CIU Today Fall 2015

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Agroforestry
For Emo, who attended HEART during
the spring semester, agriculture is not
new. Her home is a farm outside the small
town of Avoca, New York. But farming at
HEART wasn’t quite the same. At HEART
she learned agroforestry.
Each student takes on a project, and to
describe Emo’s agroforestry requires a
long explanation, but to put it simply she
says the agroforestry “mimics what you
see in a natural forest.”
“You don’t see people sweating to pull
weeds and maintain a natural forest, yet
it bursts with tender green and other
vibrant colors all on its own,” Emo said.
“The multi-tiered plants all work together
in mutually benefiting ways.” In the end
she harvested sweet potatoes, tropical
pumpkins and cassava, “providing a
massive amount of food in a year’s time.”
And that was just on one portion of the
plot she farmed.
But perhaps just as important as growing
plants is that personal growth that comes
with getting along with classmates in a
Third-World environment.
“Most of us did not know each other very
well before attending HEART.” Emo said.
“At HEART, I was most stretched in ways
of learning how to build and maintain a
solid team.”
Emo says her HEART experience was “a
very good introduction” to her internship
in the African nation of Cameroon over
the summer.
“If I had not attended HEART before
coming (to Cameroon), I would have been
much less useful to the missionaries,”
Emo said.
Organic Art
Victoria Richardson says she switched her
major to ICD so she could get the HEART
semester experience, “and the additional
practical skills I wanted to learn that could
potentially be useful overseas.”
The junior, who has lived in Indonesia and
the United States, choose creating organic
art materials for her HEART project.
“My project required that I think creatively
in order to utilize resources available in
the nearby environment,” Richardson said.
That included constructing an art easel
out of bamboo and scrap wood, sewing
sketchbooks and an artist apron, making
paper for canvases, concocting paints
from organic materials such as ash,
pumpkin, coffee and flowers and making
paint brushes out of goat hair and pine
needles.
“My project emphasizes the importance
of sustainability,” Richardson explained.
“Acrylic paints, leather-bound
sketchbooks, and metal art easels are rare
luxuries in a majority of the Third World
and the skill of creatively utilizing nature’s
gifts is essential.”
So why focus on art in countries where
some people are just trying to survive?
“Some form of art is present in every
culture and missionaries can use it
as a creative means to communicate
the redemptive story of the gospel,”
Richardson said. “My project idea was
founded on the idea that God is the
ultimate creator and we, because we
are fashioned in His likeness, are also
creators.”
Richardson says HEART stretched
her personally because modern
communication with loved ones was
limited to once-a-week letters.
“Although it took some adjustment
initially, this proved to be a reprieve
from the usual noise of our society, a
world drunk on noise and distraction,”
Richardson said. “I was given time to
listen quietly for God’s voice and invest
myself into the people in my immediate
surroundings.”
The Treadle Pump
David Druin II, a senior, developed a
mechanism at HEART that future students
will find valuable to their own projects.
Druin designed and built a treadle pump;
a human-powered water pump for
irrigating fields.
“The treadle design takes advantage
of leg-power instead of hand-power
to increase power generated while
minimizing operator exertion,” Druin
explained. “The treadle pump will now
allow future students to pump water to
the storage tank, which distributes water
to the rest of the heart village.”
Druin says the HEART experience
expanded his view of stewardship.
“It provides practical tools that allow you
to be a good steward of God’s earth.”
Druin said. “It challenges you to be
creative in your problem solving.”
Meanwhile, on a personal level, Druin says
HEART changed his view of work.
“I learned that work is not only an
opportunity to display the creativity
and excellence of God, but also an
opportunity to express care and love for
others,” Druin said. “Instead of simply
working for myself, work has become an
expression of worship whereby I work
for others. When I work I feel the joy and
presence of God. It is now something I
savor, something I cherish.”
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THE HEART OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
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