“The kiss of the sun for pardon, The song of the birds for mirth, One is nearer God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.” ~ seen on the blackboard at ECHO International

Last weekend, a few members of our Cambodia 2014 Mission Team traveled to ECHO International in Ft. Myers, Florida. We wanted to tour this organization’s fifty (50) acre demonstration farm to learn something about agricultural solutions that we might share in Cambodia at Teen Challenge. For more than thirty years, ECHO has provided agricultural and appropriate technology training to development workers in more than 165 countries around the world. Currently, they have five Regional Offices around the world. ECHO’s Asia Impact Center is located in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We found ECHO’s vision and mission to be inspiring:

ECHO’s vision: Honoring God through sustainable hunger solutions.

ECHO’s mission: ECHO is a global, Christian organization that equips people with agricultural resources and skills to reduce hunger and improve the lives of the poor.

Our docent, Charlie Brown, took us on an informative tour of the demonstration farm, sharing wisdom from his years as a missionary in Africa.

We learned that there are many low-cost, simple to implement, agricultural strategies that can help reduce hunger globally. We also learned about the healing properties of many tropical plants like the Moringa Tree and the Neem Tree. At the tilapia pond, Charlie talked to us about the benefits of raising ducks and tilapia together, and we were also able to view their household-size biogas digester.

We finished the tour feeling enthusiastic and energized about sharing what we learned with Teen Challenge Cambodia.

“The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.” ~ Herbert Spencer

You can learn more about ECHO International at their website: www.echonet.org

(All the pictures above were taken on my iPhone 5 at ECHO International, in Ft. Myers, Florida on July 11, 2014.)