Watermelons of Hope
I never thought I would get very excited about a watermelon farm.
But I am.
Ekiru, our CRF director in Lodwar, Kenya has a bunch of kids living near his house. These are children who know poverty in a way most of us never will. Some of them didn’t even have a place to sleep at night. They were sleeping outside on the ground under mosquito nets.
That bothered some good folks a long way from Turkana.
The Palo Alto Church of Christ in Panama City, Florida, decided to do something about it. They helped build a home for these children. Now, instead of sleeping outside on the ground, the kids have a roof over their heads and a safe place to sleep.
That’s a pretty big deal.
But getting children inside doesn’t make them stop being hungry.
They still need to eat tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.
So we started thinking about how we could help Ekiru provide food for these children in a way that could keep going. One answer was growing right out of the ground.
Watermelons.
CRF helped Ekiru start a watermelon farm in Turkana. The idea is pretty simple. Grow watermelons. Sell watermelons. Use the money to buy food for the children.
I like simple ideas.
There is something beautiful to me about a piece of dry ground in Turkana producing something that can help feed hungry children. A seed goes into the dirt. A watermelon comes out. The watermelon is sold. And a child gets something to eat.
That sounds a little like hope to me.
And there is something else I like about this project. We aren’t just buying food. We are helping create a way for Ekiru to keep buying food. The farm can become part of the answer—not just for today, but hopefully for a lot of tomorrows.
A church in Panama City helped give the children a place to sleep. A watermelon farm in Turkana is helping give them something to eat.
Sometimes changing the world doesn’t look very complicated.
Sometimes it looks like a house.
Sometimes it looks like a meal.
And sometimes it looks like a watermelon.
Thanks a trillion times to everyone who keeps helping us plant little seeds of hope. Sometimes those seeds grow bigger than we ever imagined.
