Some Steps to Becoming a Self Sustaining Institute

A couple of weeks ago a missionary friend, Jesse Eggman, brought a visiting missionary team to the institute. 

{Jesse is in yellow}

They bought 254 lime trees and spent the day planting them. 

Silas and Jonah helped too!

 That one day of investment will provide a $2540 a year profit for the institute once they start producing in 4 years. 

Jesse then brought over a visiting family who spent a day painting the trees with lime. This protects against pests, mainly leaf cutter ants. Those ants could consume these little saplings in under an hour. Here is one that was struggling a bit. 

 Most are doing really well. You can see one behind Jonah and Silas in this photo:

{My kids love the bags of water they sell here. Why is water in a bag so fun?!}

This was the field that Samuel and the students spent 3 days clearing and burning, but now it is full of trees!

Pastor Andy is here this week with another one of his sons, Joseph. When Jimmy showed them around the institute I took a couple of photos. 

It's a long hike to see all of the projects. 

 Jimmy leased out our copal trees to a family that harvests the sap. It is like frankincense. 

{The white stuff is the copal}

Several months ago M (a single guy from our church) helped Jimmy start the Guano project.

There are 1900 of them.

These are the leaves used for the thatched roofs. 

We have the only legally registered Guano farm in Petén… I thought that was funny! 

While the Guano project belongs to the institute as a whole, each individual student has their own tomato, bell pepper, and jalapeño plants. As soon as we get a better water source at the farm, we will have more agriculture projects. 

{Tomato plants in between the corn}

The corn in the photo above was ready to eat as corn on the cob the same week the students arrived and now the rest of it that has dried is being used to make cornmeal for tortillas. 

We finally bought a girlfriend for our male pig, Sparky. Jimmy also purchased another female pig that is already pregnant. Hopefully soon we will have lots of little piglets running around. 

Each student built 4 chicken tractors. 

{Chicken tractors in progress}

Two are for raising meat chickens and the other 2 are for hens laying eggs. 

{P & one of his finished tractors}

There are 150 laying hens currently at the institute. Profit from their eggs is currently covering the students' food costs and giving them about $5 a week spending money from each of their earnings. 

At the advice from a farmer from the last team, Jimmy purchased 2 goats for the institute. Samuel and the students are standing in front of the new goat pen. The goats will be raised for milk and meat. 

Atz'i, the farm's ferocious guard dog (a boxer that was made for this job!) has to be introduced to the goats so just in case one got out of their pen, she wouldn't eat them… she really wanted to at first. 

 Eden loved the goats!

 This coming week is finals week at the institute. Please pray for the students, that they will finish up the semester strong! 

The morale seems to be high. They are as excited about each project that gets added as we are. They are living the improvements, doing a lot of the work and reaping the benefits! We hope this will help them believe in these methods enough to employ them once they start their ministries, so that they will be able to support their families with little struggle. Please pray that God will continue to bless and protect the institute and all of the different projects!