REFLECTIONS FROM JOHN CORY’S VISIT TO KAGER

The other day while walking along the Chicago River near State Street on a hot summer Chicago day, I had a flashback twenty five or more years ago to the time I was humming a tune called “Africa” by Toto and its words are still in my head:

John and Charlie Joined by the JVP Champions and Villagers

I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She’s coming in 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation
I stopped an old man along the way,
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say, Hurry boy, It’s waiting there for you
Gonna take some time to do the things we never have

CHORUS:
It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa

The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what’s right
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what’s deep inside, frightened of this thing that I’ve become

CHORUS
Hurry boy, she’s waiting there for you

It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa, I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa, I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never do

It was a few weeks back I walked in the rain in Africa, and it smelled like the best rain I had known in years. Just like Toto, the musicians that wrote that song, my walk in the African rain certainly made me aware that this was not Kansas.

John Preaching with David Kayando

The journey from Indiana to east Africa this summer carried my son, Charlie, and me to the rural community of southwest Kenya, known as Kager Village. This farming community a few miles south of Homa Bay (a once prosperous fishing, rail transportation and trading town situated on the shore of Lake Victoria) and about seventy miles north of the Tanzania border where the Serengeti is home to the world’s largest spring and autumn animal migration. This farm village Charlie and I visited is home to the Kayando family. David Kayando is the gentleman that catalyzed a relationship with Ned Campbell in 2008 toward ways to obtain a Basic Utility Vehicle for his community. Coinciding with Ned’s interest in figuring out why God wanted a BUV shipped to Kager Village, was my interest in figuring out where best the Lord wanted me to put a stake in the ground to help begin a sustainable farming and food initiative. God had led Ned and me on an exploration to this community last October, to meet the Kayando family, as well as the community, the Kayando’s church that they lead, and for us to examine whether or not ideas that were floating around in our heads might have promise and potential for sustainable programs. Charlie and I arrived in Kenya with high hopes and expectations for the work we knew was ahead.

It is a long way from Indianapolis to Nairobi, and especially the way we went. The piles of Frequent Flier miles I had accumulated the past three years seemed vulnerable to the all the economic woes of our country, and thus I used a few of them to get us to Kenya. It was a multiple stop hop scotch trip. But one of the stops for an eight hour lay over was in Cairo, Egypt. Why wait in the airport for eight hours, when you can rent a taxi and go explore the pyramids. So we did, and we even rode camels in the 107 degree sun across the sand dunes to see them. North Africa is so incredibly different than the sub-Sahara Africa, until you see it you can hardly appreciate it.

Our bags were lost when we arrived in Nairobi, and in those two bags were vitally important food and farming technologies. I was disheartened by the loss. But I told Charlie, “as sure as I am standing here, we will find those bags in Kissumu on our return leg of the trip toward Nairobi. We can’t wait for them, we have to move on, and let the Lord deal with this, and He will. I know he will have those bags in Kissumu before we go home.”

We took a short flight from Nairobi to Kissumu that morning and were met by David Kayando and his brother Elisha. It was great to see them again. It was late October, about eight months earlier that I had seen them and our greeting was almost like we were brothers.

There were several things I wanted to accomplish quickly before we left Kissumu and headed south to Kager Village. We needed to find some supplies, things like grease guns, and tubes of grease, water tanks, 100 pounds of wheat seed, and several odds and ends. I would guess I had a list of fifteen items I wanted to get. In America, this list would be filled in ten minutes at Lowes or Home Depot. In western Kenya, this shopping trip turned into a scavenger hunt, and expedition all across town. Never have I ever had such a time trying to find tubes of grease for a grease gun. Everybody knew what I wanted, and referred me to the place to get it, but when we would get there, they did not have it. After the six or seventh place, I asked a very simple question: “how do you and your mechanics put grease in a grease gun here in Kissumu?” The man answered “we use grease in these tubs, we fill up the grease gun with a spoon.” I bought a bucket of grease, and we were on our way. Thus goes an important lesson: to succeed in any scavenger hunt in Kenya, asking the right question has everything to do with everything!

David and Elisha got us to Kager Village after our shopping safari in Kissumu and a chiropractor’s dream road ride for two hours on perhaps one of the world’s most teeth jarring roads I have ever experienced. At one degree latitude south of the equator, the sunlight’s intensity can cause a pale skinned anglo like me to glow red within an hour. Remarkable how fast a sunburned scalp on a slightly balding man’s head makes for a painful few days. Hats are not forgotten from then on.

Charlie Cory - BMIV - Big Man In Village (the kids loved him!)

Children are everywhere in Kager Village. They love it when strangers arrive. Dozen of kids run behind the truck as it pulls into the compound when new people are arriving. The smiles are priceless, and the youthful playfulness overwhelms any timidity they have. But they pause, with well trained and appropriate restraint when we climb out of the truck. The children’s smiles and pent up enthusiasm can hardly be restrained though by their well disciplined manors. When the children see Charlie, they lost all restraint. Manners and self control were not nearly as important as meeting a new kid, someone they knew was from America. They swarmed around Charlie. Charlie began laughing and talking with them and it was like they were all friends for years.

David’s father, Christopher came to greet us. Bishop Kayando is a gracious man that enjoys the company of people coming from afar. The entire Kayando family gathered around shortly after Charlie and I arrived, and we had a wonderful time visiting and getting reacquainted.

Perhaps one of the people I really was looking forward to seeing again was George. George Amino is much like David, a very humble man with remarkable leadership skills. George is headmaster of the school at the bottom of the hill from where the Kayando family compound is. George is also a farmer, a very good farmer. I got to know George in October and I was so deeply impressed with his leadership skills, I chose him as the team leader for the farmer champion team. George is a great communicator, and a man with a deep heart for serving Christ. When I saw George, it was very much like meeting up with a brother. What an outstanding man the Lord has with George working with children and farmers in this village.

The next few days were filled with so many exciting and wonderful opportunities to visit villagers and farmers. Charlie is a student pilot and at 16 he has become proficient with almost any kind of machine that was ever made. Charlie is a “gear head”. He was put in charge of a number of important projects and it was wonderful to watch him engage with the entire community.

In late March I believe it was, we had loaded and sent a container filled with 42,000 pounds of things, and shipped them across the ocean to Kager Village. God saw fit to have that container arrive four or five days before Charlie and I got there. I am amazed at how the Lord’s timing works, it is absolutely incredible. The community had unloaded the container and stored many of the items at the compound. One of the items, was the Basic Utility Vehicle. Charlie was my man of the hour, to teach and mentor the group on how to use and maintain the BUV. He taught them basic care and preventive maintenance, plus safety issues vital in operating the machine. Charlie gave lesson on good driving, braking practices, how to properly load and unload cargo. It was a fine time for everyone, the village enjoyed the BUV and Charlie being the teacher.

John Cory - A Hoosier Farm Kid Following God's Call on His Life to End World Huger

Sustainable Farming Practices are a foundational part of why I am engaged in this Jubilee Village Project. George Amino leads a team of farmers: John, Maurice and Charles. We had outlined a farming program for “test plots” that they used and I was eager to see these plots. The first morning I was there, we all went for a farm walk. For people not familiar with farmers, I want to inject something here. Some people say “music is a universal language”. I will also tell you “farming is a universal language”. Farmers from whatever country on this earth, whatever language, whatever circumstances they are in, they all speak one language: “farming”. It was a fabulous walk that morning, visiting with these men. These four farmers are not only outstanding in their farm operations, they are also leaders, and they love the Lord.

Maurice probably has the most land, and his farm is near the new pond folks from Scandanavia built last year. Heavy rains this past spring caused serious water damage to Maurice’s corn crop, and we discussed methods to remediate the issues he has with this problem. Maurice will be the first Ridge Till farmer in Kager Village. Maurice may also be the first Irish Potato farmer too. The ridges we talked about to reduce the water problems he has in his fields, are also the sorts of ridges needed to grow potatoes. Potatoes hate “wet feet”, so I showed Maurice how and why he ought to consider potatoes. Turns out the village buys potatoes but nobody has ever shown them how to grow potatoes. Charles has a farm up the big hill from Maurice. It has a grand view over the valley toward the mountain range toward the east. I call him “Charles Barkley” because they look like twins. Charles has the most challenging ground to farm in the region. However, Charles has incredible crops. Pineapple is one of the things Charles excels at, and after seeing his recent success, I am convinced that pineapplefrom this village (through a cooperative farm and processing arrangement) will become the Village’s most important cash crop. George Amino’s farm was the next stop and I was shocked at how good his corn was. George had grown a test plot whereby he used the “old practice” adjacent to the “new agronomic practice” and it was a visual sight to behold. I’d guess the corn was 5 fold better, probably more than that. George had done an outstanding job with this project. Farmer John’s garden was our last stop and I stood amazed at what John had successfully done this past spring. John was once a working farmer with British American Tobacco. John knows agronomy better than anyone in the village. He is good, really good with the soil. I have John working with the new drip irrigation project, for small gardens. John will be able to probably teach others how to use the bucket drip irrigation for year around irrigated gardens at every household (in time).

The entire farm team is a team of Champions, and that is indeed what I call them, our “Champion Farmers”. This group of Champions will lead a new group of eight farmers toward similar goals for this next growing season. It is impressive what these men have done in such a short period of time. On the container, I packed a rototiller. The rototiller is clearly not the ideal tool of choice for working soil and farms in Kager. However, it is indeed a great tool to do numerous tasks. One task I wanted to launch quickly was to deploy a new crop for these men: wheat. I find it absolutely amazing that in much of the drier arable land of southwest Kenya, it appears (surely somebody has already started this, it just cannot be so we are the first to promote this ) there are no fields of wheat, barley, oats, rye or millets. I am amazed by this. In the second growing season these farmers have, the rainfall appears to be infrequent and climate is more like the Great Plains of the USA. Dry Land crops such as wheat make perfect sense in this area for part of the land. The land ought to be managed whereby some ground needs lie fallow for a year, some needs to be used for hay for livestock and some land needs to be used for food crops other than corn. Wheat is an interesting option for these farmers because it can be used for one of three things: (i) food (ii) livestock feed and (iii) green manure for soil improvement. In time certain types of sorghams, sudex and the like are ideal candidates for livestock feed.

The farmers have a big series of tasks in front of them. They must begin to find ways to improve their own productivity to be capable of growing food for others. They must find ways to begin transitioning their land to more diversity, to improve their soil and the the diets of the community.

I took the roto-tiller one afternoon and tore up a small area of ground to show the local farmers how to eliminate what is known as a “hard pan” in the soil. The clay type soil they have is difficult to plow, that with oxen the ground can hardly be plowed until after it has rained. The compaction issues the oxen produce while pulling the plow complicates the problems produced by working ground when it is too wet. The subsequent result is a layer of soil often found in fields, where four to six inches below the top of the ground a one inch barrier of “pavement” like crust exists. This barrier prevents roots from going down deep for nutrition and water (especially in droughts). I let all the farmers use the tiller to become familiar with it and pointed out how it was making changes in the soil. We then sowed wheat on the freshly tilled soil and raked it in so birds would not eat the grain. This new crop could then grow and become feed if a drought eliminated pasture resources. It could also be plowed back under for new fertility enhancements.

The container shipment included many sorts of things. One item we included was a basic soil testing kit. The key initial test was to determine if the soil ph was basic or acidic. Aside from water issues, this is a huge issue as it relates to fertility. The samples we tested proved most of the soil to be basic. Thus a sulphur base fertilizer might very well be very useful to improve crop performance.

Small garden farming will have a bright future at every household where drip irrigation units are used. The prospects down the road are to train these twelve farmers so that we can see their corn crops improve radically, their land usage shift, and their soil enhancements significantly increase yield capabilities. But the small garden initiatives with drip irrigation has the possibility to transform each household this next eighteen months. Home canning in conjunction with the home gardens will provide means for each family to always have food stocks regardless of rainfall issues.

It was such a great time with these farmers. They have such tremendous potential, and they encouraged me so much with their rapid successes.

Charlie and I had an incredible time in Kager Village. We met so many new families and made new friends that over the next several years we hope to see again. The Kayando family was so kind and gracious to us, so hospitable, we are deeply appreciative of their friendship. The leadership David Kayando exhibited the entire time we were together was impressive. David is a good man, he is much like a man we know from the Old Testament, also named David… “a man after God’s heart”.

There were so many things we did, experienced, saw, and were party to. The Kager Village is one of Kenya’s exciting new frontiers. The Jubilee Village Project in Kager Village is off to a good start. I was so honored to see what they have done, and that the entire village has bound itself together with all the eight initiatives we began early this year. There is a Champion for each of the eight initiatives. Incredible, absolutely amazing how this has developed so quickly, and it is clear when you are there, the hand of God is upon His village…. Kager Village.

By the way, the bags United Airlines lost in Nairobi showed up. They arrived in Kisumu the day we headed back home. Isn’t it amazing how God fixes messes.

God is Good.  We will be back, is our hope.

John Cory