A New Economy

For the last few years, we have been looking for ways to develop business projects that are sustainable, empower the poor, need little start up capital and are profitable. Talk about a TALL order!

We have tired many things and have mostly learned what NOT to do. It has been painful and at times embarrassing but we have not given up.

I’m now in Madiun, East Java where Nawang (left) and Suwarno, our friends and co-workers are meeting with about 40 trainers of trainers for their final certification. There is a lot of excitement as we talked about integral life and integral farming.

This is the vision of Community Resource Development Institute (LPSM), a company that Nawang and Suwarno have started with the goal of enabling the poor to run low cost, sustainable business that will demonstrate a new of life.

The main laboratory for LPSM is a farm (Susilo who runs the farm, below) just outside Madiun which supports 20 cows, that produce 200 liters of milk daily. The farm is also a place where common fruits and vegetables nurtured with organic compost from the cows are grown. The animal waste will also provide biogas and bio electricity capable to sustaining 10-20 families.

This area of East Java has been devastated by chemical “fertilizers”. On top of that, this season a pest has been damaging the trees. People are looking for new options and LPSM model of integrated farming is bringing hope of a new sustainable way.

However, not everyone is happy. Last night, as I shared how the way of the Kingdom of Jesus gives a new blue print for life, one of the participants told us about a farmer who was put in jail because he found a way to produce corn seeds at a third of the market price. His discovery was making a huge dent of the local monopoly which used their influence to stop him by putting him in jail.

We concluded that the ways of this new life are subversive. Helping the poor, while appealing is also destabilizing to those who benefit of the status quo and therefore we need to find ways to be invisible, be everywhere and nowhere.