When Pastor Angel Dela Cruz of the UNIDA church, a prominent church in the province, heard about
this, he and his wife who was a missionary from the
New Tribes Mission offered one of their properties.
The nearest to our place is their 350 square meter lot.
He wanted it sold to us at a very cheap cost of
P700,000. (US&17,000.). Knowing we do not have the
money yet, they allowed us to make use of the land
for the cause we have envisioned. Free of charge!
1. It can serve as a place where we can develop a pilot garden where we can set up a model for
small lots ( within reach of our church planters) that can produce vegetables and other products
from the garden. We envisioned that churches initiate within their respective community the
development of community gardens where everyone take part have their share in the harvest.
We dream of getting our people to value planting and increase productions of the land for our
country.
2. It can serve as a training center for church planters who will have this thrust as a community
development method. The place can be a hub for pastors as we exchange ideas and
experiences. It will be a place for “brothers’ keeping” and encouragement.
3. When this a model is developed through the use of this place, we hope to generate funds to
primarily sustain this model and secondly, to generate funds that will be saved for the pastors’
endowment fund or retirement benefit. Many of our pastors serve poor churches that barely
support them much so to provide for their retirement.
The long term is that this project will be owned collectively by the pastors from churches who share the
same passion and has a stake in this vision. We even thought that pastors will raise funds by buying a
square meter each plus appeal for donors to honor the pastors’ counterpart and eventually acquire the
property.
Right now we have organized PEACE (Pastoral Empowerment And Continuing Education)Network as a
group that works and fellowship together to keep our momentum for wholistic development either
individually or corporately with our local churches. Farming will be one the main components of the
network.