By Rick Burnette, CBF field personnel
Driving over four hours one way to learn and serve on March 21, a group of nine volunteers from First Baptist Gainesville, Florida braved I-75 to engage in a very full day of activities at Misión Peniel in Immokalee.
Arriving mid-morning with a generous gift of 5-gallon buckets for Cultivate Abundance, a CBF Global Missions Engagement Partner, they were led by Lupita Vazquez in a practicum that put some of the buckets to immediate use. The team helped drill drainage holes in the bottom of the buckets, then filling the containers with potting mix enriched with organic fertilizer.
The next step was to transplant seedlings. One tomato seedling was planted per five-gallon bucket with six cilantro seedlings per dishpan. Before watering in the seedlings with soluble fertilizer, a layer of hay mulch was applied for weed control and soil moisture maintenance.
During the afternoon, the team helped sort 350 bags of local produce grown and collected by Cultivate Abundance. Receiving an inspiring word from Misión Peniel Director, Rev. Miguel Estrada, the team was deployed along with other volunteers to share the abundance. By 6:00 p.m., well over 350 neighbors had been served.
The next day, the First Baptist team returned to Gainesville equipped with inspiration and a few new skills with which to serve their own food insecure neighbors. Reciprocally, they left Cultivate Abundance and Misión Peniel with buckets, encouragement and much more.