Last evening we had the pleasure of hosting Roy Danforth with the Evangelical Covenant Church for dinner and had a wonderful conversation about the program he is involved with in the CAR Central African Republic. Roy is passionate about trees and the wonderful changes that can be brought about by using a diverse amount of trees for better nutrition.
Roy and his wife Aleta have been in CAR for 10 years and before they were forced to moved, due to civil unrest, they lived in northern DRC for 20 years. Both their sons were born in DRC. They work with a variety of people including Central Africans, Fulanis who have been displaced form the north and Pygmies.
One of the most encouraging things Roy shared is that he recently had a chance to visit the area in the DRC where they lived for so many years. The people in that area have been doing well with their fruit trees and are asking for ways to store, preserve, market, transport, etc. their excess crop! Two of the biggest challenges in this part of the world are transportation and security.
Roy also shared that he feels that the development of the trees, vegetable gardening and bean growing will go much quicker in CAR as they seem to be a much more interested in crops and gardening.
Roy will be spending the better part of the next year traveling in the US and will be living in Iowa with one their sons. I’m sure many of you will have a chance to meet he and his wife.
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