Agriculture project fights poverty, makes way for sharing gospel

TAGAROH, Malaysia—Plentiful rainfall and rich soils characterize northeast Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo. But the rice farmers there still have difficulty providing adequately for their families.

A local congregation, with the help of another Malaysian church hundreds of miles away and the Baptist World Alliance, is trying to change the situation and help farmers move out of poverty.

Lim "Lloyd" Phang Hong (left) of Straits Baptist Church in Melaka purchases rice.

Texas Baptists are coming alongside these groups to continue the effort. In 2012, $8,120 in funds from the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger will go to support the effort.

Word of Life Church is nestled in the lush hills of Tagaroh, a village near the South China Sea at the northern tip of East Malaysia. It is a long way—and not just geographically—from the cosmopolitan capital of the country, Kuala Lumpur, on the Malay Peninsula.

Three shining galvanized steel silos now stand behind the church's building. A portion of the community's next rice crop will be stored in the silos, allowing the farmers to retain enough rice for their own needs and thus avoid buying expensive rice from stores. It is a matter of organizing and planning for the community to meet its nutrition needs because the money saved will help the families raise their standard of living.

This convergence of economic and agricultural principles is rooted in faith commitments by the people involved.

Lim "Lloyd" Phang Hong, of Straits Baptist Church in Melaka, on the peninsula, is providing technical direction for the project. "I always believe it's hard to speak (about Jesus) to another person who is hungry," he said. To help the people of Tagaroh feed themselves is an "exercise of my faith."

Pastor Belunduk Lingungud, who started Word of Life Church and four other congregations in the area, said the people of Tagaroh did not understand the project at first. But Lim explained how the silos could help the farmers retain more of their harvest and save money in the process.

"Suddenly, … we understand," said Lingungud, whose broad smile flashes across his sun-bronzed face. "We come to realize this silo is very important for this church, … for the economy."

Peter Sugara is pastor of Word of Life Church now. It is a congregation of about 300 farming families, but Sugara sees the agriculture project more broadly. The silos are "not the personal property of the church but the property of the community."

And it is a community in need. The rice farmers of Tagaroh are in a "very serious trap that will keep them in poverty," said Lim, who is an agriculture consultant to businesses and universities. "If they do not have their own grain they are really impoverished."

The trap is caused by three factors. First, traditional processes for drying and storing harvested rice resulted in a high percentage of waste and destruction of the crop. Second, the farmers are tempted to sell their crops for cash and thus avoid the loss. And third, the farmers then have to buy back the rice as they need it at three to four times the cost they received for it when it was grown.

By developing a more effective system of drying and storing harvested rise, the farmers will save the crop and eventually their money. That's where the Baptist World Alliance comes in. Through its Baptist World Aid efforts, the world body has supplied necessary funds—about $18,000 to date—to get the silo project started.

The Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger involvement will help complete the project and expand it. The offering provides about $150,000 for BWAid projects each year, and the Tagaroh effort is one of the 2012 projects.

Word of Life Church has set up a committee to administer the project, and about 30 families are expected to participate.

A family in Tagaroh typically has about two acres of rice, and that will produce about four tons of rice per harvest, Lim said. With the new silos, each family is expected to sell about half its crop to generate the necessary cash for other necessities of life and to store the other half for periodic use until the next harvest.

Each family's contribution to the communal effort will be weighed and their withdrawals will be weighed, as well. Controls are being put in place to regulate the in-flow and out-flow, but Lim said there is a "spirit of sharing" among the farmers.

"Sabah people can work together," he said, referring to the region of East Malaysia where Tagaroh is located.

The first families that will participate are all associated with Word of Life Church, said Pastor Lingungud. There are more than 100 families in the community, and the pastor's hope is that the church will be able to build more silos and grow the effort as a ministry to the whole community. The church families, in essence, are getting it started and then expect to expand it from the savings generated by the project.

But grain storage is not the only aspect of the plan. Most farmers do not own their own "tractors" or cultivation equipment. They either work the land by hand or pay someone to till the rice paddy for them. Mechanized approaches increase yields, Lim said, but most farmers cannot afford it. The church hopes to eventually buy equipment for farmers to use.

The project had its genesis in Straits Baptist Church in Melaka. It sent a survey team to Sabah in 2008 to evaluate the needs. This occurred at a time when the congregation was "going through some tough times," said Ronnie Chiu, senior pastor. Despite the difficulties, it was "trying to be a more missions-minded church."

Missions is a responsibility of the entire church, not just the pastors, Chiu said. "The members need to be involved. The Great Commission … is a commissioning of the church as a whole."

Lloyd Lim, a layperson, is definitely involved. His experience in agriculture is coupled with a "passion to help those who are from less advantaged communities," his pastor said. His experience and passion have driven the project.

Chiu sought outside help to get funding for the project. He contacted Kabi Gangmei, director of Asia-Pacific Baptist Aid, which is connected to BWAid.

The silo project was a "unique experience" for Asia-Pacific Baptist Aid, Gangmei said. He quickly became convinced of the project's viability "because of the involvement of the whole community and church." While they needed outside support and direction, the people in Tagaroh wanted to do the work themselves.

Gangmei, from northeast India, has spent a lifetime in development studies, "thinking night and day about the roots of poverty," he said. "Community development is the building of relationships and trust."

Christians teach a "philosophy of loving one another," he said, citing the biblical stories of the Good Samaritan and Jesus' feeding of the 5,000. But, "I don't believe loving a neighbor is separate from preaching the Word. They are together; they are not separate. They grow from the same root."

Showing love to others "is not a method of evangelism," Gangmei said. "It actually is the practical part of evangelism itself."

Christian love is showing itself in the village of Tagaroh, as Baptists from Malaysia to Texas and many points in between come together to help a people living in poverty to have the food they need.

"Love costs us in time and energy," said Lloyd Lim. But it is a cost worth paying and one that produces great dividends.