Maize Harvest!

This has been the driest rainy season. So many are worried as their farms aren’t growing well. There are already issues of hunger in the country due to the cyclone last year, and the future of the maize harvest this year is uncertain for many.

I don’t make it out to visit Brother’s in Arms that much. I’m usually at home cooking when Kossi takes the kids, or I am doing school with the kids. So it was an even greater and celebratory event to be able to make it out to harvest the maize.

We praise God for the provision and forethought by Masanche Asante Henry to install an irrigation system. This had been a project that Kossi Nokplim Akpi helped manage several months ago.

I have grown a curiosity for celebrations and feasts in the Bible and around the world, and so many of them revolve around harvest. How we take it for granted in a world where we can order things from around the world, and our grocery stores are stocked with produce and fruit year long (North American and European stores that is…not ours). Living in Malawi has taught me to live seasonally and to eat locally because that’s mostly all that is available. While maize isn’t a staple in our household, it is in the majority of the nation’s. I can more deeply understand the importance of celebrating a good harvest, knowing it will provide months of food.

The last photo is of a liturgy I found for harvest time. Another piece from the same liturgy says this;

“By faith

I pluck an ear of corn

and know

within its symmetry

lies the chemistry of life

the potential of creation within my hand

 By faith

I listen for your voice

and know

the whisper that I hear

breathed a world into existence

yet listens to the prayer within my soul”

How humbling it is to depend on the rains of heaven to grow our crops. Please pray for Malawi and the rest of the farms that are suffering without adequate water. Pray for our president, that he would make wise decisions to care for those hungry and in need in this country.