Agros Blog

Manuel jumped into the bed of our pick-up truck, an ear to ear grin on his face as he waved, shouting to his fellow Tzotzil villagers, “I’m off to the Teaching Fields to give our new gringo family gifts of gratitude for this momentous day they brought us!”

Alfonso, an Agros Agronomist, said that Manuel had a surprise for us. A few minutes later he pulled over and both hopped out of the truck, crossed the road bending beneath the black mesh canopied Rose training field, with the glint of drawn knife blades shinning as they began their cutting search. Sensing what was up, I searched for my camera and found it in the knick of time, snapping a photo of grace personified in Manuel’s face.

I did this just before he began to hand each of us a long stem, rain dappled, red rose, saying “Chahall” (which means “thank-you” in his native Tzotzil), and then waving goodbye as he turned for the walk back up to the Agros village of Nueva Palestina, in the hilly region of Southwestern Chiapas, México.

Only a few hours before this tender moment, the seven of us were strangers –wrapped in a cultural bouquet of sights, sounds and smells. Together we were witnessing the renewal of hope of thirty-two families as we signed a covenant of mutual commitment between Nueva Palestina, Apple Physical Therapy (a 260 employee company providing financial and service team support to Agros International), and Agros México, unfolding before us like Manuel’s fragrant roses.

Seizing upon the ceremony as a teachable moment, Sergio Sanchez, Country Director of Agros Mexico, involved all as they streamed forth to sign the symbolic banner of brotherhood. While some could indeed sign, others could only make a thumbprint, followed by one of the village leaders or Sergio, who would write the person’s name above the ink mark.

Once the formalities were finished, the families invited us to a feast of fried free-range chicken, rice, black beans and cups of Horchata; dipped from a new 30 gallon plastic garbage can full enough for all present to have a subsequent celebration drink.

At this moment, while the village waited their turn, a “thorn prick” pained us all –we were to eat alone, while the eyes of children and women watched waiting until we were finished. Here our gentle mentor Sergio emerged again; reminding us that we were honored guests and this was their custom. He said, “Live into their moment for in doing so you honor them.”

Solidarity with the poor means risking life-altering encounters and advocacy. When we are willing to venture forth, trusting tutors like Sergio and a humble villager like Manuel to open our eyes and hearts we walk in the “teaching fields” together, being led among both the roses and thorns.

If you’d like to learn more about entering into teachable moments with us, email me at davidc@agros.org!

From my vantage point at 2400 feet, the cloud-shrouded Cordillera Dariense (Nicaragua’s main mountain range) loom verdant, inviting me to dream of times long past when these hills flourished without tracer bullets and land mines wreaking havoc on the hard-working Nicaraguense “cortadores” (coffee plantation harvesters) who’ve lived, worked and died here.

I dream all the more so today — with them — because I’m now looking at these storied hills through their eyes. Eyes of former cortadores-now-turned land-owners!

I’m here at our newest Agros’ village, San José, which in a short 9 months is a veritable paradise in the making. I pause in sheer wonder beneath the hand-hewn trusses of their newest addition, a “beneficio” or coffee processing station, made of 125 lb cut-stone blocks, cement & steel laminate roofing, all hauled up on willing backs from the road far below. The “beneficio” is complete with a large capacity depulper (used to take off the skin of the coffee) and large concrete wash basins in which the depulped-yet-fleshy beans soak for a day. From here the coffee beans “escape” the basins via 4″ pvc outlets into the rinsing trough, where they are paddled to knock off any remainder of the flesh before being put onto sorting/drying frames. The tiny beans are then laid out to sun-dry for a month.

Beaming with pride, bustling to show us their first fruits from this their first harvest from their own land, both Petronilio & Armando, San Jose’s President & Vice President, flashed their ear-to-ear grins, nodding their heads in agreement as we praised their accomplishment!

But that was only the beginning for me on this first visit to San Jose, our most remote community to date in Nicaragua. Inviting me and two potential Agros donors to clamber across flourishing fields of corn, viewing vistas of acre upon acres of beans, and then descending solo down steep & slippery slopes to see Armando’s charge: a first-ever-for-them dedicated plot (1.25mz or 2 acres) of tomatoes projected to yield over $9000 in only 4 months time. The proceeds will be divided among all 22 families.

This, coupled with their recent coffee harvest and the more than 100,000 lbs of corn they’ve harvested, bodes well for an altogether unprecedented first year’s income that will average close to $1500/family. This is more than 5 times their previous best annual incomes.

What does it take to turn disappointments into dreams? Disasters into “diamonds”?

It takes trust… humility… gratitude. It takes patience, and an ability to work hard. It also takes partnership. Transformation is a community process, where the strong help the weak and the weak become strong to help those who are next.

The next day we met the families of El Naranjo — families who are waiting for Agros to raise the needed funds to purchase the land and help them move forward. Many of the families forsook a days wages to meet with us for an update on when they might be able to be roll up their sleeves to begin to work their own land, joining the ranks of the like in San Jose.

We’re at 80% of the funding needed, missing now only $150,000 for the balance of the land. Let us know if you’d like to help us help them. They’re ready, eager, willing and waiting.

We are excited to announce the first ever Agros International Alternative Gift Catalog!

This catalog offers you a way to honor family, friends or colleagues year round and help rural poor families in Central America and Mexico break out of the cycle of poverty – one seed, one life, one village at a time.

An acre of land, a family health package, or even a can of worms — the gifts in this catalog represent the key elements that go into a village development project, enabling families to work their way out of poverty.

I invite you to take the time to visit the catalog at http://oneseed.agros.org and honor those you love by making a purchase to provide hope and opportunity to families working to lift themselves out of poverty.

Little entrepreneurs changing the world

A couple weeks ago, 11 year old Rachel Lingenbrink and her mother Terri arrived at our offices in Seattle’s U-District laden with a shoe-box of luscious vine ripened tomatoes, sweet golden yellow tear-drops, and red cherry-toms. Rachel also carried with her a Tupperware container filled with cash ready to give it all as her part in supporting a Guatemalan village called Xeucalvitz , which in the Ixil language means “Half-way up the Mountain”. Rachel has been three times to this remote Agros village of nearly 100 families, endearing herself to the kids there, broadening her worldview, and seeing the plight of the rural poor through tender eyes as only one so young can.

This summer, as part of her family’s growing commitment to serve the poor, she and her mother spent two weeks in the beautiful Spanish colonial city of Antigua, Guatemala, immersed in an intensive Spanish language program. Meanwhile, her older sister Sarah (13) was immersed in an ecological program in Costa Rica. Father/husband Steve kept the home-fires going in his law-practice, knowing that what he’d gotten his family into by venturing forth four years prior on that first trip to Xeucalvitz was bearing fruit in ways he’d hoped, beaming on his way into the office, eager to check the latest e-mails from down South!

While in Antigua, Rachel’s enterprising mind kicked into gear, fueled by Terri’s encouragement, to purchase colorful woven bracelets called “pulseras”. The child vendors of Antigua often peddle them along the cobbled streets of the city. Rachel thought she could do the same back home along the paved promenade of her neighborhood. Her idea was to open a lemonade stand with her sister and sell pulseras for the poor, telling would be buyers of their heart for helping those less fortunate in a high mountain village far away.

After biting into a sweet golden yellow tear-drop tomato, I led Rachel and her mother Terri into the accounting office carrying the purple-topped Tupperware treasure chest she’d handed me, and introduced her to Claudia Alvarenga-Beech, asking if she could give Sarah a full-accounting and receipt. As the pennies, quarters and bills spilled onto Claudia’s desk, her calculator began to sing as she tabulated the total…a whopping $89.26!! A minute later the printer hummed, producing the receipted accomplishment, handed over to a grinning Rachel.

This type of sacrificial and creative giving exemplifies a heart-felt response, which all of us long to nurture and release when we pause long enough to think about it. So be it a lemonade stand or some other expression, may you and I be encouraged to step outside the “box of comfort” we tend to insulate our lives with, and listen for what we might do too.

Thank you Sarah and Rachel, may your gift and the spirit behind it, touch hearts that read this to “go and do likewise”

As Agros continues to grow and serve the rural poor in Central America and Mexico, our team in Seattle is growing as well. Our current office location in the University District can no longer accommodate our space needs for the US staff. We are looking to relocate to a larger facility and could use your help!
We’re looking for the following:

• 4,000 - 6,000 sq ft.
• Geographic area: Northgate to SoDo/Columbia City; west of Lake Washington
• Public transit accessible; economical parking highly desirable
• Current lease ends in February - looking to move early 2008

We are doing a traditional search working with Dean Johnson from CBRE but also want our larger Agros family to be aware of our need. Please send any information or leads to Kathy Riper at kathyr@agros.org. Thanks.

Her gold-rimmed front tooth reflected the midday sun but it was her bright brown-eyes that outshone the gold of both, reflecting instead a heart-shine radiating from a spirit fired with hope and promise.

Gloria is her name, and aptly so. She has but a 3rd grade education yet was recently elected secretary of the all Lenca (a Honduran indigenous group) Agros village. I met her Friday last when gathered with all the leaders of this village. She waited her turn to speak until all the men had their say, although while translating for them I kept catching her out of the corner of my eye, an eager-eyed face and radiant smile nodding in agreement, lips pursed to extol her perspective.

As the conversation continued, Gloria could no longer contain her joy and began raising her hand, waving it for all to see she too wanted to speak, turning her captivating gaze upon me , declaring the following:

“Now I give God all praise, because of your coming here and telling us about people I’ve never met who are praying for us and seeing too that these here with you Don David have come to help others like us receive the promise of land and place for their families. My heart sings. You must tell them (Bethany Presbyterian Church, Seattle, and North Delta Evangelical Free Church, B.C.) and all at Agros how we thank them for this privilege. God, who is the Father of us all, has given us this open door and a father-figure here in Don Cándido, (one of the original family members of this village and the current village committee president), as well as including and adding our family to the families of Carlos and Armando (two of the other original families). We’ve been here for only a few weeks, but already our corn is sprouting and all of us toil daily making the adobe bricks that soon we’ll build our homes with. Only God could do this because we had nothing before, but now look at all we have. Our children will soon be in school and the Agros staff and Don Cándido are helping the adults already to learn to read. I must tell you all we will pray for you Don David, and these you’ve brought with you, asking also that you pray for us because we know there is hard work before us and more families who could join us to help.”

Finished, a giddy Gloria flashed her golden-toothed-grin, while all present applauded.

Formerly known as Agros Uno, this our first village in Honduras has now chosen a new name, as bright as Gloria’s heart-shining eyes…it’s appropriately called: “Nuevo Amanecer”, meaning “New Dawn”… and indeed it is, resplendent with an infusion of 13 new families who have joined with the original families and are forging new ground together by the sweat of their brows as each day dawns.

What is it about seeing those without hope and opportunity that stirs your heart?

This picture says so much to me personally about both hope and opportunity. This is a photo of a road to 48 families in Batzchocolá, a remote region of Guatemala’s Central highlands… built by the generosity of a Bellevue, Washington based mortgage company, Liberty Financial Group (www.lfgloan.com), who have partnered with Batzchocolá via the Agros Journey With A Village program.

Like the marvelous team of owners & employees of Liberty Financial who envisioned a new pathway to opportunity, so many of you recently responded to our recent year-end appeal letter and Matching Gift campaign. If you’re like me you’d probably like to know what happened, right?

Well, you met and surpassed the Matching Gift challenge!

As you may recall, the Matching Gift pool was $150,000, provided by the visionary giving of four different donors, $70,000 of which was for new business development loans and $80,000 unrestricted to go where needed most. The flurry of responses we received during the last weeks of December (both from gifts mailed in and gifts made online), had us continually moved and inspired. You would be too, especially if you could see all of the encouraging notes that came with each gift. For example, one donor who last year had donated $50 sent us a $1,000 gift, and attached a note that said, “Keep up the great work… I feel so privileged to join with you in this effort to serve those in need!”

The reality is that we are the ones who are privileged to be supported by you, at any gift amount. But what does this extraordinary generosity really mean? What does it mean for the families we all care most about? Your generosity means that:

• Enterprise loans totaling more than $140,000 can now be made to women wanting to start a new business of goats, or weaving, or specialty crops;
• Families planning on new crop initiatives for this Spring planting season will have seed, seedlings & fertilizer capital necessary to start on time;
• Unrestricted funds totaling more than $160,000 are enabling the National field staff in all five countries to continue moving forward with the village assessment and development that is so critical to village & family success.

Can you imagine what it will be like for these women to be given the opportunity to start new businesses for their families? Or what it means for the many farmers who can now begin planning for the Spring planting season, dreaming of the harvest to come?

The bottom line is that the lifeblood of Agros is dependent upon the continued support and generosity of people like you, and on behalf of all of the families in all of the Agros villages: THANK YOU!

Thank you for helping Agros build new “inroads” of hope and opportunity to more families in Central America and Mexico.

“¿Don David, estas bien?” asked my new friend Juana as her small hand reached out to steady my slippery step up the misty pathway to the site of her new home. This 52 year old widow, a “giant” of a woman at 4’4” who was carrying a 20lb cement block on her head, a sack of volcanic rock on her back and her two-year old adopted son, Bernabe, nestled on her front, had just kept me from tumbling down the mountain, taking her and her son with me had I done so.

“Sí, Juana, estoy bien, no te preocupes.” (Yes, Juana, I’m just fine, don’t worry), I said in what was, I’m sure, an astonished voice. Thankfully the mist mixed with the sweat on my brow lest she see my pooling tears and we resumed the climb up to her hand-hewn home site. My 6’ 3” frame shrunk before this twice widowed wonder, full of grace, dignity and especially now - hope.

It was hope that helped Juana survive 36 years of civil war in her native land, as well as the loss of her three daughters and two separate husbands during the war. It was determination and hope that sustained her through years and years of struggle, sorrow, and back-breaking work. Walking with Juana to her new home site, I was clear that it was also the sheer strength of her hope that would now provide a bright future for the light of her life, her adopted son Bernabe, a young boy she rescued from certain infanticide the day he was born. Having lost her family in the civil war, Juana adopted Bernabe while slaving in a coastal sugar cane plantation.
If ever there is a Hall of Fame for “Giants of the Faith” Juana will get my vote…she is truly a “giant in the land”, one of grace-filled inspiration, determination, and courage. As a mere witness to the ongoing strength of her hope, it has been a privilege to participate with her as she now works towards the dream of owning her own land in an Agros village. Juana is one of my heros, and she often comes to mind when I face a challenge, knowing that my challenges pale in comparison to what she’s faced and conquered.

These are the kinds of people we serve and work alongside with here at Agros, and Juana is one of the reasons why I think I have one of the best jobs in the world.

A few more photos:

Here is Juana as she sits on one of those 20 lb blocks that make up the walls of her new house. She is weaving and singing in front of her humble but secure home.

Here is a photo of Bernabe taken many years ago, when he was about 2 years old (he is seven years old today!).  Earlier in the day I had asked Juana where he was, “Oh…” she said beaming, “I sent him to town to run me an errand. He’s such a help to me Hermano David.” I turned my head at this reply, wishing the mist and sweat were still there as tears streaked my cheek. Emotion flooding me as I stood in awe of such joy.

As 2007 begins, it is clear that more and more people are using the internet in unprecedented ways. National statistics compiled at the end of 2006 showcasing on-line buying alone had headlines like “Amazon.com’s 12th Holiday Season Best Ever!” and “Holiday e-commerce spending up 26%”, etc… Students seem to live on-line… news-hounds hunt on-line with multiple browser tabs running their favorite blogs… “E-giving” is now the fastest growing segment of philanthropy. Not surprisingly, we all are using the Web in ways and at times we never imagined just a few years ago.

However you may feel about all this cyber-activity, I’m wondering if you knew that by encouraging your family and friends in their seeking, buying, and studying, you can also be giving to Agros? Thanks to a Philanthropically Driven Search Engine, powered by Yahoo.com, you can! It’s called GooodSearch.

Read the rest of this entry »

“How can Ken have done that so soon?” asked one of my awestruck El Salvador teammates in response to seeing Ken’s beautiful bound ‘scrapbook’ complete with hand-written descriptions of each photo, laid out artfully and fully protected. “Simple”, I said, “he’s fallen in love again. His Boeing Food Services world has been rocked by these humble families, our new ‘family’.”

The miracle for virtually all from here who travel to Agros’ rural, and often quite remote, villages is not that they survived the experience, nor overcame their fears, nor even that they witness transformed lives in the community. For them it’s that their hearts are broken anew, the calluses of daily and seemingly meaningless routines, washed away by tears of joy as they work alongside those who’re escaping the brutal ravages of degrading poverty by staying on the land rather than fleeing across our borders to an uncertain future.

I’ve often told our partners who are soon to travel to the village they’re supporting, “The most difficult part of this trip will be coming home, because you’ll have trod sacred ground when with these, the poorest of our global community, and love will burst anew in your heart.”

For my friend Ken, you can see that overflowing heart in this “love-book” that he would take to his office, ready to share with anyone who’d care to listen, of his sojourn in El Milagro. This our first Agros village in El Salvador, named by the 25 families there, “The Miracle” because for them it was nothing less than miraculous that they’d been selected to form a new life on their own land, blooming with potential.

Within days of that teammate’s question I received an e-mail from Ken telling me to “check this out”, and not surprising found his heart opening to the virtual community, longing to share his heart-tears-of-joy with any and all. Merry Christmas Ken…you’ve changed many lives and we miss you here at Agros.

His strong and gnarled leathery hand closed around the hat-covered brow, hiding the trickle of tears flowing down his cheeks as he recounted the scene 24 years ago, “We’d hidden behind our shanty-town shacks, in hopes of being left to ourselves after the patron (farm owner) had fled the fighting and bloodshed. The soil was stained blood red by the senseless slaughter of our men, women and children. Now, however, its eerily peaceful, save for the distant peal of shower-laden thunderclouds. Once that thunder was brought by the flying machine-guns. We now have a cemetery where our feeble shacks used to stand.”

Now age 56, Sebastian fields all our questions. At 5’5” his slightly stooped stature - from the many seasons of carrying the sweet-wet bundles of cane of the coastal plantations - regally belies the labor-laden years. He tells us of the horror of 100+ men, women and children murdered in cold blood, all his family lost in this nightmare. I look to my right as I’m interpreting for the team and notice that the tears wiped away by Sebastian’s rough hands now streak the faces of my group as we’re all humbled by Sebastian’s tear-sown path.

As the team recounted this story later, we remembered how Sebastian stood proudly before us, softly and tearfully telling his story only so that he can point us to the future his entire village now envisions.

Rain pummeled the zinc-laminate “tin” roof as one tall gringo, me, sat on sacks of cement towering still over my new Kanjo’bal (an indigenous Mayan sub-group) family. I’d been whisked into this temporary shelter for an emergency meeting. Unbeknownst to me, the village leaders of Villa Linda were wracked with fear about the next day’s pending “Signing Ceremony”. Having never been visited by a service team from the U.S. these hard-working poor families hidden in north-central Guatemala’s mountains were welcoming but cautious.

My merry band of 10 had just finished three rain-soaked days working, laughing, and playing among these 20 previously unknown & “forgotten” families. Now the time for our closing ceremony and signing of a 5 year commitment of “Walking & Working Together” was to mark this newest Journey with a Village partnership. All seemed ready but the dark rain clouds that were unleashing their torrent carried with them an inner darkness yet unknown to me.

“We have an important question Don David.”, said Pablo Juan Pablo, the village spokesman, “Will this paper we sign tomorrow enslave us again? Will these men become our new evil farm managers?”

Shocked into their horrific history by this haunting question I wondered how they saw me? Was I a dark hidden-behind-a-mask enslaving invader or could I be as one riding in on a white stallion to break centuries of bondage? My answer lifted the heavy cloud now filling the temporary hut and brought ear to ear grins to their work-worn faces. “No, oh no…we, they are like your family now… here to help you reach your dreams. This will be a covenant of friendship and support and if ever you fear or hear that is not the case, you must tell us.”

Pablo Juan Pablo then spoke in his native tongue and when finished turned to me and said, “Don David this sits well with us - but tomorrow, will you tell the entire village this good news?” And I did.