Our Development for Sustainability outreach was designed to help Haitian families learn how to break their cyclical poverty by giving them new skills for better living, better jobs, and providing for their own food and nutrition. It has been said that poverty is not because of a lack of material things but because of a lack of social, psychological, and spiritual opportunities. Teaching skills in gardening addresses these deficits as people learn to take care of themselves with new dignity and hope as they watch their planted seeds becoming a future harvest.

As our Agricultural Training Center students learn together and work together, they not only learn valuable skills, but they enjoy the sense of community as they progress together and realize they are part of something greater than themselves. When we teach “Farming God’s Way,” the principles of social, psychological, and spiritual development support the new practical skills, and soon the students are becoming confident, capable gardeners, with newfound dignity and hope. As the seeds are growing into better crops, the students are growing into better people. Their families and communities both benefit.

These pictures show the students working in the ATC demonstration gardens with pride and confidence. Soon these maturing Hope Seeds will produce a new harvest of crops, while the group gardening experience produces a new crop of better people.

God bless you for your faithful support of our ministry work in Haiti. Good things are happening as we partner together for His purposes.

Rad Hazelip, Assistant Executive Director