ECHO Training in Florida

James will be in Florida, sunny Florida, for the week at an ECHO training.  It is an organization that equips overseas workers to work among the poor, especially in agriculture.  I'm jealous.  Even though it does have a medical aspect to it, I wish I was able to go to learn more about the possibilities of growing things in the desert.  Sadly I think most of my gardening passion is selfish as I want to be able to grow the kinds of foods that I want to eat in a place where you can't buy them.  But, as I learn more about the needs there, and some possible solutions, my brain starts wanting to know more.

Sadly, after our conversation tonight about his first day, it left me wondering what kind of hope there was for Sub-Saharan Africa?  He shared that based on their research and the different types of approaches they have seen come and go over the years, they find that some countries are just too far gone to expect long term changes for the better.  Wow, to hear an aid organization come to a depressingly realistic conclusion like that is pretty sad.  So what does that leave us to work with.

This week I heard our home pastor preach on 2 Corinthians 1:8-9.  It reads,

"For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.  For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.  Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.  But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. "

Why would I put my hope in agricultural techniques anyways...My hope is in something greater!  I am hoping that in their desperation, when they are despairing of life itself, they will come to know the "God who raises the dead".  Now that is something worth sharing!