Disaster and Prevention

When bad stuff happens we have to fight back, not roll over and blame God. FCOP is a very unusual missions ministry. If we were just evangelizing and planting churches we could simply roll with the resources available, but with 2500 kids and widows to care for, we can't just stick them in a closet for a month until times get better. We have to find a way to continue. The pictures above are a great illustration of this. The flat rice was actually a very good, traditional, 'red rice' from Thailand. We did everything right and it is probably producing about 4 tons per hectare. But, about two weeks before harvest it got smooshed by a flash flood that came across the Thai border and flattened it. Our combines can only recover about 1/2 of it no matter how careful we are, so we harvest two tons and leave two in the field.

Now, the second picture is in an area where we have protected our rice with dikes, the land has been fertilized, leveled and is irrigated. This rice is a short strawed, high yielding variety that is producing about 7 tons per hectare. If that had been in an unprotected field it would be flat.

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