Learning to Teach or Teaching to Learn?

Did you know bananas come from an herb and not a tree? How about that a banana “herb” only produces bananas one time? That’s right, what most people think of as a banana tree is not a tree at all. It has no wood-like material in it. The banana herb will grow to maturity, produce bananas and then will put off a new shoot at the base of the old plant. The old plant will no longer produce fruit.  What is it good for then?

Now, you may be wondering how and why I learned something like this. It wasn’t from reading a book, sitting in a classroom, or going to Google. I learned it from the staff while we were teaching people how to make money by raising chickens! We were teaching chicken-raising skills to villagers living in poverty with few resources to work their way out of their desperate situation.

Banana Plants and Chicken Raising? You see, once a banana plant has produced its bananas, most people would think the banana plant is useless. On the contrary, the plant itself is then a huge resource for food. You can actually slice an entire 8 foot tall banana plant up into tiny pieces and make it into chicken or pig food! Just add a little rice bran and a little ground rice (all of which are in abundance, cheap, and often free in a warm, tropical climate) and you have chicken feed to start your own chicken ranch at minimal cost!

I’m not telling all of this so we can all go out and start our own chicken farms. What I am saying is many of the most empowering lessons I’ve learned in life were by experiencing them in real life and preparing to teach those lessons to others in real-life circumstances.

Just like teaching chicken-raising skills helps people start on the road out of poverty, teaching them real relationship with God will start them on the road to life transformation. Stepping out to teach others often requires us to learn, and vice versa. I want to challenge you today.  Who and what are you teaching/learning?

You don't have to go to Cambodia to change lives,
there are people all around you

^“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded…” Matthew 28:19-20

The Rest of the Story:

To give you a quick story of how teaching/learning something simple can make  a significant impact in someone's life. The staff at Samaritan's Purse recently took me to a village right on the Cambodia/Thai border. It was a village where we taught/I learned how to make chicken feed. The village was about 10 km away from the nearest middle school. In recent history no children had attended middle school from this village. It was too far and the families were too poor to afford transportation. The children have to work to help provide an income for the family instead of going to school. Quick fact: In Cambodia 28% of the household income comes from children. Many of the children would cross the border illegally each day into Thailand to work.

The staff went into the village and talked with leaders and parents and told them Samaritan's Purse would provide bicycles for the kids and provide chicken raising training and resources for the families, IF the parents would agree to enroll and send their children to middle school. After receiving the bicycles and learning how to raise chickens for income, seven families were ready to enroll their children in middle school. There was only one problem.

This area is remote and there aren't many homes on the 10 km dirt road from the village to the school. I actually asked the staff where in the world they were taking me when they took me down the bumpy dirt road out into the woods the first time. (The recent landline clearance signs were not reassuring either). Anyway, the parents of the girls were worried that their daughters would not be safe travelling on the road and weren't sure about sending them to school by themselves. 

Fortunately, the local military commander in charge of border security, asked his men if they would patrol the road each day and ensure safe passage for the kids to school. The entire village was excited because for the first time they now had seven young boys and girls who would be attending middle school. It was a milestone event for the village. 

P.S. I've been back again and the kids are all still in school! AND, those chickens taste pretty good barbecued in local spices. A guy has to eat lunch somewhere, so the least I could do was help the local economy.