What’s on your “To Do” list?
Maybe it’s long.
But, if you lived in the harsh highlands of Peru, your “To Do” list might be much shorter.
To Do:
- Survive
Forget about planning ahead … forget about dreaming … Just get through the day alive.
The climate is so severe, the soil is so bad, farming is so hard, food and water are so scarce, the poverty is so deep … you spend every day just doing whatever you have to do to make it — to put food on the table — to stave off the hunger, the sickness, the weakness … the hopelessness.
But your generous support of Esperança is changing this picture … beautifully.
Together, we’re helping subsistence farmers in Peru to “harvest” water — irrigate their land — fertilize crops organically — extract more nutrients from the soil — raise more crops, and more consistently … make sure there’s always enough food for themselves and their children.
The scientists call it “food security.” But this phrase doesn’t tell the whole story. When you give the gift of food security, you give a family the chance to dream. You give them the opportunity, for the first time in their lives, to start building a better future.
I hope you will give such a gift again today. We’ve helped some families, but there are many, many more in dire need. We can only help them with your support. So today, I bring you this sincere request, from the bottom of my heart:
Please give a generous tax-deductible contribution of food security — a chance to dream — to children and families in some of the most difficult places on earth.
I have seen what a wonderful miracle your generosity can set in motion….
I see it in the life of Juan and Janeth and their two young children. Juan grew up in a small village called Tuntuma in Peru. He met Janeth, they married and had two children — and Juan farmed a small plot of land. Juan and Janeth worked hard. They built a small house with their own hands. They acquired two cows and four sheep.
Yet hard as they worked, they couldn’t grow enough crops to feed their family and their animals, let alone sell anything at market. The climate at nearly 13,000 feet above sea level — frost, hail, wind, drought, all in random rotation — made farming brutally difficult. Worst of all, there simply wasn’t enough water to nourish their crops and livestock. Life was grim. Every day, the “To Do” list was the same: Just get by.
But then came the generosity of a friend like you … sending Esperança to offer help and hope. We helped them build a water reservoir that harvests water, then provided irrigation pipes, valves, and hoses to transfer water from the reservoir to the fields. We taught Juan and Janeth techniques for optimizing soil nutrients, increasing crop production.
We’ve taught them where and how to dig trenches to increase water flow, how to terrace the land to prevent erosion and water loss, how to fertilize organically and deploy safe pesticides, and more …
But maybe most satisfying of all, we’ve helped them map out their future by creating their own pictorial “Life Story” plan, a vision of what lies ahead. They envision a farm producing potatoes, corn, quinoa, and vegetables, and healthy livestock. They’ve depicted a larger, more comfortable home, ecologically designed, warm and clean and organized. They’ve imagined their children healthy and going to school. They’re dreaming.
And their dreams can come true, because of the gift of “food security.” Please share this life-giving opportunity with another family like Juan and Janeth’s. Be as generous as you can. Even a little will go a long way, in a village like Tuntuma.
