Amazing maize: churches lifting farming communities out of poverty
Just Earth was birthed in 2005 directly from New Wine team visits to train church leaders in Western Kenya. Its concept is simple — a local church is helped to recruit 36 poor farmers from their community into a Farm School. Just Earth provides interest-free loans to purchase quality farm inputs and provides excellent African-developed agricultural training over a two-year period.
The church leader is provided with a Kingdom Life discipleship course, and Just Earth provides mentoring and training to enable the leader to make the most of this missional opportunity to disciple farmers and build their churches. All the discipling and training takes place weekly at a demonstration plot, and 80% of the food grown on this plot is given to the local church to help it feed its widows and orphans.
Our training model requires a demonstration plot on which a Farm School gathers each week. Farmers see for themselves the difference our farming methods make, by planting a section the way they would have done before joining the Farm School, alongside a section using our new methods.
Here’s a couple of testimonials from farmers in a Farm School following their harvest in September 2018:
‘I am married and have seven children. I depend on farming for the upkeep of my family. I have practiced farming for a very long time but without success, but this year we were privileged to get help from Just Earth. By grace I was chosen to be among the farmers. We were taught how to prepare land and plant various crops. I have managed to harvest five bags on ¼ of an acre, whereas I used to get less than ¼ of a bag. This is a 20-fold increase! I will sell it and pay fees for my children. My family is so happy. I thank God and have faith that he will use me to preach the gospel.’ Francis Wanjala
‘I am 28 years old and married, without children. I thank God for the opportunity to join a Just Earth Farm School. I can now pray and preach due to the Kingdom Life course and am spiritually nourished. I’ve gone from harvesting 1½ to 8 bags of maize per ½ acre (a 16-fold increase). This is due to the new technology and teaching from Just Earth. I now want to teach others. Thank you.’ Justus Ouma Mbembe
Just Earth’s work is enthusiastically endorsed and supported by Archbishop Jackson, leader of the Anglican Church of Kenya and a regular attender at New Wine’s United gatherings, and Bishop Philip Kitoto, leader of the Kenya Assemblies of God, and has spread to many areas of Western Kenya.
Wonderfully generous support given by New Wine churches in its national and international networks, other major churches, businesses and individuals has made this growth possible. Since 2005, almost 3000 farmers have been trained which means that with an average of eight people per farm family, roughly 24,000 people have been sustainably lifted out of poverty. And from our surveys, we know that on average each of our farmers are passing on their know-how (and in many cases their faith too) to at least four neighbours, so over 90,000 more lives have been positively impacted. Respect for churches with Farm Schools in their communities has also grown enormously.
In 2016 Just Earth work started among desperately poor farmers in Haiti, and in 2018 Farm Schools were started in southern Uganda by Citykyrkan, Stockholm, supported by other churches in the New Wine Sweden networks. This work has been enthusiastically embraced by the overall leader of Uganda’s 4.3 million-member federation of Pentecostal Churches who wants Farm Schools to spread across Uganda. Major churches in other countries are currently exploring whether to launch Just Earth work in Cambodia, Liberia and Guatemala.
Just Earth encourages direct church-to-church partnerships so that partner churches can be directly involved with a church whose Farm School they are sponsoring. We facilitate inexpensive visits by teams from partner churches, so they can foster close partnership with their receiving church and its leader — to lift many poor families out of poverty on a long-term sustainable basis and extend the Kingdom in their communities. Visiting teams see wonderful healings and miracles occur on these visits.
We are deeply grateful to God for the way he has led and blessed the mission of Just Earth, and for the way he has used New Wine and its network of churches to provide the primary theological framework and financial support needed to make all this possible.
Bruce Collins is founder and chairman of Just Earth, a charity working in partnership with local churches to bring spiritual, social, economic and environmental change to communities in the name of Jesus.
