January 8, 2001
Texas hunger offering helps Bedouin
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___For the Bedouin people of the Middle East, the land doesn't flow with milk and honey, and visions of green pastures and still waters are seldom seen. But Texas Baptists are helping to change that.
___In the last three years, the Texas Baptist World Hunger Offering has provided $184,900 to start development projects among the desert dwellers. Through those projects, Baptist workers are building relationships that make it possible to present the gospel of Jesus Christ in quiet ways to an unreached people group.
___The Bedouin traditionally have been a nomadic people, herding camels in the desert regions of the Middle East and North Africa. But in recent years, many have adopted a more settled lifestyle and traded their camels for goat herds.
___Agricultural mission workers with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship have focused primarily on the more sedentary Bedouin people.
___To protect the safety of the Baptist workers and those whom they lead to faith in Christ, neither their names nor the exact locations of their ministries are revealed.
___Baptist agricultural development specialists have helped provide water resources and have taught the Bedouin how to conserve water using drip irrigation for home gardens.
___With about $46,000 from the Texas Baptist World Hunger Offering, the Baptist workers improved the efficiency of a spring as a water supply, restored a cistern dating back to the Roman Empire and built five small cisterns for the Bedouin people. The water projects serve about 170 families.
___Forty-six Bedouin families received drip irrigation kits, training in the method and seeds for vegetable gardens. The drip irrigation technique minimizes water loss from evaporation or run-off. By using the method, two 15-liter buckets of water can support up to 100 plants.
___The Baptists also helped the Bedouin improve their herds by distributing more than 50 genetically improved goats as breeding stock.
___When the improved stock mate with the local breed, the hybrid offspring generally retain the disease resistance and toughness of local goats while offering better milk and meat production.
___"The cost-share arrangement in this project is for payment to be made by giving back one or more offspring which can be distributed to other needy families," a Baptist agricultural mission worker explained.
___The agricultural specialists helped 90 Bedouin families start raising chickens. The Baptists project provides nine hens and one rooster as a starter flock for each family, along with an initial supply of feed and the training that is needed.
___"The kids are encouraged to eat one egg a day as part of their diet. The remaining fertilized eggs can be hatched to increase the size of the flock," a Baptist worker said.
___The Baptist workers also have introduced the Bedouin people to beekeeping in an area where honey is considered a sought-after delicacy. The workers provide hives, bees, basic equipment and training in management and honey production.
___Tending orchards has become a relatively common practice for both the nomadic and the sedentary Bedouin. Some nomads tend olive trees but continue to migrate seasonally with their flocks, traveling back home by pickup truck to check on their orchards. The Texas Baptist World Hunger Offering has enabled Baptist workers to provide 20,000 olive tree saplings to more than 1,000 Bedouin families.
___"Through these projects, we get access to the people," a Baptist agricultural mission worker explained. "That gives us the ability to show them God's love and grace."
___Bedouin people who settle in urban areas may be able to turn from their Muslim heritage and embrace Christianity.
___But new believers in Christ in the rural villages and migratory caravans would face persecution--possibly even death--if they made their faith known.
___"In the villages, a public church is just not viable at this point. Local village leaders would not allow it," the Baptist worker said. "It is more reasonable to have quiet two- or three-person gatherings of new believers."
___An Arabic tutor who helps a Baptist agricultural worker three times a week is typical of these new believers.
___"He doesn't want his family to know about his faith at this time," the Baptist explained, noting that "honor killings" are not uncommon in the culture when a family member disgraces his relatives by rejecting Islam. "We whisper when we talk about matters of faith."
___But while his tutor continues to say his daily prayers, he no longer offers those private prayers to Allah as revealed in the Koran. He continues to display the 33 prayer beads that devout Muslims use as reminders as they recite the 99 names of Allah.
___"But now when he prays, he uses them to remind him of the 33 years in the earthly life of Christ," the Baptist worker said.
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