One Step in Overcoming Drought
Can the events of the Bible times be effective to teach us ways to overcome modern day struggles? This is a persistent question for us today.
The word of God declares, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2Tim3:16-17)
The word perfect in the passage above means “complete”.
Both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible are profitable for us to become complete. The events of the Bible are written to be an example for us (1Cor 10:1-13).
In Genesis 26:12-15, we read about a famine in the Bible and how God instructed His people to fight against it.
“And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The LORD blessed him, (Gen 26:12)
and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. (Gen 26:13)
He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him. (Gen 26:14)
(Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father. (Gen 26:15)”
We ask, we seek, and we knock( Matt 7:7-8) for the leading of the Spirit of God (Jn 16:13). As fathers, we believe that God is directing us to act in faith to by working in Phalombe village. We believe God has given us an opportunity to solve this hunger problem with solar-powered water irrigation systems.
The scriptures state that if we are faithful in little, we will be faithful in much (Luke 16:9-11). We believe that a drip water system is a valuable first step in watering crops before we are able to acquire the solar powered irrigation resources. We are excited to see the hand of the Lord working in us fathers to grow in little by little, said Pastor Wiskie Chidobvu.
Then Pastor Wiskie introduced an easy way to do irrigation with minimum resources amid water scarcity in the area. We moved to a demonstration field to watch a short YouTube video clip of what some people are doing in other countries to make drip irrigation work using the plastic bottles without the whole piping system. See picture above of Phalombe residents learning about drip irrigation from resources on the web.
We discussed with the Phalombe fathers how to practice drip irrigation in the Phalombe village. The distance from the demonstration field to the nearest borehole is 1.1 kilometers (0.684 miles). This shows how these people are suffering to fetch water. On the other hand, we see the commitment of the Phalombe residents to work hard in overcoming the hardship of the drought conditions. Wisdoms-house leaders in Zomba have come along side the Phalombe residents to aid in this effort.
Chief Kolosha, one of the prominent leaders in Phalombe, said, “this is very important to know, and would like to say thanks to the Wisdoms-house leaders for the insight. This has helped us to be comforted in our faith, not that seeing have given us faith, but we are really encouraged to take a step.”
We started the demonstration field preparation and showed the example of two plastic bottles being used to irrigate the planted seed.
Pastor Ng’ombe said, “I have been hearing about these things but I haven’t proved it. This is so encouraging to us that we are practically involved ourselves to make it ourselves. We appreciate Zomba team for standing strong encouraging us to pursue the vision until we see the outcome of the seed of the word of God.”
Both Zomba team and Phalombe fathers are praying for the provision to get more bottles, seed and fertilizer for the best test of the plan for the demonstration field. We also praying for our own land for proper settlement that we may begin to develop the long term vision we have.
