A room filled with thirty plus Haitian farmers who have never descended the mountain before; had never traveled to another town or seen a grocery store. Thirty plus farmers who had been taught how to farm by their parents who had been taught by their parents who had been taught...you get the idea. Thirty plus farmers—men, women, young, old—whose bodies told stories of the physically demanding work day in and day out, season after season to create life from the nutrient-lacking soil in order to get through another day, another season. Men, women, young, old whose children dreamed dreams much different than that of our children in the States. Their dreams involving filled stomachs and maybe to drive a motorcycle one day. Their future, if they stay in the mountains, will most likely find them in the very same place as their father or mother, working the land for survival. Working against all odds in a soil that is not very generous.
Why does Deeply Rooted focus on the soil? Because, to these 30 plus farmers along with every other farmer in the mountains of Haiti, soil is life. And poor soil means a poor life. The country of Haiti has lost 98% of its trees in the past 50 years due to such things as political corruption and cultural norms that are presently-minded as opposed to long-term thinking. Long-term projects such as soil restoration don't normally get the front cover like such relief work as feeding, clothing and educating people, but in a country like Haiti where farming is the only resource they have to survive, soil restoration gives the people the ability to do relief work themselves. Soil restoration allows farmers to grow enough to feed their families as well as a surplus to sell for profit, giving them the ability to provide necessities for their family such as food, clothing and education.
So, in that room filled with 30 plus farmers, I described to them what it was I had come to do and what it was that CODEP, an organization working at the base of the mountain has been able to do. The Haitian leaders of CODEP joined us the next day and shared with the people the way their lives have been changed as a result of the soil restoration project and the people were able to voice their questions and concerns to the leaders and myself. They have tried similar projects in the past which just didn't stick. How was this one going to be different? I find that to be a legitimate concern. How is this going to be different? There are things I said. Things like how CODEP has been working at the base of the mountain for 20 plus years and have had wild success. I told them how, with the help of generous donors in the States, Deeply Rooted would be providing the tools and training so that the people don't need to dig into their already empty pockets to find more loose change. I explained how our God has given me a vision of what's to come and has always provided in every step of this journey and I trust that He will continue to do so. I said all of these things, but there is still the possibility that it will become just another project that they tried. There is a possibility that the soil on top of the mountain is too different than the soil at the bottom of the mountain and it just won't take. There is a chance that, despite fundraising efforts, there just won't be enough money coming in. There is a chance that God's plan is not the same as the plan I have in mind and He steers in a different direction. Who knows?! What I do know is that we're trying. My husband, Patrick, showed me a speech giving by Teddy Roosevelt called Man in the Arena:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
So that's what we're doing. We're getting in the arena and trying because we know that it's so much better than the opposite of not trying in case we fail. I tell you this along with an invitation to join me in the arena. Visit www.deeply-rooted.net to donate to help make the next steps of this journey possible.
What are the next steps, you ask? As of now, the farmers have all agreed to be a part of the project (in fact, over 100 farmers have asked to be a part, but we must start small and expand from there). We also have access to rent land for the test plot and the farmers are aware of how to complete the project. The next step, once we have the funds to do so, the farmers will prepare the land of the test plot, transport baby trees up from the CODEP site and break ground on the land. I will be traveling down in September or October to check progress of the project. If the process is working and the soil is improving, we will begin to expand to the land that the farmers own. A lot of this—timeline of the project and how fast we can expand—deals directly with how many funds we are able to receive.
