers who had practiced SRI identified that their rice withstood the cyclone and the traditional rice was knocked down. We also saw with our own eyes that the SRI rice fields were untouched by grasshopper attacks, and fields under traditional rice cultivation right next to the SRI fields had, in some cases, been devastated.

In a country where labour costs are going up quickly, where many CBM farmer beneficiaries don't even own the farms they are cultivating, and the profit margin for rice cultivation keeps getting smaller and smaller, any savings they can get out of production go straight to the family purse. Food security is a growing challenge for people in rural India. Let's pray that SRI continues to increase yields with few inputs for CBM's partner beneficiaries as the project moves into its second year. To God be the glory, great things He has done.

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INDIA Health worker, Sujatha, shares about some of the learning taking place among families living in 18 villages as the result of CBM's nutrition project.

[above] Sujatha, one of the dedicated health workers in a CBM nutrition project in India

A little about myself…

I am a health worker in a community-based nutrition project, which impacts 540 families. I love to see the difference this project is making in their lives and how it is changing the community for the better.

to prepare these berries because they are very sour, but they help with vitamins and better iron uptake. Of late, we have also been talking about moringa leaf which is a wonder leaf, equal to the apple in benefits, and using different pulses and cereals.

A major health concern is…

Another misconception is that mothers don’t allow their newborn babies to take colostrum; they squeeze it and throw it out and so in first few days of life give water or another woman’s milk to their baby.

We talk about how babies need this colostrum for their immune system.

Anemia is a major problem and malnutrition rates are high. We have medical camps and talk with women about their health and their children’s health. We encourage them to eat vegetables, especially leafy ones, and fruit high in vitamins A and C which many Indian foods are deficient in…we have iron deficient soils and there are many stillborn babies or children with sub-normal growth and so we are teaching people to use iodized salt. We also meet with girls and one of the important topics is about reproductive health and the need to have calcium rich foods, so their bodies are healthy and able to face the challenges as they mature.

Some common misconceptions our teaching is helping to address are…

People think that eating seasonal fruit, like mango and others, will give them disease like colds or indigestion…we encourage them to eat plenty of fruit, whatever season, because they need Vitamin C. We are also teaching them to grow plants at home like Indian gooseberry, and giving each home plants, and demonstrating how

Another misconception is that they feel that if they take their children to immunization camp, they will get sick, so we talk to them about how it is making the body immune to all disease that may attack the child later.

One thing I really like to see in this project is…

This project helps me to talk to families. I hope that they can eat well, and have very good health, to enjoy their lives and live better.

Our vision is to spread to other villages with these messages.

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see

parting shot WHERE

Kenya WHAT

This picture is of Ester and her three children, Mary, Paul, and Henry. Ester lost her husband to AIDS. Her in-laws blamed her and forced them to leave their village and return to her parents. Through the Guardians of Hope (GOH) program she is getting medical assistance as she is now HIV-positive. The GOH program is also assisting with school fees for her children. It’s a positive story of how CBM’s support through a local Kenyan church is making an impact in the community.

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FACING THE LENS

FILLING THE FRAME WITH SENSITIVITY

by Gordon Brew, CBM Communications Manager

Patrick Maina, Guardians of Hope program officer in Kenya assists Paul with taking a picture of Gordon as Henry and Mary look on.

Gordon catches the moment on his phone's camera.

I WAS VERY EXCITED FOR MY FIRST TRIP to “the field” with CBM. It was an incredible opportunity to see our work and visit with the people who benefit directly from CBM’s ministries.

As the Communications Manager at CBM, my job is sharing compelling stories of impact. However, to make that happen, someone needs to go and find the story.

My whole career has been in advertising and design. I’ve art directed TV shoots, model shoots and countless numbers of heavily-styled fast food shoots. In other words, I had experience behind the camera, looking for composition, light, patterns…just hold steady and click. What I was not prepared for was looking through the eye-piece of the camera and seeing the reality of pain and brokenness. I moved around Ester’s small plot shooting their living conditions. It was discomforting to say the least.

In an effort to connect and reduce worlds of distance I handed over my camera to the kids. With the help of the Guardians of Hope Program Officer Patrick Maina, the tables were turned. I was now being pointed to and looked at. The kids lit up as they each had a turn taking shots of me. They had never used a camera before and giggled when they saw me appear on the screen. It was only a tiny moment, but it literally changed the point of view, and laughing together (or at me) changed the entire dynamic of the situation.

The people and places you view through the lens of your camera are not just physical. You are also seeing through other lenses: cultural, generational, perhaps emotional. Keep your eyes open, and be aware of how these moments are changing your point of view.

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grassroots heroes

Is there a to you?

she that is important

Let your world know who SHE is and why SHE MATTERS to you at shematters.cbmin.org

1. Download, print out and finish the sentence:

She Matters to me because…

2. Take a selfie (ideally with your special ‘SHE’) 3. Share what you care about on social media.

You’ve helped girls get an education.

NOW IT’S MOM’S TURN! She Matters, CBM’s campaign for gender equality, seeks to educate, equip and empower some of the world’s most marginalized girls and women who are most often denied the chance to develop their gifts and abilities.

The first phase of She Matters focused on improving access to education for girls. The second phase, launching this fall, provides women in communities with access to literacy skills, health and nutrition learning, business training, and credit opportunities.

She Matters Too! Join today.

Learn more at

shematters.cbmin.org

It’s a wonderful way to honour the contribution of a special woman of influence in your own life while at the same time highlighting the crucial role that women have in society.

Selfie’s not your thing?

Share in words who and why SHE MATTERS to you.

Remember to hashtag your posts with #CBMSheMatters and keep growingthe number of people championing the cause.

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Canadian Baptist Ministries 7185 Millcreek Drive Mississauga, Ontario L5N 5R4