Chicken Farms and Mission Opportunities
This past weekend, Pastor Ryan Donovan shared during our spotlight time about a current mission project in Senegal that the mission team would like to help support for the next couple weeks.
When I went on the EBC mission trip to Senegal last July, one of the things some of our team had the opportunity to do was meet Norbert Yao, one of the African believers who serves there with Joel McMartin. He has been in the process of developing a chicken farm in one of the nearby villages, and we were able to tour the farm and hear about his vision for it.
The project includes building chicken coops and constructing and maintaining incubators with a capacity of at least 100 eggs, which will allow them to reproduce their own chicks. The project is designed to develop and teach a way of raising chickens that would be sustainable and help provide revenue as tent makers for believers who are involved in ministry there in West Africa, and will hopefully provide effective support in the long term. There are five other men, each from a different people group, who Norbert has been working with for many years, and who need an ongoing income to continue ministering there.
While our team was there, we also met Roger Derpilus and the other Haitian missionaries who are serving in Senegal, alongside Bruce and Cindy McMartin. For the past year, he has also been involved in developing a farm, which he has named Shepherd’s Farm, with the possibility of being able to produce eggs and chicken meat to generate money for the purpose of advancing the kingdom of God in West Africa. He has been growing crops and raising chickens with several goals in mind, which are similar to but also slightly different than Norbert’s goals.
- A source of income to help Haitian missionaries go to Africa, as well as support them once they are there, and also to provide employment for local workers.
- A place to teach farming techniques to Senegalese farmers, and also to be a model for Haitian missionaries as they move to the village.
- A way to provide Haitian missionaries with work they can do in their villages so they’re not thought of as spies and helps them to integrate more easily because they are involved in something that is helpful for Senegal.
Roger and Norbert have been working hard to make their farms a success. Please pray that God would bless their efforts. The McMartins pray for God’s blessing and favor on these projects all the time, and that they will begin generating an income. Both still need funds to continue developing their farms and make them sustainable, as building materials are very expensive there. Besides building materials, some of the things they need to purchase are laying hens, feed for the chickens, a vehicle to transport goods, and machines to help with the work. Recently, a well was drilled on one of the farms, and a pump and solar panels will soon be installed for irrigation.
The EBC Mission Team would like to help support these two projects and have decided that any funds that are donated to the EBC Mission Fund in the next two weeks will go to support both these projects. Thank you for considering being a part of this. If you would like to help, you can donate on our app and select Mission Fund. If you decide you would like to help in the future, I can give you details on where to donate later.
Sharon Pack
For the Mission Team