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Make Gardening Cool Again


I saw a clip on the news today that cut me to the heart. It was about a war torn city in Syria where 250,000 people have been cut off from supply lines. a woman and 4 children were living in destitute apartment, but they had plastic containers with vegetables growing in them. Thank God for the woman's forethought. It was all they had to eat.

Here in Panama most people have stopped growing their own food. A generation ago almost every family had a garden. Now they go to the store to buy their food. And most of the time they don't even buy fruits and vegetables. They buy rice and sugar. Of course they need jobs to have money to buy food. And jobs are scarce.

Things shift and society grows. People want to embrace new technology and the modern world. But in the process they are starving.

So we are planting a garden.

And the locals are stopping on their way by to look at it.

This is Eric, he and his friends were curious about what we were doing, so we invited them to help us pick rocks out of the soil to get it ready for planting. When they were done, we played football with them in the yard. I think he will come back again.

We want to make gardening cool again.


The problems of suffering and poverty are not easy to solve. We are trying to understand where the roots lie. I feel the only way to effect lasting change is to get to the bottom of things. I can't just keep feeding my neighbor. I will go broke and he will never learn to feed himself. So I can get him a job and he can feed himself. but what if the jobs pay too little to live on? And what if the community has a soaring unemployment rate? People still need to eat.

So is it possible to leave the farm and go into town and get a job and buy a cell phone and still grow your own food so you can supplement your income with fresh healthy food?

Of course it is.

Always trying to think of Solutions...
laura


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