by P. Jorge Araujo
As reading the book: Issues Facing Christians Today1, one of the highlights to me was when quoted by the leader of Tearfund, George Hoffman: “They can’t eat prayer”. I was astonished and as hard as this might be, it is true. Hungry people need real food and they cannot eat prayer. Prayer is important, of course, but we cannot despise that we need to feed the hungry as Jesus did (Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6:30-44; Luke 9:12-17).
This is why WNI fight hunger and poverty through sustainable agriculture and vulnerable communities worldwide. Sustainable agriculture is one of ways to enter into an unreached people group, with the purpose of empowering the community, producing healthy food, through a system less aggressive to the environment and economically accessible to small farmers. For this, is indispensable training, workshops, and education for the community with agriculture professionals (whether farmers, agricultural technicians, agribusiness, zootechnicians, veterinarians, engineering area: environmental, agronomists, forestry, agricultural, water resources and so one).
As an agronomist engineer, I have invested part of my vocations in a short missionary trip offered through WNI, which completely turned my world upside down. Guess what? I never regret it and it was amazing! I will share more with you later. But right now, I want to encourage you: if you work with one of the professions mentioned above (even if it is not listed) and you would like to give more than prayers, contact us. We would be glad to give you more details about our projects and trips.
My prayer right now is that as the church of the Lord, we remember that the poor cannot eat prayers. They need real food, and we can be part of it. - Priscila Jorge Araújo
Crisis calls for Action!
No matter how critical the situation is in the World now, we desire to follow God’s heart. We have decided that we will not stop the advancement of God’s given mission just because of the pandemic, on the contrary, we have felt like we have more work to do now than before! We will keep finding strategies and ways to bless others.
Suddenly, because of the global lockdowns, hundreds of thousands people lost their jobs. Meaning that they aren’t able to provide for their families anymore. Many people already living in poverty got even further under the poverty line.
Here at World Nations we are advancing the mission during this COVID19 pandemic supporting families in the rural villages in Myanmar, Northeast of Brazil, and India. It is a heartfelt desire to move beyond and believing that generosity is a sign of love in times of crisis.
At one of our initiatives called Institute of Sustainable Agriculture and Development (ISAD) in Indonesia we envision an entire technical course for sustainable agriculture and food production in order to transfer knowledge and technologies at low cost to locals, including our 80 full time seminary students.
We just celebrated the harvest of our first crop in the month of April and we hope for a continuation of vegetable production and in the short future the beginning of chicken and fish production.
Food production brings poverty alleviation and hope to an entire community. We truly believe that it is one of the keys to open doors for the Gospel of Jesus Christ among closed and unreached villages.
The joy of our first harvest in the middle of this Covid19 crisis was unmatched. In such times as this we are celebrating God’s favor at the ISAD. Our students have lived through many challenges but they are seeing God’s mighty hand operating the multiplication of their efforts.
If you also believe that food production and sustainable agriculture combined with Gospel access can transform barren villages and communities in Indonesia and in the world we would like to invite you to join our initiative today.
1 Issues Facing Christians Today, John Stott 2006
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