Food!

Well, you may like to know what a mission’s team in Kenya might be eating. The food has been more than enough as they have literally opened up the pantries and have given us the “best ever” out of their pantries.

For example, breakfast might consists of fried monkey brains with a side of goat liver puree over slices of pineapple…yummy in my tummy!

Ok, just kidding! There aren’t any monkeys here. Kidding again! So, a typical breakfast consists of eggs in some form, grilled buttered bread, local fruit (pineapple, orange, mango, watermelon, vine-ripened bananas), and chai. Instant coffee is available for all the addicts who look forward to fresh grind when they get home (French Press for Arab Timضطظؤز Ämąn). Here’s an example of breakfast:

For lunch and dinner, rice is usually served, with some sort of meat stew (beef or chicken). Beans and/or lentils are also poured over the rice. Potatoes are served boiled or fried whole. For a vegetable, green beans and carrots together is common. Kale/collards boiled with seasonings is quite tasty. To dip in the plentiful sauces, chapati is served. Chapati is rolled flat bread made of wheat and cooked on a hot grill. Typically, our meals are cooked over wood or charcoal. Believe me ladies, it’s quite a challenge to cook the meals we are served in this way. This is an example of a lunch/dinner meal:

Chai is served with almost every meal. It is sweet and milky deliciousness made by boiling milk, adding Kenyan tea, and then filtered into a thermos. Sugar and spices are added to taste. We’ll be driving through tea country on Sunday, and the shades of green that grow on the hillsides are breathtakingly amazing.

On an exciting note, David Tarus, a leader in the community, was willing to implement a new fertilizer program based on last year’s soil test results. The maize yield was incredible! David used this new program in his poorest field, as well as his other fields. He said, “If it’s going to work on my poorest field, I want to use it on my best fields.” Here is a picture of the maize from his fields:

This is awesome maize! We sampled some maize from other farmers, and the cobs were half of this size! Last year, the yield on one of David’s 5-acre fields was 3,584 lbs. of maize per acre. This year, the new fertilizer program yielded 5,320 lbs per acre... a 48% increase! Praise the Lord!

Saturday (tomorrow), the ag students are going to lay out and plant their first “Farming God’s Way” plot in the experimental garden. They were so enthused today as they cleared and leveled the site and covered it with God’s Blanket (leaves, maize stalks, dried grasses).

In the dairy realm, we took video footage of a farmer named Thomas and the process he goes through each day to bring his milk from “udder to cooler.” It was the best ever. Be on the lookout in the near future for the final product! We want to extend a special thank you to our amazing driver, Pastor Peter Maru, who only got stuck on the side of the road in the ditch once despite impossibly muddy roads.