Give Hope 2 Kids Blog

Gift Catalog Success: Lots of New Farm Animals

Thank you to everyone who contributed to our 2011 Christmas Gift Catalog!  We had a great response this year.  People showed the most enthusiasm in donating towards animals.  With the funds that came in, we were able to buy four cows (two for meat and two for milk), two pigs, and one hundred baby chicks.

We will soon be adding two more pigs and thirty more laying hens.   Then, once we have more pasture fenced off, we plan to buy one or two more steers.  

We’re making progress towards our goal of self-sustainability, meaning that a large portion of our food intake will come right from the property we live on.  Many of the animals will be used for meat within the next year and unbelievably, the new chicks will be ready to be made into chicken nuggets in about 40 days.

The 2011 "Cows Edition" Gift Catalog

Here it is:

The 2011 “Cows Edition” Gift Catalog

Just click on the link above to see what it's all about.  Why is it the “Cows Edition” you might be asking?  Good question.  That’s going to be our focus this year, because we’re rolling out two major projects that have to do with cows. 

The first cow-project is pretty obvious.  We are planning on raising our own cows both for milk and for meat.  Last year we bought 3 milk cows, and this year we are hoping to buy 3 more milk cows and 4 young males for meat. 

The other “Cows” are not as obvious.  It’s our new “Computers On Wheels” program (get it…COWS!).  This is going to be a mobile computer lab that will allow us to give computer classes to students from three local communities.  We received a donation of 15 laptops, which arrived on our container, and we want these machines to be used extensively in our library and our community schools.   Giving young people training in this practical skill can often make the difference between having a job and not.  We’re hoping to sponsor the computer carts we will have to build, the voltage regulators to protect the machines from the frequent power surges, the computer desks, and the teachers who will help us instruct the students.

There will be other projects available to sponsor too, but this year, it’s all about the cows.  

 

New Laying Hens = Lots of Eggs

Well we’ve got some good news in the egg-laying department.

This past week we were able to purchase 20 new laying hens to see if we couldn’t up the ante of the egg production around here.  The hens we had previously may have missed the memo…or maybe they didn’t read over their job description.  Either way, their daily egg average was, well, not meeting expectations.

In any case, the new ladies in the coop are doing some serious work.  It was a big surprise how many eggs we already had before a day had gone by.  Now, they’re averaging about 17 eggs a day and breakfast just got tastier.  Jason’s excitement had him checking the coop for eggs more than a few times before daybreak last week.

The idea behind all of this is to continue increasing our self-sustainability.  That way, we are becoming more cost-effective and better stewards of the ministry’s land.  With how well these new hens have been doing, we hope to buy 20 more in the near future.  This will allow us to have enough eggs to provide for everyone living on the property these days.  

This year we were able to purchase chickens thanks to donations from last year's Gift Catalog.  If you’re interested in contributing to the hen fund to provide us with more eggs, check back soon for our 2011 Gift Catalog.

Written by (and photos of) our volunteer Erin.

 

Jason the Farmer

Somewhere in the last few years Jason has turned into a farmer.  It wasn't what we necessarily expected, and we're not sure when the transition occurred, but it's now safe to call him a farmer.  He's planted and fertilized the orchards, tended bees, elastrated sheep (you don't want to know), and more.  

This week's farming adventures included making homemade chocolate and butchering the roosters.  So, not only is it sweeter around our place (with chocolate), but quieter (without roosters).

It's been a really fun season right now as we're beginning to enjoy the literal fruits of our labor.  We're eating as many delicious mangosteens, rambutan, and oranges as we can right now, with their bumper crops.  With the container we recently brought down we now have the equipment to process a lot more of the food, thus we've been grinding cocoa beans for chocolate, dehydrating bananas, frying up yucca, and making sausage.  We're trying to find the most cost-effective ways to feed our little band of workers, volunteers, and kids, which means a lot of eating from the land.

Note: We can't neglect to give David and the crew credit for maintaining the farming projects while Jason wears his other hats, like Jason the General Contractor, and 
more importantly, Jason the Dad to Abandoned Kids.

Celebrating Five Years of Ministry

We are celebrating five years of ministry!  God has blessed us with a very productive season and we are thrilled as we look back and see how far we've come in our quest to care for children who desperately need help.  

To celebrate these years we put together a memory book summarizing the time.  These pictures show how we prepared to, and now are caring for abadoned children, and how we've reached out to our community.  Click on this link, choose to make it full-screen from the bottom right hand corner, and enjoy watching a ministry be born!

http://www.blurb.com/books/2356454

Please feel free to share your comments with us

and share the link on your facebook page!

 

Steps in Self-Sufficiency

Last October we began working towards more self-sufficiency with our food and we started raising sheep.  We started with 14 sheep last fall and as of this October, we have nearly 30 sheep, including 17 pregnant ewes. 

Since the main motive for this project was to produce food, we butchered our first two sheep this past week and experimented with different ways to prepare the meat.  Our first efforts included roasting, barbecuing, and making sausage, and all the results were tasty.  Here’s a picture of us making sausage with David and Wilfredo (one of the houseparents). 

This year look for us to make major strides in our food production ability -- in meat (beef, lamb, chicken, and fish), dairy, eggs, and fruits and vegetables.  It’s not going to happen all at once, but we are growing in our ability to produce our own food.    

 

Life-Changing Agriculture

Last week we enjoyed hosting Dr. Grace Miller and some of her students from Indiana Wesleyan University taking a Sustainable Tropical Agriculture course.  While they were here we asked some of the kids from our village if they would like to come and learn how to graft trees.  It was neat to see their interest and how quickly they grasped the grafting techniques.  

We also pulled out another frame of honey from one of our beehives and gave out samples to everyone there.  The comb was more than an inch thick and dripping with delicious honey.

It is so neat to see kids get excited about projects like these ones.  You can see the light come on in their heads as they realize what a difference such projects can make to their lives.  

Simple things like this can help people get out of poverty.  Grafting is a very simple procedure to learn and it's what makes trees consistently produce good fruit, yet almost no one in our area has grafted fruit trees.  Beehives are a project that require little start-up cost compared to the revenue it can produce for a family, yet they are very rare in our region.  We are excited to be teaching young people about these agricultural opportunities, as they are often the ones willing to try something new.  This is just a small step forward in offering our neighbors better agricultural technology and techniques.

Update on Agriculture Projects

In the last few months we've seen a lot of growth in our agricultural projects, both figuratively and literally.  We're starting to see the results from years of planning and planting.  The orchards are beginning to flower and fruit and we've now acquired the animals we need to help provide food for the future.

Our sheep are prospering.  They are grazing underneath our mahogany trees, keeping other vegetation down. Their population has already grown by seven new lambs in just a few months and we’re expecting more lambs soon.  One ewe even had triplets, but because a ewe can only feed two lambs, the third one moved up to David and Olga’s house for bottle-feeding.  This lamb is named Chepito and he wanders around the yard munching grass, hanging out with the dogs, and bleating.  He's decided that he is a dog and now comes running down to eat dog food when we call for his canine companions.

Just the other day we got our first chickens.  We've started with two dozen and will purchase more when we finish our chicken coop.  So far, the roosters haven’t kept us up at night with their crowing, thankfully.  (Roosters tend to start announcing the upcoming dawn at about 3am.)  David’s wife Olga really enjoys looking after chickens and she is excited to care for these ones.  We are looking forward to the eggs.

The other day we harvested our first taste of honey from our bees.  The bees are close to filling seven panels with honey and we already had to expand their hive, in just 3 months!  This is faster than any honey production we’ve read about.  We stole one panel of honey just a little early and wow was it good! 

We’re already teaching Josiah all about farming so he’s ready to work in a couple years.  He is studying “The Encyclopedia of Country Living,” which is THE book for what we’re trying to do with agriculture.

REWIND 2010: Our Year in Review

Each year we like to put together a visual summary of what we've accomplished.  This year we decided to try and put it online so that it's accessible to more people.  

2010 was incredible for us.  We finally are a Honduran nonprofit and are working directly with the Honduran Social Services to take in kids.  Most homes only have to wait a few months once they're at this stage. 

Also this year, we finished our Activity Center, bought cows, bought sheep, and bought beehives.  In our REWIND we also talk about our plans to start a Children's ministry for young people in surrounding villages.  We've got lots going on.  Thanks for helping us be here and make a difference in the lives of vulnerable young people.  Click below to visit the site. 

 REWIND 2010: Our Year in Review 

 

Our "Udderly" Wonderful New Milk Cows

We now have three future milking cows living in the mahogany plantation with our sheep.  With our 2010 Gift Catalog that we had up during the holiday season, people seemed quite excited about our dairy project.   So, with the funds that came in for the dairy we decided it was time to add cows to our land.  Thanks to all who gave towards our dairy project!

For significantly less than the price of a full-grown, good milker, we were able to purchase three cows that are a year-and-a-half old.  They will be ready for milking in about another year.  Since we’re not ready for gallons of milk every day at this point, we figured this would be the most cost effective way to go. 

One interesting thing we’ve just learned is that cows supposedly make good shepherds.  They are supposed to have a calming effect on a flock of sheep.  Right now the sheep that we have are a bit wild and unused to being around people.  They are quite literally very jumpy (who ever thought counting sheep jumping over a fence could be literal?).

The cows had their wild and crazy time too though, as our guys worked to get them to the mahogany field.  It made for a fun video, as you can see here: