Ambangeg Organic Farmers Association Visit - July 25-26, 2013

      After 16.5 hours we made it to our destination in Ambangeg outside of Baguio. We traveled by plane from Batanes for 1.5 hours. Then our friend Kevin kindly drove us to the bus station and we rode bus for 7 hours, and Pastor Brett kindly picked us up in Baguio and took us for dinner then we traveled by truck for another 3 hours. The travel was almost all good besides Josiah throwing up on the bus and getting it all over Lydia, she's a trooper super mom! No more junk food for Josiah ever says mom haha.

Our purpose was to follow up an Organic Farming Association we helped start and help them write project proposals for their demo farm.  We visited 9 farms on July 25, 8 of the members farms and our demo farm.  Some people were beginning to make compost, sheet mulching, banana circles and vermiculture after our training in April 15-17, 2013.  

The members were so encouraged  by the effect of mulching on their beans as they were harvesting lots and plants are healthy.

Accomplishments to Date: 

1. Conducted a (3) day Community Health Evangelism Training of Trainers 1 on November 28-November 30, 2012.  
2. Introduced organic farming through powerpoint presentations and discussions, after which an Association consisting of (15) members was created.
3. Ambangeg Organic Farming Association was given a certificate from Department of Labour and Employment DOLE.
4. Project proposal for farming equipments and tools was written and a first draft submitted to Department of Labour and Employment DOLE and some items were pre-approved already.
5. Conducted a (3) day Dynamic Church Planting International - DCPI - Growing New Churches workshop April 10-12, 2013.
6. (3) day introduction to Permaculture was conducted for association members April 15-17, 2013.
7. Demo farm location was selected to highlight permaculture technologies.
8. Commercial Distributor of organic vegetables identified.  
9. Gospel shared to the community during meetings and workshops.
10. Farm visits and proposal writing for the Department of Agriculture July 25-26, 2013.  

Our next schedule to Ambangeg is in September 2013 as we will do more hands on permaculture training and a DCPI - Dynamic Church Planting International - Church Planting Essentials Course.  We are pleased to be working with our friend Pastor Brett Mitchell and his church leaders and the members of Ambangeg Organic Farming Association, we are treated well by our friends there whenever we visit.