We have been having a fun and busy summer. Dave spent two weeks in Congo and Burundi with the Saltshaker team. The kids have been having daily language lessons and occasional tennis and swimming.
We just returned from a 10 day missionary retreat at Kumbya. Dave was leading it this year, we had 100 missionaries from Burundi and Rwanda. It was a really good time for all of us, good worship, good teaching and good times of fun and rest. Dave and I had less rest since he was leading the retreat, and I'm leading the effort of ongoing development of the Kumbya property. In any case, it was the highlight of the kids summer, as usual.
In just two days we are headed of to Uganda for a time of vacation. We haven't gone there for vacation in about 9 years. We are going to climb a mountain, camp, stay on an island, do a family river rafting, and spend some time with David's cousin Karina, her new husband Andy, and their new baby boy David. We are looking forward to getting away from the normal hustle of life in Kigali!
So...we'll be back in two weeks, getting ready for Breanna to go back to boarding school, and our other three to start their school too.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Ubuzima Moringa Update
Here is the most recent information about Ubuzima Moringa in Rwanda.
January 2009—This is when we received our first portion of investment money from our three British investors.
February 2009—We hired 30 people to clear and hoe our one hectare of land. All grasses, banana trees, etc. was piled together in big long ‘logs’ to rot. This should be good compost to use on the crops in about a year.
March-April 2009—
Employees: We settled on a consistent daily crew of 15 people who now work every day. They are digging deeply the beds for intensive planting, bringing cow manure to the field, preparing rows and planting Moringa seeds intensively. They have planted 4--10 meter by 30 meter plots. The first plot planted is now almost a foot high. We are also doing a comparison plot that will be planted soon of actual trees that will be 80cm apart, to compare with the intensively planted area.
Daniel is our only full time contract holding employee at the time. He is on the field every day by 6. He has a great relationship with the farmers in the area and works very well with both the employees and government officials. He has shared our vision with government officials in the area and they are enthusiastic about what we are doing.
Building: We have built a small mud structure that can be locked to keep tools in. The larger permanent structure will be built in the dry season (June-August). It will allow us to bump up production significantly. Now we are drying leaf in the small drying structure we have at our home in Kigali. We will also build a small structure for the donkey, and possibly a milk cow. The cow can eat the remains of the moringa that we don’t use (which is a great cow food), provide milk for sale locally, and provide a lot of fertilizer from our left over moringa.
Irrigation: We have dug three big pits on our property down by the swamp that fill with water. This will be the source of water that we use to irrigate our land. We have two big water storage tanks that the water is pumped into with a gas powered water pump. From there we have electrical piping with holes punched into it going all through the field to irrigate the trees. It is definitely homemade, and we’ve had to make adjustments, but so far its working quite well.
Packaging: A young lady named Grace Poon, who is a graphic designer, came out with an engineering team (for another group) and said she would do the designing of our bags for free. She has worked very hard on this and has done a great job. We have had these printed at a Kenyan printer and have received the first 50,000 moringa bags to be filled for sale in two sizes: 50 grams (8 heaping teaspoons and 250 grams (40 teaspoons).
Legal Documents: All of the legal documents have been secured for Ubuzima Moringa in Rwanda. I have secured a day to day accountant, and a professional accountant who will come in twice a month. I purchased a copy of Quickbooks and have learned how to use it (now I need to teach the accountant to use it). Bob Whiteman, one of the stateside investors, has written an operating agreement which will help us keep the company operating in line with our vision for the long run. It’s a complex document, and hard to understand, but it will help us avoid problems that may come up in the future. Bob and Kevin Hoppock have been very helpful in sorting out how investment money works, transferring money to Rwanda, and being of general support and encouragement in these first months of the business’ operation.
Donkey: Two weeks ago we purchased one of 6 donkeys in Rwanda. The plan is to use the donkey for local transportation and field labor. Transporting it in the back of our pickup for four hours through the volcanic hills of Rwanda was more of a challenge than we had counted on! However, now it is becoming a family friend. The kids love it, and it has a sweet temperament. Today it came inside the house seeking out company and it took us 20 minutes to convince it to go out!
By the end of this month all the investment money from Friends in the US will be here, stock certificates signed and sent, and the final operating agreement out to investors as well.
Marketing: Marketing is starting to happen on a very small scale. We are keeping in mind that we have a small amount of Moringa powder to sell at this time, so we are looking for people with small communities to sell it. I also have lots of ideas of shops where it could be sold in the city of Kigali as well. However, our production is so small at the moment that I’m giving out information, but not yet actively seeking customers. (We are selling about 10 kg a month from our garage to people who stop by and ask for it, or who are thinking about using it on a larger scale.)
Further studies: I am presently taking a masters level course on Business as Mission. The professor, Neal Johnson, is an experienced businessman as well as an experienced missionary. He is writing a textbook on Business as Mission and asked me to help him with a missionaries perspective. The course has been very helpful.
So, overall things are moving ahead pretty much as planned. We do come up against challenges regularly, which I think is normal for businesses. My faith has been challenged a lot in this process. Often I feel that I don’t have everything I need to complete this task, but the Lord reminds me he is calling me to obedience, and faith in him, not perfection or complete business knowledge. Our biggest challenge at the moment is getting the product (the little we have) out on the market. Also, our production is still a lot smaller at this point than we thought it would be, so we are working on upping production.
Thank you for your prayers and support of this ‘out of the box’ ministry. I hope that you will feel free to contact me with questions, comments or advice (I need a lot of advice these days, especially from those who have business experience).
Debby Thomas
January 2009—This is when we received our first portion of investment money from our three British investors.
February 2009—We hired 30 people to clear and hoe our one hectare of land. All grasses, banana trees, etc. was piled together in big long ‘logs’ to rot. This should be good compost to use on the crops in about a year.
March-April 2009—
Employees: We settled on a consistent daily crew of 15 people who now work every day. They are digging deeply the beds for intensive planting, bringing cow manure to the field, preparing rows and planting Moringa seeds intensively. They have planted 4--10 meter by 30 meter plots. The first plot planted is now almost a foot high. We are also doing a comparison plot that will be planted soon of actual trees that will be 80cm apart, to compare with the intensively planted area.
Daniel is our only full time contract holding employee at the time. He is on the field every day by 6. He has a great relationship with the farmers in the area and works very well with both the employees and government officials. He has shared our vision with government officials in the area and they are enthusiastic about what we are doing.
Building: We have built a small mud structure that can be locked to keep tools in. The larger permanent structure will be built in the dry season (June-August). It will allow us to bump up production significantly. Now we are drying leaf in the small drying structure we have at our home in Kigali. We will also build a small structure for the donkey, and possibly a milk cow. The cow can eat the remains of the moringa that we don’t use (which is a great cow food), provide milk for sale locally, and provide a lot of fertilizer from our left over moringa.
Irrigation: We have dug three big pits on our property down by the swamp that fill with water. This will be the source of water that we use to irrigate our land. We have two big water storage tanks that the water is pumped into with a gas powered water pump. From there we have electrical piping with holes punched into it going all through the field to irrigate the trees. It is definitely homemade, and we’ve had to make adjustments, but so far its working quite well.
Packaging: A young lady named Grace Poon, who is a graphic designer, came out with an engineering team (for another group) and said she would do the designing of our bags for free. She has worked very hard on this and has done a great job. We have had these printed at a Kenyan printer and have received the first 50,000 moringa bags to be filled for sale in two sizes: 50 grams (8 heaping teaspoons and 250 grams (40 teaspoons).
Legal Documents: All of the legal documents have been secured for Ubuzima Moringa in Rwanda. I have secured a day to day accountant, and a professional accountant who will come in twice a month. I purchased a copy of Quickbooks and have learned how to use it (now I need to teach the accountant to use it). Bob Whiteman, one of the stateside investors, has written an operating agreement which will help us keep the company operating in line with our vision for the long run. It’s a complex document, and hard to understand, but it will help us avoid problems that may come up in the future. Bob and Kevin Hoppock have been very helpful in sorting out how investment money works, transferring money to Rwanda, and being of general support and encouragement in these first months of the business’ operation.
Donkey: Two weeks ago we purchased one of 6 donkeys in Rwanda. The plan is to use the donkey for local transportation and field labor. Transporting it in the back of our pickup for four hours through the volcanic hills of Rwanda was more of a challenge than we had counted on! However, now it is becoming a family friend. The kids love it, and it has a sweet temperament. Today it came inside the house seeking out company and it took us 20 minutes to convince it to go out!
By the end of this month all the investment money from Friends in the US will be here, stock certificates signed and sent, and the final operating agreement out to investors as well.
Marketing: Marketing is starting to happen on a very small scale. We are keeping in mind that we have a small amount of Moringa powder to sell at this time, so we are looking for people with small communities to sell it. I also have lots of ideas of shops where it could be sold in the city of Kigali as well. However, our production is so small at the moment that I’m giving out information, but not yet actively seeking customers. (We are selling about 10 kg a month from our garage to people who stop by and ask for it, or who are thinking about using it on a larger scale.)
Further studies: I am presently taking a masters level course on Business as Mission. The professor, Neal Johnson, is an experienced businessman as well as an experienced missionary. He is writing a textbook on Business as Mission and asked me to help him with a missionaries perspective. The course has been very helpful.
So, overall things are moving ahead pretty much as planned. We do come up against challenges regularly, which I think is normal for businesses. My faith has been challenged a lot in this process. Often I feel that I don’t have everything I need to complete this task, but the Lord reminds me he is calling me to obedience, and faith in him, not perfection or complete business knowledge. Our biggest challenge at the moment is getting the product (the little we have) out on the market. Also, our production is still a lot smaller at this point than we thought it would be, so we are working on upping production.
Thank you for your prayers and support of this ‘out of the box’ ministry. I hope that you will feel free to contact me with questions, comments or advice (I need a lot of advice these days, especially from those who have business experience).
Debby Thomas
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
