**Update: Check out the video summary here, courtesy of my teammate Nick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5f3Jo8PJxk&feature=youtu.be **
Have you ever heard of the Moringa tree?
I hadn’t either until last week. Actually, I had no clue what I was chopping down as a man handed me a machete, pointed to the tree, and made a slashing motion. (Side note- I am constantly amazed at how much you can communicate even with a language barrier.)
Eventually, my team and I learned that we were cutting down moringa trees, not just for the wood, but actually to harvest the leaves and seeds. If you’ve never encountered moringa before, I encourage you to pause and google it right now. This crazy plant is often called the “miracle tree” or the “tree of life” because of its nutritious properties. The leaves and seeds contain copious amounts of iron, calcium, and other nutrients, and their properties are supposed to help every condition from diabetes to anemia.
Reap has been planting the trees for the last few years and trying to figure out how to best harness their benefits. Many people in Granada suffer from anemia and bone issues because they lack access to necessary nutrients, and REAP wants to change that. In Nicaragua, my team and I spent hours trying to help them get to the next level with their knowledge and application of moringa tree harvesting and processing. We needed to figure out the best ways to dry the leaves so they could be powdered and consumed in capsules.
After researching the moringa and recommended ways to harvest it, we spent a few days designing and building a drying hanger from scratch. It worked so well that we ended up making a second hanger before we left to double their drying capacity.
In the meantime, we took some leaves we had previously harvested and dried by jerry-rigging three hammocks full of branches and ground them up into a fine powder. Using a capsule mold, we poured the powder into a hundred plastic capsules and pressed them together. From inside our tool shed turned laboratory, we were drenched in sweat and giddy as we made the first batch of moringa capsules REAP had ever produced.
Throughout our team working with the moringa, I have been struck by several realizations.
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The power of a passionate team. All of us (shout-out to Bradley, Alyssa, Gabby, Tiffiny, and everyone who helped us open the seeds, sort through the leaves, or make capsules) nerded out the whole time we were working on this because we were so moved by the potential of this plant to help improve the nutrition of an entire community. Our team’s passion made the project a ton of fun, and I loved seeing what happens when hardworking people who are personally invested in a goal come together.
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The beauty of design thinking. I love prototyping solutions and brainstorming the best possible ways to fix a problem. After taking a design thinking class in college, I enjoy thinking about how people will actually use a proposed solution and the minor details that will determine the success of an outcome. With the moringa hangers, my teammates and I thought through every inch of our design (shout-out to Bradley for heading it up!). Their thoughtfulness, down to minute details like hammering the metal sides down so no future harvesters would cut themselves, was humbling. This project has reminded me why working in teams often produces better results than working alone.
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The coolness of God’s provision. People call the moringa tree “the tree of life” because it’s so full of nutrients. This powerful plant’s seeds can even be used to purify water. One of the craziest facts about the moringa, though, is that it often grows in subtropical areas where people face extreme poverty and lack access to proper nutrients. It blows my mind that God designed this tree to grow in exactly the places where people need it most. It’s a beautiful reminder of how he cares for people.
Working on the moringa project in Nicaragua was a pivotal part of my month doing ministry there. It opened my eyes to how much of an impact you can make even with a short-term timeframe. In just a few weeks, we were able to accelerate the project from something the staff tried to figure out when they had time in between all of the other ministry work they do to creating a sustainable start-to-finish process. We were even able to document the entire thing and leave them with a step-by-step guide and research articles for future teams to continue harvesting and processing and not have to start from ground zero. I will be forever grateful for Scott and the REAP staff for this opportunity to see how even short-term missions can pave the way for long-term impact.
Prayers that the ministry would continue being able to produce these capsules and that the community’s health would improve as a result would be greatly appreciated!
Many thanks!!
PC: Michelle Dudley, photographer extraordinaire
