Organic Farming

Hola!

Today we went on a field trip for our morning class, and we visited an organic farm. Now, I’ve never really been into organic farming. Nonetheless, I decided to go into this morning with a totally open mind, and I was able to have several interesting conversations about organic farming. Like most of the things I’m learning about, I cannot simply address this issue in a blog post, so I’ll keep it brief. Basically, this one man has this whole farm to himself. I’m not entirely sure how big it was, but it was fairly large…how is that for being general? :)

Anyway, this man was just totally impressive. He was so incredibly humble and meek, and he just had a solid heart. He was passionate about God and about taking care of the ground that God gave him. He gave us a tour of his farm and told us about what he does.  It was obvious that he does not do this because it is an obligation. He does this because he really believes what he does, and he is passionate about his life. And his joy was so evident in his life. It was really humbling, and honestly a blessing to meet him.

After we were done with the tour, his wife had this whole little cafecito (coffee time) fixed up for us. We had pineapple, papaya, watermelon, homemade fruit juice, organic grown coffee, and this bran bread that she made. It was all soo good. Of course, everything we ate was grown on their farm. They actually grow most of the food that they eat. If they do not grow it on their farm, they buy it from neighbors or at the farmer’s market. They buy very little food from the supermarket.

I mentioned that they had organic coffee. Those of you who know me well know that I do not like coffee. At all. I have tried it several times, but I just cannot get myself to like it. Since I was on an organic farm, I knew I could not pass up the chance to try this coffee. So I took a sip of someone else’s…and I can honestly say that I would drink that willingly. Now, I know the girl put a lot of sugar in it, but it is still HUGE for me to admit that I would actually drink coffee without gagging. Impressive, huh?

One thing I noticed about being up in the mountain like that was that it was just so nice to be out of the city. The city is suffocating at times. It just is really busy and loud…all the time. I forgot how much I love the silence in nature, and it was so nice to have a break from the city when we were up in the mountains at his farm. Yes, his farm is in the mountains…what did you think? It was going to be flat like Iowa?! We had to hike (like seriously hike!) to get around his farm.

After our field trip, we had our Spanish class for the rest of the afternoon. I walked home (1 ½ hours) and then had cafecito with my family. During this time, I laughed a lot. My dad was trying to talk in English, and it was just so funny. At first I kind of felt bad for laughing at him when he tries to speak in English, but I couldn’t help it! and now we just all laugh :) It is so cute though because he really doesn’t know English, but he knows a few words. So he told this joke in Spanish and then wanted me to help him translate it so he could say it in English. It took like 5 minutes to get him to say this joke because I had to like tell him the words to say and then he had to like practice saying them because his accent is so strong! He would try to say words in English, and I would have no idea what he was saying because his accent is so strong (and there are a lot of sounds that we have in English that are not in Spanish). For example, they really struggle to say “zero” because they do not have the “zzz” sound in Spanish. I tried to get him to talk like  a bee, and then add the “ero.” To be honest, it didn’t really work, but we really had fun trying :)

This was just another example that I realized afterward that God was using in my life. This was something that he gave me…the chance to laugh again. I realize that this was a blessing from God and I thank him for this opportunity, and I also thank him for giving me the eyes to see this as a gift from him.

Thanks for all your prayers. Please pray that God would continue to help me see him throughout the day. Please pray that I would have time to connect with God and really be patient in this journey when I do not have quick answers. Please pray that I would be content with where I am right now, and please pray that my relationship with God would deepen. Also, our professors are working on our internship placements. We are going to have these internships for almost a month later in the semester, and this is really a big part of our experience here. Please pray that God would just guide the process so that I would get placed at the location that God wants me. I have been working with my professor about where I’m going to be placed, but I just pray that God puts me where he wants me.

Thanks for sharing this journey with me. :)