Promise Gardens

What a Day!!!! Today we went back to the tent city. We built the first 5 promise gardens. What a terrific name and we had no idea how appropriate until this afternoon. With the help of the leader of the tent city and a few other gentlemen we dug and levelled the rocky ground, put in the garden boxes and filled them with good soil.  We created quite a spectacle as the people tried to figure out what we were doing. Most of the children assumed that we were installing another toilet. It wasn't until they saw the seeds in the afternoon that the excitment started to spread.

This afternoon we returned to the city and started to plant the seeds. As people saw the progress they wanted to be a part of the action. As children and adults alike helped with the planting it was amazing to see how the people began to take ownership of the project. 

We have seen a tendancy toward begging from many people, but what we saw today was so different. When we finished with the gardens a few of the leaders in the community offered to water the seed/plants every day. Then we were able to distrubute many seed to the people. It was nice to see the ladies come out of their tents to recieve some seeds to create their own garden patch. The atmosphere was so different than any other day. There was a feeling of hope that we hadn't seen before.

How unbelievable the Lord is that He can arrange events so magnificently. We had no idea how popular the gardens would be when we started but the Lord arranged it so that we could personally teach some of the men how to plant and tend a garden before we handed out the seeds. I wish I could see all these gardens bloom and grow over the next few months.