Visit to Veitongo Farming Project

This project was our first project.  It has to do with the community of Veitongo in providing an acre of ground for 150 families to plant root crops that can be used for their food storage and for disaster relief.  They will also be sending their surplus to New Zealand as they have a buyer there who will purchase it.  With their funds from the sale of surplus they will be able to put savings away for future plowing, to pay tithing, and for rainy days.  In the beginning we requested the church to purchase a tractor and implements, but the Area felt that we could just use Liahona tractor, which has created some problems, but we are working through them with the help of the Lord.  We are teaching these people how they can provide for themselves without relying on outside help in times of need and times of disasters.

Since we have started this project, the Sister Missionaries have reported that all doors are open the them.  They knock and they are invited in.  Bishop Huni's Ward went from 200 attendance to Sacrament meeting to 417.  This is truly the Lord's work, it is His way of reaching these inactive and non-member people.  In this project there are leaders from the Catholic and the Free Wesleyn Church who are supervising some of their people that is in this project as well.

We went to visit the Veitongo Farming Project as the villagers are starting to plant their acreages with manioke.  It is amazing to see how this community has come together on this project and are working very hard to make it a success!  Following are some photos of our day there.

This is Sister Huni cutting the new starts for the manioke plants.

This is part of the non-member family holding a mature manioke plant.  They will cut the big tube roots off to eat, and then the sticks of the plant will be cut into sticks about 12 inches long.

This is Bishop Huni planting part of his field.  He is laying out the cut sticks and then he will go back and push them into the ground about 2-3 inches.

This is a non-member family planting their acre of ground.  Even the little one is there to help.

In this picture you can see the sticks in the ground.  It is amazing that they will start to grow from a stick.  It will be about December when they are ready to harvest.  They can also leave them in the ground for 2-3 years that will work for their food storage as well as storage for disasters that they always have here in the Pacific Islands.

If you look closely you can see the little one pushing sticks in the ground as well.  It is totally a family project!

"A farmer who neglects or refuses to cast his wheat into the earth, because he wants to keep it, can have no increase; but if he sow the wheat in good rich soil, each living grain may multiply itself many fold, though of necessity the seed must be sacrificed in the process."   James E. Talmage