ECHO...

If you haven’t heard me talk about ECHO before, now is the time:) ECHO (Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization) is an absolutely amazing organization in Fort Myers, Florida that is fighting world hunger through agriculture. Angie (the other nurse that’s going to Kenya with me) and I were able to spend a week at the HIV/AIDS, Agriculture, & Nutrition workshop at ECHO in May. Through my nursing training, I’ve always known nutrition is important, but I can’t say that I realized the magnitude of its impact until recently, and how big of a part agriculture will play into the medical work Angie and I will be doing. I never thought I would be learning about agricultural techniques (‘crop propagation’ is now in my vocabulary), have thoughts about being a farmer (well…maybe gardener is a better word), or pick leaves off plants and eating them right then and there! :) I have now added to my prayer list that God lead an agricultural person to AfricaHope to help us out!


















Moringa = the miracle plant!
I had never heard about Morniga until I went to ECHO. I don't know how that is because it is amazing. Among some of the amazing things it does include: fix malnutrition in children faster than conventional Western medicine, purify water, and when added to the diet with a grain called Amaranth can take away almost all HIV/AIDS symptoms because it makes those people that much healthier through nutrition that their medications work that much better! I'm convinced that Moringa is the tree mentioned in Exodus 15:25 :)

Harvesting Moringa off the ECHO farm


We then dried it, ground it, and sifted it...and now have Moringa powder to add to our food.



Artemesia...
This handy dandy plant can almost "cure" you of malaria when you drink it in tea form 3 times a day! It is recommended that you combine it with Western meds, but still...pretty cool! Too bad it tastes horrible :(

Random picture...dirty feet after a day out on the farm!





One night we cooked dinner off of plants from the ECHO farm. This was our spread and lovely salad...pretty impressive!











I have a bunch more fun ECHO pictures on Facebook if you want to look...this is just the beginning:) Enjoy!