Skagit Valley Mission Trip - Day Five

It is hard to believe that our mission trip is coming to an end.  We only have one more day here in the Skagit Valley.  Today was a great day of going a bit deeper and experiencing broader things than we had anticipated.

The day started with some more work on farms and in fields.  We split the group up to two different work sites: another farm with Small Potatoes Gleaning Project and the Western Washington University Outback Garden.  The group with Small Potatoes Gleaning picked, well...potatoes.  They were on a commercial farm that had an additional potato harvest to donate to the Bellingham Food Bank.  I wasn't there, but the reports are they pulled two TONS of potatoes (they had the help of a tractor to unearth the potatoes, so there job was following behind and picking them up from the ground).

The Western Washington University Outback Garden is an educational farm on the campus of WWU that teaches students about sustainable agriculture and land use.  All of the produce grown on the farm is also donated to the Bellingham Food Bank.  The youth in this group weeded around the compost pile to ensure that weeds didn't find their way into the soil and cleared blackberry brambles from a newly planted fruit orchard.  While this work seemed a bit disconnected from our initial understanding of why we are here, our time yesterday serving at the food bank reminded us that even small jobs like weeding can make a big difference in helping those in need.

This afternoon we visited a ministry in Mount Vernon called Tierra Nueva.  Tierra Nueva was founded in Honduras and has been in the Skagit Valley for 20 years.  Their two primary ministries are with farmworkers and people in prison.  We met the head of staff, Mike Neelly, and he told us about the various work Tierra Nueva does in the community.  On top of their work with farmworkers and in prison, they have recently begun a ministry to the gangs in the Skagit Valley and an addiction recovery ministry.  Tierra Nueva has a small coffee rousing operation that employes several people who have come out of their jail ministry.  People with criminal backgrounds almost always have a difficult time finding work which does not help break the cycle of addiction and crime.  So Tierra Nueva runs a small coffee plantation in Honduras and roasts the beans in the Skagit Valley to employ several people at a higher level and with more dignity than they would be able to find elsewhere.

Mike telling us about the Tierra Nueva coffee roasting operation and showing us their roaster.

One of the highlights for our youth was hearing from a man named Kevin who shared his story of addiction and the beginnings of recovery with our youth.  Kevin has recently come to Tierra Nueva for help as he tries to be free from drugs.  Mike is 60 days clean and is getting married next month.  He shared with us how his faith in Jesus has carried him through a very hard time in life and has made the difference between him choosing life over death.  Kevin prayed for our youth and we had the honor of praying for him, his fiancé Danielle, and the baby they are expecting named Asher. Our youth had a lot of wonderful things to say about caring for all people, not judging people who make mistakes in life, and trusting in Jesus to get us through hard times as we debriefed our day this evening.

Our group with Mike (bottom left), and Kevin and Danielle (top center) at Tierra Nueva

Tomorrow we will be at the Resurreccion Day Cmap for their last day (and ours).  We'll be running a carnival and street fair and assisting with their closing celebrations.  Our youth are really looking forward to being at the day camp and the children!