Wheat Program to Aid Displaced Liberians

NORQUAY, SASKATCHEWAN (May 26, 2005) - Members of Evangelical Covenant Churches across Canada have been "buying" acres of land for a farming project designed to help displaced people in the African nation of Liberia.

They are paying the cost of producing 55 acres of wheat for $160 an acre. The harvest from the "Kernels for Hope" project will be sold and the profits used to help the Liberians.

Delegates to the recent conference annual meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church of Canada bought the first targeted 38 acres. The target was set by the words of Proverbs 30:8, which reads, "Feed me with the food I need."

During the Saturday night banquet, host pastor Arden Gustafson reported that 32 of the 38 acres had been sold. "He also told them I was locking the doors until we hit 38," jokes Ray Baloun, who developed the idea with Conference Supt. Jeff Anderson. "That part wasn't true, but by the end of the banquet, we had exactly 38 acres booked."

Then the target was enlarged. After the 38 acres were booked, Dale Peterson, who is farming the land, said the field actually was 55 acres. He planned on donating the crop from the unsold acres.

That quickly became unnecessary. As delegates returned home across Canadian provinces, they informed their local congregations about the project. "Soon, we were at 55," Baloun says. Money that continued to come in after the 55 acres were sold was added to the revenue that was generated from the sale of the wheat. Stan Unger of the Norquay church purchased hail insurance.

The "new farmers," as Baloun refers to them, actually include people from Oregon, Michigan and even Ecuador. "I could not imagine at the start that we would get that many people to give that much money," says Baloun who is a new member of the conference executive board.

The wheat will be sold through the Canadian Food Grains Bank, which generally ships wheat donated by farmers to people in need or sells the grain with the revenue paying for relief efforts. The profits will be multiplied four times under terms of an agreement with the Canadian government.

The idea of selling the acres developed during a quick lunch between Anderson and Baloun, who were attending a meeting of Canadian World Relief and the Food Grains Bank in Winnipeg. Anderson and Baloun, who is a member of the nearby Minnedosa Covenant Church, were invited to attend because CWR is supported by the conference. "We tossed ideas back and forth and managed to eat and write equally fast," says Baloun. "By the end of lunch we had a good program that had perfect timing for us because the conference was coming up the next month. We are currently projecting that we will turn this little lunchtime meeting into $70,000."

The wheat was planted May 6 and will be ready to be harvested in roughly 100 days, Baloun says. So far the rains have been good, and the wheat is growing nicely, he adds.

(Editor's note: to read an article on a similar endeavor, published in The Covenant Companion in November 2003, please see Mission Field.

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