We are happy to report that our 1,000 layer chicken house has been built. We have also
purchased the chicks, and in five months, Lord willing, we will have a large supply of eggs. Many businesses in the area have already contacted us about purchasing large amounts of eggs to sell. Good, quality eggs are very difficult to find in Tanzania. Most of the eggs, due to poor nutrition, have yolks as white as the “egg whites.” Every week we sell out of the 600 eggs our hens currently produce, because buyers are thrilled to have good eggs with yellow/orange yolks.
We also had a new addition born on the farm this month. Leroy, as Anna calls him, will join the other 2016 calves, Ruby and Otis. He was a very large calf, much bigger than Otis who is already a month old. Both boys will be grown out and at a year we will sell them. Lord willing, we will use the money to add to our milkers. We would like to expand our three milkers to around nine in the future.
Our corn and beans have grown in nicely and we are thanking God for the rain He has provided. We have several acres of corn and beans planted and harvest time is just around the corner. We have cleaned the shamba for the last time now since the beans have started to flower, so all we will do now is sit back and pray God keeps giving us the rain we need and provides a good harvest for the school.
This month we have the second year students working in the shamba. They helped us weed our corn and beans. We talked about not wasting anything and using all the resources you have available. The grass was too high in many places and so we used the weeds and grass clippings from where we cleaned up the garden (while doing so we killed two snakes). We then combined those clippings with manure from the chickens, goats, and cows along with food scraps from the kitchen to start a big compost pile to use in the raised beds later.
Evangelism:
Anna continues teaching the preachers’ wives once a month and it is going well. Justin is continuing to work with Kisongo’s youth on Saturdays. One Saturday this month the kids came in the pouring down rain, and so did some local dogs! Everyone wanted to get dry and out of the rain.
Two women were added to the Lord’s Church this month. Mungu ni mwema.
The evangelism teams are working in Njiro chini this month and next month to prepare for the upcoming campaigns. We look forward to the “Safari for Souls” and are praying for the work being done and that will be done, Lord willing.
We are thrilled to have our new teammates, Mason and Haley Norman, here with us! We are looking forward to the rest of the family joining us in May and June.
Thank you all for your constant love and encouragement. We enjoyed taking a picture of the Kisongo kids with their paper hair after they learned about Samson!
Justin Maynard
To see the Maynard’s report with pictures, please click here.