Market pictures and some shots of the good section of dirt road

Dustin Holliday, the guy from a church in Virginia Beach who has a huge partnership with Pastor Earl and Verbo ministries went out to take some pictures and action shots so he can put together a promotion video for his church.  The partnership between his church and Pastor Earl involves a holistic approach to solving the issues of extreme poverty and spiritual darkness in Puerto Cabezas.  They, with the help of Forward Edge International and Jeff Thompson, are doing everything from drilling wells, building houses, providing opportunities for education in both children and adults, creating a huge opportunity for a clothing business, prison ministries, sports ministries, and I am sure many other things that I have either forgot or don't even know about.

They have recently been looking to expand into helping the agricultural systems in the surrounding communities, so the timing of my trip has been absolutely amazing; I am learning about the Miskito farming techniques and people, establishing relationships, and building their trust so that hopefully in the future I can really help them get more out of their agricultural efforts.  The plan start from the ground up, so the first step is teaching them why these new ideas that I want to show them are beneficial; I will be doing this by working with some of the more progressive farmers in making test areas and comparison trials between the old techniques and my new ideas.

Some of the things I would like to try during my time on this trip include furrowing the land to provide drainage and better water control, bio-char application for improved soil fertility, advanced residue management (in other words not throwing it all in a pile out in the forest to rot), and row spacing/new planting techniques.  I don't expect all of my ideas to work or be accepted, but any little improvement would help me to secure a positive image in the community, which would open the doors for future projects.

I put up some pictures of some typical Miskito market fresh fruit/fish stands, and some pictures of the well maintained dirt road which you encounter when you get within a few mile of Puerto Cabezas; some time soon I will have to get a few picture of the road to Betania so you all can experience a little taste of how tough it is to drive here.  There are also a few pictures of one of the Verbo housing communities that a few people from my mission trip worked on last year.