Intended For Good

Intended for Good

Helping Farmers on Four Continents

John F. Dieterly, Jr.

Author’s Voice Publishing McPherson, Kansas

Intended for Good: Helping Farmers on Four Continents

By John F. Dieterly, Jr. Copyright Š 2016 by John F. Dieterly, Jr. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except for brief quotations in reviews, without the written permission of the author. The author may be contacted at jfdieterly@ gmail.com.

Editing and cover design by Jan Gilbert Hurst Published by Author’s Voice Publishing 1315 East Euclid McPherson, KS 67460 620-245-0009 ISBN: 978-0-9898938-8-6 LCCN: 2016901768 Printed and bound in the United States of America by Mennonite Press, Inc., Newton, Kansas. ii

Dedication This book is dedicated to all my co-workers and all the project participants in the many areas where I have worked—I hope they learned as much from me as I learned from them.

It is also dedicated to my grandsons, John and Charlie, with the hope that some day they will read the stories in this book and remember when “Pop-pop” told them that story, perhaps at the dinner table.

Acknowledgments I want to thank all our neighbors and friends who came to help us recover from the tragic barn fire. Their presence had a profound impact on me, inspiring me to want to reach out and help others, as they had helped my family.

Thanks to Dr. Alfred C. Bartholomew, Dr. Reg Helfferich, Jan van Hoogstraaten, Thurl Metzger, and many others who made it possible for me to “be there” to help farmers in Latin America, Africa, and so many other places around the world.

And thanks to everyone who has been encouraging me to write down my experiences and get this book printed so that they can read “the whole story.”

Most of all, thanks to my loving and supportive wife, Miriam, who was willing to travel half-way around the world with me as we pursued this dream together.

iii

Contents Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Section 1: How Did All This Begin?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 1: Bad Things Happen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Chapter 2: Lessons Learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Chapter 3: Moving from a Dream to Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Section 2: Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Chapter 4: Africa Instead of South America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Chapter 5: Our Arrival in Ghana. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Chapter 6: Ghana: the Setting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Chapter 7: The Work of the Christian Service. . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Committee (CSC) Chapter 8: But What Did I Do?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Chapter 9: Friends and Co-workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Chapter 10: Treasures from Ghana. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Section 3: Belize. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Chapter 11: The Transition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Chapter 12: Belize: the Setting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Chapter 13: Moving to Belize. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Chapter 14: Work in Belize: 4-H Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Chapter 15: Work in Belize: Other Programs . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Chapter 16: Friends and Co-workers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Photographs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Chapter 17: Treasures from Belize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Section 4: And Other Lands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Chapter 18: Another Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Chapter 19: The Work of a Regional Director . . . . . . . . . . 221 Chapter 20: Other Project Areas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Epilogue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 iv

Preface

Through the ages many stories have been told to help us begin to understand why “bad things happen to good people.” The story of Job in the Old Testament presents one perspective, but the story of Joseph, told in Genesis (Chapters 37 to 50) gives another perspective, although this is not the main message of the story of Joseph. We get only a glimpse of this lesson as the story comes to an end and Joseph is able to look back and see how the events of his life, even the hardships, all worked together to bring him to an wonderful conclusion.

Most people are familiar with the story of Joseph, how he was favored by his father and even given a special coat to wear. This special treatment and his arrogant behavior resulted in tremendous jealousy on the part of his brothers, so that in a rage they kidnapped him and sold him into slavery in Egypt. He experienced more hardships in Egypt, but in time, he came into a position of power, which he used to retaliate against his brothers when they were facing hard times due to a famine in the land. Eventually Joseph and his brothers were reconciled, and as Joseph looked back on his experiences he told his brothers, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.” (Genesis 50:20, NRSV) I would think that Joseph did not have such positive thoughts as he experienced his brothers’ anger, as he was taken into slavery, or as he languished in an Egyptian jail for a crime he did not commit. But looking back on these things, he could see that they all fell into place to allow him, through his position of power in Egypt, to save his family and, as it came to pass, to save the nation of Israel.

v

S ection O N E

How Did All This Begin?

CH A P TER ON E

Bad Things Happen

I was not sold as a slave into Egypt, but one of my earliest memories was a family tragedy, a devastating barn fire that changed the course of my life. I was eight years old at the time, and although I can remember other things from my childhood, this event seems to loom over everything else in the way it changed things for my family and for me.

My great-grandfather, who was also named John Dieterly, purchased the farm in Springfield Township, Pennsylvania, when he returned from the Civil War. He had four sons, the youngest being my grandfather, Charles. When my great-grandfather decided to retire from farming he bought a house in nearby Springtown and turned the farm over to my grandfather.

My grandfather, who I called “Pappy,� did some very innovative things on the farm. My dad told me that he imported some Jersey cattle from the Isle of Jersey to improve the quality of his dairy herd. He purchased one of the earlier automobiles in the area (a Model-T Ford) and was a John Deere farm-implement dealer. Yet he did not accept some of the innovations of his time. I understand that he gave up the John Deere dealership when they began to manufacture tractors because he preferred his horses. But one of his biggest mistakes was that he did not appreciate the value of insurance, especially fire insurance.

My father was the youngest of five children. In fact, he was so much younger than his oldest sister that his oldest niece was born the year before he was born. But as had happened in the previous genera3

4

J ohn F. D ieterly, J r .

tion, the farm was gradually turned over to my dad, the youngest. This was a process that seemed to evolve over a period of quite a few years.

By the time I can remember our dairy herd, Dad had changed entirely from the Jersey breed to Guernsey, had stopped raising pigs, and had increased the number of chickens. He also managed to save enough money to buy a new John Deere tractor. Pappy resisted this change, however, and the first time they went into the field together to begin the spring plowing—Pappy with his horses and my dad with the tractor— there was a problem.

At first, the horses were faster than the tractor, putt-putting along in first gear. This pleased Pappy. He just knew those horses were better!

Then Dad tried plowing in second gear, and they went at about the same speed. Not done yet, Dad tried third gear (the tractor had six speeds forward), and he went much faster than the horses. Pappy was not at all happy and in fact, according to my dad, muttered something about “such #!@* racing” and took the horses back into the barn. They were never again brought out to the plow. Not long after that, Pappy fell and cracked his hip and had difficulty walking for several years, until he could no longer walk at all and was confined to his bedroom. But he kept the room with the window toward the barn and he still owned the farm.

Dad continued to modernize the farming operation. He installed a vacuum milking system in the barn and increased the number of milk cows. I can vaguely recall corn shocks in the field in the fall and can also remember when the old “corn binder” was replaced by a mechanical corn picker that was pulled and powered by the tractor. In mid-summer of 1953 Dad had saved enough to make a huge purchase: a new John Deere combine harvester. Even though it was not self-propelled, as modern harvesters are, it was a tremendous step forward, and Dad was very pleased to harvest the last grain of the season with his new combine.

It had been a good year. The harvests were good and the barn was filled with hay, straw, and grain. The dairy herd was producing the highest quality milk. Dad decided to take a day off and have my uncle come to milk the cows so we could travel to Philadelphia to visit one of Dad’s cousins.

I ntended for G ood

5

Before he could enjoy that brief vacation, tragedy struck. In the middle of the night, Pappy woke up and saw the barn on fire. He called my dad, who rushed out to try to save some of the cows and some of the machinery. Only two cows came out un-singed and the last three died in the fire. The rest, although saved, were so badly scorched they were sent for slaughter within a few days. Of the two that were not hurt, we kept one for our own use as a family milk cow and the other was purchased by our church and sent to Germany through a relatively new, churchrelated project called Heifer Project International. Little did I know how this organization later would become such an important part of my life.

I don’t remember very much about the night of the fire. Maybe my memory has blotted out that painful experience, or maybe I was “sheltered” from it all. I remember that my cousins in Springtown took me to their house for a day or two, but I came home and walked around with my dad. I remember seeing the charred remains of the three cows that were burned in the fire, a sight that made my stomach churn. These were cows that I patted; I had combed their tails, and now they were each a pile of charred, putrid flesh.

The tractors, the car, truck, and a few small implements parked in outbuildings were not damaged, but most of the farm equipment was stored in the barn. One vivid memory I have is watching Dad, a few days after the fire during the clean-up, wrap a chain around the hitch of that brand new combine, now a twisted, burned lump of scrap metal, and tow it out of the rubble which had been our barn. I can hardly recall my feelings, but in my mind I can still hear the loud thump as that combine crashed from the barn floor into the barnyard. And I remember a few days later in school, in a story we were reading in our workbooks, the word “fire” appeared. I took my pencil and completely blackened out that word. I didn’t even want to see it.

It was an incredibly hard time for my family, and although I was too young to fully comprehend what this meant, I knew this was a tragedy that would change our lives. In the months and years that followed I continued to learn how. The cost of replacing all that farm machinery and rebuilding the barn and machinery shed was huge, so that when I

6

J ohn F. D ieterly, J r .

wanted a bicycle it was a delightful surprise when we were able to buy a used bike for only six dollars. Almost everything we ate was produced on the farm and ice cream became a treat that was only available on those Saturday nights when the chickens laid enough eggs to provide the extra dollars to buy a half-gallon. And I learned to work—taking care of the chickens, helping to build, and within a few years learning to do field work with the tractor.

We never completely determined the cause of the fire. We had a neighbor whose oldest son was either malicious or mentally ill. The father worked in a factory while this oldest son stayed home and raised pigs. We often found the pigs in our fields. Once my dad even found the fence propped open so that the pigs could come out and graze on our crops. Eventually Dad brought home a German shepherd dog that had been mistreated and he used this rather vicious, unpredictable dog to keep this neighbor’s son away from the farm, although it didn’t seem to work the night of our barn fire. Some folks claim that they saw this young man sitting on a bank across the road laughing at the sight.

Two local fire companies came out to battle the blaze. The local fire marshal investigated the cause of the fire and assured my dad that he had reason to believe the cause was arson. During the investigation the fire marshal died suddenly from a heart attack and apparently had left no notes regarding his findings. No charges could be filed and no remuneration was possible.

Compounding the tragedy for our family, we had virtually no fire insurance. Because the farm still belonged to Pappy, he had purchased some fire insurance many years before, with the total coverage only about $200. So we lost not only the harvest, the machinery, and the cattle, but we lost the financial resources for recovery. Even at the age of eight I understood that this was a tremendous loss for the family and wondered when Mom would stop crying.

Then the people started coming.