ARISE & SHINE: Visiting Seventy-four Gardens in Three Barangays in Three Glorious Days!

People are still asking me what the highlight of our recent trip was, and that’s a really tough question because there were so many highlights from this trip! I think I’ll write about many of them, but for this post, it’s the three days that we walked and walked and walked through three barangays where the participants in the ARISE project showed off their skills in organic gardening and shared with us the beauty of their latest harvests! 

I know they say pictures are worth a thousand words, but there’s no way any photograph could capture what we had the privilege of seeing as the women in Barangays Catoogan, Pitogo, and Bulod hosted us in their communities and took us to each of their gardens, sharing the fruit of their labors and the absolute beauty of God’s creation with us. 

The sun was bright in the sky each day, and the colors in their gardens were stunning! Their hard work and dedication to the tasks of preparing the land, cultivating the soil, nurturing the seeds, planting and tending the young shoots, watering and fertilizing their crops, and harvesting their yield was nothing less than impressive. All in attendance were humbled as we realized how hard the women have worked and how hard they will continue to work in order to grow this nutritious food for their families.

When I asked several of the ARISE women how long it takes to keep their gardens up like this, they said ‘All the hours in the day.’ And when they further explained what they meant, I understood… they meant ALL the hours in the day. Again, humbling. 

I left after each visit in the communities so thankful for every partner and her family. They are the highlights. We praise God for them and the partnerships we’ve built together. I think we’re all understanding it more and more. God created each of us and He loved us first. Now He calls us to love Him and to love our neighbors. So that’s what we’re all trying to do. And it’s working! Praise God for neighbors across the street and across the world! Yep, the people are definitely the highlight of the trip!

Hope you’ll enjoy some photos from ARISE that we hope will be worth a thousand words!