Sunflower Plan

We live with farmers. Farming is life here. If crops don't grow, people don't eat. It's such a great way to share the gospel since Jesus compared so much in His Word to farming. When people come to church, and we're just hanging out before the service begins, we talk about crops. When someone stops by for a visit, we talk about crops. See someone in town you know? They ask about your crops.

As for us, we've been growing sunflowers. Lots of sunflowers!! This 2 acre farm was colored in yellow for a couple of months. Oil is our greatest food expense, so we plan to press the seeds and use the oil. Because we had such a great harvest, Tyler did a bit more research on sunflowers.

Imagine this: Sunflowers need tons of sun! They would have done better without the papaya trees overhead. Also, planting the rows in a certain direction ensures the maximum amount of sun exposure. And most interesting... sunflowers rob the soil of nitrogen. Beans add nitrogen to the soil. Growing beans along with sunflowers is right next door to genius in my book. So.... next growing season, when the sun stops blazing the temps into the 130's, we're going to do a trial run on some of Bismark's empty land. His family has 100 acres that is just beginning to become restored since the war. We'll plant a few different fields using different techniques to see what works best.

AND THEN... (Pray with us about this?) Lord willing, we will use this sunflower plan to help out a bunch of our friends. We know of many villages with faithful Jesus-lovers sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. They live way way way out, and have very limited resources. Tyler has been looking into buying a seed press that we will be able to travel with. If our friends grow sunflowers, we can come at the end of harvest and spend a week pressing all the seeds. It will take a while to press since the machine won't be very big. (It has to be small enough to travel with.) We can have someone man the seed press while someone else runs a Bible conference to encourage the believers way out in the middle of nowhere Uganda and South Sudan. Depending on how many people we can get involved... maybe even a VBS! We can go village to village during harvest. Because oil is fairly expensive, and there is a high demand for it, we're hoping this will be a good plan for ourselves and for our friends.

And if you're anything like Tyler, you may scan the blog and only look for pictures. So... here ya go! :)

Our favorite farmers, Julius and Caroline.
Otherwise known as Joy and Kindness.
In this picture... they both are being treated for typhoid.
We adore these two.
That is our dream hut behind them.

After cutting the heads off,
the flowers need to hang out in sun to dry a bit.
Each dried sunflower head must be
beaten with a stick to remove the seeds.

If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.
2 Thessalonians 3:10
I may have heard that Scripture quoted
a few times around here. ;)
They really do love to help, I promise!

Julius' son, Benja, loading up empty
sunflower heads to bring to the compost pit.

Micah and Benja work really well together.

Once the seeds are removed,
they need to be winnowed which cleans out the dirt, and
dried in the sun once again.

Catherine and Caroline in front of Caroline and Julius' hut.

Can you see the roof-less hut off in the distance?
That is Bismark's.
It may be finished by Christmas.
THANK YOU JESUS!!