Eleanor's Garden Baby Food Sept Update

This month during one of our company prayer times, we saw how quickly the enemy can take our attention away from God and rob us of our joy.  On that day our eyes were focused on some minor hassles as well as rumor of challenges ahead, and we failed to notice all the amazing ways God had answered prayers.  In a part of the world where it is often considered a good day if you can accomplish one significant task, we had seen God answer 5 prayer requests! 

1. The Marsden family had picked up new one year visas. 

2. We got the final documents from one of our contractors needed to obtain our construction permit - a request we have had for a year. (We have also since made significant progress on getting our land deeds).

3. The fireproof paint that we have been trying to get for months was delivered to the factory. The long anticipated, much prayed-for task can finally begin! (The paint application is currently underway – it is the last task before the factory is complete.)

 4.  The clean water machine finally got installed, thanks to a patient engineer giving instructions over the phone and our local employee being willing to climb up on the machine and wrestle with it! (This was our last piece of equipment to install.)

5.  Items on a very extensive shopping list, filled with all the final little details from floor mats to clocks and cutting boards, were purchased and delivered to the factory. 

We want to be much quicker to give praise and be grateful for what God is doing than we are to worry or grumble about any potential difficulty. We don’t want to be robbed of the opportunity to celebrate the Father’s victories.



Michael and our local employee have recently had some rather difficult meetings with our former contractor. The contractor views his job as being done and wants to settle up financially, which in his mind means we owe him money. As we tallied up his IOU notes and the extra money we have had to pay other companies to properly complete jobs he did not finish, and consulted with our lawyer, we see the situation quite differently. After our last meeting with the contractor, he went to the factory with workers who have worked on our site and who have not been paid and they proceeded to disassemble our main gate and take our windows (again!). The police were called, and in the end it was agreed that everyone involved will meet again in a few days to settle up all accounts. 

Ever since this situation became difficult, we have been asking that we would be able to show the character of Christ to this man and others by demonstrating both grace and justice.  Generally the unpaid subcontractors blame the main contractor not us. We ask that you continue to pray for these ongoing negotiations, especially that they would result in clear agreement from all parties and that we will be able to draw a clear line under this. We also ask that we would be able to get an official tax receipt for the money that has already been paid.

The next few weeks it is going to be difficult to get much work done as we are heading into a season of holiday after holiday after holiday - the Muslim sacrifice holiday and two national holidays (8 extra days off over 3 weeks).  We are hoping to go and visit some of our staff in their homes and enjoy celebrating with them and their families. We are also asking that this prolonged vacation will not interrupt the flow of getting the factory up and running too much, but rather that we will be refreshed and ready to jump back in at the end of it all.