My Journey

I am writing a separate blog just for a farm report.  It seems many people do not know that I have also been using most of my Saturdays to oversee work on our farm on the mountain.  A tree farm was started there about 5 years ago and for the last 2+ years, I have been assisting with this work. When the farm was first started over 100,000 trees were planted.  These were both pine trees and eucalyptus trees.  Unfortunately, two years into the project, there was a horrible fire on the mountain which killed over 90% of these trees.  During the last two years, we have planted more trees and worked hard to ensure the growth of the ones we had left.  Below are a few pictures of some of our current trees.  We have around 20,000 now and some are big enough to start trimming off the bottom branched to help with their upward growth. These are a few of  the first trees which were planted. These trees are about 3 years old.  You can see the recent growth at the tops of the trees

Lately, I have been studying what the experts are saying about short-term mission trips.  I am most interested since we have been hosting so many visitors.  Most of the visitors we have are medical or nursing students.  As such, they are here to have a learning experience.  They are young minds eager to learn both culture differences and how medicine differs here from their home.  Watching them interact is great as is seeing the differences through their eyes.  Most of the experiences they have are positive and make lasting impressions on their lives.  However, some experiences are not happy ones, but they, too, make lasting impressions and sometimes those experiences will impact their lives in a long-term way.  These students and their experiences are rewarding to both the long term missionaries and the Tanzanians they  spend time with.  But the real reason I have found it important for me to study what the experts are saying about short-term missions is because of the "oth