{"id":1818,"date":"2012-09-03T15:38:57","date_gmt":"2012-09-03T20:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/?p=1818"},"modified":"2012-09-03T15:38:57","modified_gmt":"2012-09-03T20:38:57","slug":"great-visit-by-simon-matthew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/2012\/09\/great-visit-by-simon-matthew\/","title":{"rendered":"Great visit by Simon &amp; Matthew"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What a great time when Simon Kamau and Matthew Malual visited Congo in mid-August.  During the Q &amp; A part of the seminar on development that gave to CEUM leaders, Simon happened to share about the French beans on his farm this year.  He started with 2 acres.  When he harvested he took all the profits and poured it back into the farm and raised 4 acres.  He did the same again and now has 11 acres of beans.  When asked how he was able to do this he responded, \u201cI\u2019ve learned something very important.  I\u2019ve learned to be an expert save and not and expert spender.\u201d  Everyone chuckled, but his point was made.<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_1820\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Simon-at-blackboard-640x480.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1820\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Simon-at-blackboard-640x480-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1820\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Simon-at-blackboard-640x480-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Simon-at-blackboard-640x480.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1820\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Simon explaining something about development<\/p><\/div><br \/>\nAs we traveled from Gemena to Loko we visited the Kanana experimental farm where they saw the process of drying mangosteens as a means of adding value and allowing the fruit to be more readily transported to market.  At Loko we visited the ministries; the fish ponds, oil palm plantation, Garden of Eden, hospital, health zone office and technical services.  Jean-Pierre Zuku, CEUM Coordinator of Development, accompanied them on the trip.  He felt at times like he was in a continual oral jury as Matthew and Simon were asking many questions.  Not just explain this that, but also why this and why not that and what is the sustainability of this project.  Great questions and great discussions.<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_1819\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Zuku-Matthew-Simon-640x480.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1819\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Zuku-Matthew-Simon-640x480-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1819\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Zuku-Matthew-Simon-640x480-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Zuku-Matthew-Simon-640x480.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1819\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zuku (L) showing a fruit to Matthew and Simon (R)<\/p><\/div><br \/>\nAt Loko we were able to visit one of the associations which are key in the Farmers To Market project based at Loko.  We visited their community garden where we saw how they have planted an improved variety of corn in rows.  They are harvesting now the end of August and soon we should know what the production was relative to their normal crop.  During discussion with the association members after the field visit Simon and Matthew again asked tough questions, particularly \u201cwhat is the sustainability of the project, i.e. what will happen with the ideas once the project funds are gone?\u201d  For now the answer is not completely clear, but we do know that the farmers will have seed from their crop to plant again.<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_1822\" style=\"width: 277px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Zuku-explaining-point-320x200.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1822\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Zuku-explaining-point-320x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"267\" height=\"200\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1822\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1822\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zuku, 2nd from left, making a point during our field visit<\/p><\/div><br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_1823\" style=\"width: 693px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Panorama-of-corn-crop.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1823\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Panorama-of-corn-crop.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"683\" height=\"200\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1823\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Panorama-of-corn-crop.jpg 683w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/09\/Panorama-of-corn-crop-300x87.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1823\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Corn planted in rows on L, close-up of an ear in the middle and corn planted with the traditional spacing on the Right<\/p><\/div><br \/>\nSimon, the Chair of the Evangelical Covenant Church of Kenya, and Matthew, the Projects Director for the Evangelical Covenant Church of S Sudan, were invited to attend the CEUM\u2019s 75th Anniversary.  As both of them work with projects and community development we invited them to come a week earlier to visit CEUM ministries.   It was a powerful time of connection for leaders from the three churches.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand?moderation_action=report_form&object_type=post&object_id=1818&width=250&height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What a great time when Simon Kamau and Matthew Malual visited Congo in mid-August. During the Q &amp; A part of the seminar on development that gave to CEUM leaders, Simon happened to share about the French beans on his farm this year. He started with 2 acres. When he harvested he took all the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Great visit by Simon &amp; Matthew - Ekstrands in Congo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/2012\/09\/great-visit-by-simon-matthew\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Great visit by Simon &amp; Matthew - Ekstrands in Congo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What a great time when Simon Kamau and Matthew Malual visited Congo in mid-August. 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