One thousand eggs! Turkana training farm boosts ministry and family life

What do pigs and chickens have to do with making disciples of Jesus? A lot, according to CMF team members Joel and Rachel Williams, who serve in Turkana, Kenya.

“Since arriving back in Kenya (after furlough) and settling into our new home, we haven’t been able to travel to Nairobi to restock our supplies every three months,” said Joel. “But out of this challenge, God met both our physical needs and a growing need for our ministry.”

Over the past seven months, Joel and Rachel have developed a small training farm at their home where they can hold trainings and raise the majority of the food they would otherwise bring from Nairobi.

“As we are helping many of our disciple-makers launch businesses to support their families and ministries for generations to come, many of those businesses are in chicken farms, agriculture and general farming,” said Joel.

The training farm started with just 12 chickens, four goats, three pigs, four ducks and two sheep.

“At this time, we have raised more than 150 chickens, 23 ducks, one turkey, 20 pigs and seven goats,” said Joel. “That’s not counting the dozens of chickens we have given away and the more than 1,000 eggs we have collected!” said Joel.

“One of the disciple-makers who attended our trainings launched a chicken farm just three months ago and now has 800 chickens with a capacity of 2,000!” he added. “So far, the incubators from our training have hatched more than 500 chicks, 40 ducklings, 12 guinea fowls and three turkeys!”

This home training farm has provided for the Williams’ family’s needs caused by pandemic restrictions, become an asset to their home-schooling curriculum and provided discipleship moments for their children, helped improve the chicken project and provided training for five of the disciple-makers’ micro-businesses.

“We couldn’t have planned or imagined all God would do through this training farm,” said Joel. “Join us in praising God for His good and perfect plans!”

Top photo: Juniper Williams, age 5, cuddles a goat at her family’s small farm in Turkana, Kenya.