Chorti Village Food Distribution

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For the past couple weeks I´ve helped a different missionary couple in the area with a food distribution project for the Chorti Villages in the Copan area. For various reasons each year the Chorti people (indigineous descendants) don´t have enough corn and bean harvest to last 12 months, usually going without much food for 2 months. It´s expected though and usually not anything major. This year, however, has been especially drastic though and numerous families have absolutely NO FOOD in their homes.

So, Billy and Mary Collins, missionaries from Arkansa to the Chorti people in Copan, were granted funds from a state side church to do a 6 week food distribution to get the Chorti through until their next harvest. I was recruited to help register the represtentatives from the families, asking how many are in the family, ages, of the kids, amount of land they work, etc. I haven´t had much exposure to the villages ( or "aldeas"), so it was a good new experience for me.

Each morning 3 aldeas would come to the Collins´agricultural project, register their families and then that afternoon dried corn and black beans were taken to their villages. After registering at the ag. project though, the people would also sit through a seminar on different methods for planting, caring, and harvesting their crops which would inrease their yeild to last through the whole year and even have enough to sell. This, I felt, was the most beneficial part of the food distribution. I like the saying, "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime."

Many of the Chorti were eager to hear of the new methods and the Collins plan to work with their national partners to give more practical training to these villages. They also have a goat project for families to have milk and also to resell the female offspring (and have a feast with the males).

I´m looking forward to visiting some of the aldeas with Billy and Mary in the future and get a whole different look of Honduran life.

Please pray for the agricultural project and the Chorti villages, not only that they would be able to have the physical food, but also food for their hearts and souls as well!

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