Coffee, Bags, House and Rice Mill
This is a pretty packed update. Not just because my last post was in January but there just seems to be a lot happening. I have never been this busy since I moved to Thailand back in 05. Which means we are coming up on our fifth year mark here in April. I won’t get into to many details otherwise this is going to be a long post. So I’ll get to the main points.
Coffee
We have already dug some 2,500 holes for coffee seedlings and about 2,000 more planned. We are planting our own as well as micro-loaning seedlings to farmers who want to grow. Primarily working with people in the church and family. Many farmers have told us they may want to grow coffee after they see ours succeed. Apart from the holes being dug we have also built a small (and I mean small) nursery to keep seedlings and other plants. A new water project has also been proposed and will consist of drawing water from a natural spring, running one kilometer of pipe and possibly building a cement tank. It will provide water for the coffee plantation and possibly give water to a near by village during dry season.
Also we hope to have a training event where villagers who are planting coffee will be able to learn all about growing, mulching, trimming and harvesting coffee. We are hoping to receive training from a local coffee company. www.silaacoffee.com
Bags
J’Nangutong ~ My Sister’s Bag
The vision includes bags from a variety of women groups around the world, but for right now, we only have Karen Bags. We have modified the tradition style side bag to meet the grocery bag standard in the West. We are also thinking some products like tea towels, table runners, napkins, etc. might provide a more consistent appeal to western markets too. This is all still in the marketing research phase and a web site will hopefully soon be up and running. For the mean time we have women busy making bags and tea towels to be sent to the States and Canada.
House
I am building a small two bedroom house for our family to stay in while we are in the village. Mission teams and guests will also be able to use it while visiting the village. We are cutting the wood from big pine trees in the forest and building it ourselves. It will be a traditional Karen style house raised off the ground. I also hope to have this done before the rains hit in mid May.
Rice Mill
We have just installed a new machine in the rice mill. It will take the rice husks that get tossed out in the back of the mill and grind them up to a fine bran that will be bagged and sold for fodder.
Though we are having some initial set backs and some mild miss-communication on how to use the machine. We hope to get the kinks out soon. Thank you to those of you who have supported our rice mill project. We will be using the profit from the rice mill not only to pay for the workers but also to help establish small businesses in the village. Including the bag and coffee business.
