Transforming Joy - Send A Cow

Our harvest collection this year is shared between Highbury's Mission and Send a Cow. During the first part of our service we learned about Send a Cow and its support of sustainable agriculture in Africa.

There is a rhythm to the year as the seasons pass into each other. The last Sunday of September we mark as a celebration of the goodness of God’s creation. The harvests safely gathered in, the fields are now being ploughed, ploughing competitions being held this year. As one agricultural year finishes so another starts. For Jewish people this marks the start of a New Year. And in many ways it’s like that for me. In the Autumn we mark God’s creation, at Christmas the way God comes alongside us in Jesus and shares our humanity. On Good Friday we mark the way God in Christ shares in the suffering of humanity at its worst and at Easter the way we too can share in that Resurrection Victory that Jesus won. And then Pentecost is the reminder that we are not alone – there is a strength from beyond ourselves that we can draw on in the Holy Spirit of God.

And then the summer over we come back to harvest and that celebration of the goodness of God’s creation.

But it’s not possible to share in the goodness of God’s creation without being concerned about God’s world, and the very great needs of people around us. That’s why at harvest we link up with County Community Projects and seek to replenish the food stocks they need to give people food parcels. We also have a special collection that we share between Highbury’s mission with its focus on our children’s worker and an international project that enables us to share our resources with others in need.

It was Phil Arnold who this year suggested we should support Send A Cow. Another of our members was very excited when she heard that was what we were supporting.

Well over 20 years ago – maybe 23 years ago or longer Pat Kimber and her husband, Ron, were worshipping at St Philip’s and St James’ Church in Bath. As she recalled it was a farmer from Peasdown St John and his wife started attending the church.

The church had already had links with Africa through their Vicar, Alan Bayne. It was through those conversations that Send a Cow was started.

Looking to the web site the farmers took up the story – they recalled that at the time they were faced with a dilemma. For many years they had been encouraged to increase their productivity. And then came a directive that they had to cut back their production. Quotas were introduced. And they had to shoot as many as thirty cows from a herd.

At a time when so many in the world were starving, that seemed wrong.

And so it was they explored the possibility of actually sending cows to Africa. Through contacts they had they made contact with a ministry in Uganda. And Send a Cow was born.

The idea was to help small farmers on a very small scale by giving them a cow. Amazingly, the idea took off. The support of small farmers has grown through half a dozen other African countries, Ethiopia, Kenya … sometimes with seed, sometimes with livestock – all if it now sourced from within Africa, funded by Send a Cow. And now another reasonably local farmer is Patron, the Prince of Wales.

Working in collaboration with local people, they have developed a set of values that emphasise the importance of the small farmer, farming in a way that is sustainable in their own community.

They serve people of any faith and of no faith … but their roots are firmly in that Christian inspiration that was at the heart of those conversations between that farming family and that vicar in the church Pat Kimber and her husband belonged to.

They draw our attention to three stories from the Bible that get to the heart of what they are about … and to one verse. Those three stories and that verse seem to me to speak to us all today.

The first story takes us on to the hills just above the North west corner of the Sea of Galilee – a crowd of 5000 people are hungry. Someone is prepared to share their loaves and two fish – Jesus blesses them and everyone eats their fill.

Send a Cow have seen a ‘phenomenon’ which they call ‘The multiplier effect’. As families become farmers – and often their own bosses – others naturally want to share in their success. This means that every person who is helped by Send a Cow passes on knowledge and skills to around another nine family members, friends or neighbours.

It’s such a simple principle … and it is so exciting to see the difference it has made through Send a Cow working on a tiny scale with very small family farms.

That simple principle is something for us to take to heart. The world’s problems are so immense it is so easy to throw the towel in – what difference can we make. Through that one boy’s tiny offering so many were helped that day by Jesus. Maybe we should each of us think of just some small thing we could each do this coming week – think of the multiplier effect that could have around us. That makes a real difference.

The second story takes just south from Galilee to the region of Samaria and to a woman who is by a well, but has nothing to draw water with. Jesus approaches her and breaks through a number of taboos – a man, he speaks with this woman, something that the law forbade; a Jewish man, he speaks with this Samaritan woman although Jewish and Samaritan people were at loggerheads. The woman was a woman in despair, a woman without hope, a woman whose life had fallen apart. The woman gets not just water from the well, but the conversation with Jesus touches her very deeply – she has some pretty big personal problems that Jesus gets to the heart of. It is as if she has spiritual water to quench her spiritual thirst. Jesus gives her hope. He sent a Samaritan woman away with a new life and rescued her from failure giving her hope.

Jesus goes to the root of her problem and gives her hope. How important it is for us to go to the root of the world’s problems and address root causes of injustice and poverty – Send A Cow’s values do just that.

But then the woman does something remarkable. She goes back to her own village and passed on what she had received – she didn’t keep it to herself – she passed on the message of hope.

Send a Cow has its own Pass it On system. Every family who receives a gift from them promises to pass on a gift to another family in need. Whether it’s the first female calf, seeds, saplings or skills, each gift starts a chain of giving that continues to grow and grow. Importantly they become donors themselves, restoring their dignity and pride..

So Send a Cow seeks to deal with the root cause of people’s hunger and poverty and not just the symptoms. To offer them a ‘hand-up’ rather than a ‘hand-out’. It seeks to rescue them in such a way that they have real life changing and permanent hope - sustainability. The families who have received start to give to others in their community.
• They were receivers. Now they become givers.
• Some of the animals that are born are not kept - they are given away.
• So the chain continues.

The gift we discover is a gift to pass on to others – is there someone we could pass the message of God’s hope on to?

And the third Bible story takes us to the third day after Jesus had been crucified. And two of his friends are walking the seven miles to Emmaus … utterly in despair. And then someone joins them they don’t recognise. They invite him in for a meal. And in the breaking of bread they recognise it is the risen Jesus. Their despair is taken away and their outlook on the future is completely transformed.

This is the practical mission of Send a Cow, providing the resources for Transforming Joy as people are not only fed but equipped to help others to follow their experience and find a similar joy. Not only by passing on knowledge through the Pass it On principle and the multiplier effect, but also by becoming peer farmers themselves. Farmers who become exceptional at what they do are asked to help train other farmers in neighbouring groups. Helping to spread the knowledge quicker and to more and more people.

The joy of our Harvest celebrations can reverberate around the world through the life changing training given, seeds grown and animals provided. Send a Cow seeks daily to rescue people from hunger, to take them from sadness to joy and from despair to hope and self-sufficiency, in the most practical of ways.

It is wonderful to see that when some of those original farmers who had started the ball rolling all those years ago returned to Uganda recently they met with some of the very first people to receive a cow - how good to see that 23 years on that tiny initiative has made a world of difference to those people!

Three stories that have been an inspiration to Send a Cow and transformed people’s lives.

And there’s one verse.

That takes us back to that Bible reading we had earlier …

‘Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up’. Galatians 6:9

We need to keep at it. Pat has been very much in our prayers as she awaits major surgery in Frenchay. What she shared with me is what keeps her going … and maybe it’s something we could well do as well.

Each day she turns a page in a calendar and in abook which contain Bible verses and a prayer.

I copied out the verses and the prayer that will keep Pat going today …

September 25th

Keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flows the springs of life.
Proverbs 4:23

And then a prayer and a verse –

The Rain of His Spirit.

Thank Him for the storms
That break open the dry, parched ground
and allow the renewing rain of His Spirit to pour into our lives.
It’s the weight of the wind,
And the force of the storm
That make deep sturdy roots and strong solid trees.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. Jeremiah 17:7-8

[From B.J.Holf, God’s Abundant Love – One Minute Devotions]