The Sower

Fall 2024

40th Anniversary Edition

40 Years of Vision

This year Plant With Purpose is celebrating its 40th anniversary! Since 1984, Plant With Purpose has been faithfully alleviating poverty and restoring the environment in rural communities around the world. Our dedicated partners and supporters have worked alongside us, leading to hundreds of stories of transformation: Fathers who are putting their children in school; Mothers who are running successful businesses; Communities that are being empowered.

In this issue of Sower, we invite you to learn about Vision Trips. Vision Trips offer our supporters a unique opportunity to meet our partners around the world and get a firsthand look at the work our teams are doing. Each article below offers a different snapshot of the field: knitting in Mexico; connecting with farmers in Malawi; and planting trees in the Dominican Republic, to name just a few. Each of these stories are made possible by 40 years of a single vision–to see people and planet thriving, to the glory of God.

Knitting Hearts & Lives Together

What is an Oaxaca Wahine? A Mexican hula dancer?! Not quite.
An Oaxaca Wahine is a woman with a brave and generous heart who travels to Oaxaca to share, affirm, and work together with women (and men and children) in the Oaxaca program of Plant With Purpose called Mision Integral. She might know how to knit or crochet, she might play an instrument, she might love to play games with children or hold babies, but she goes ready to share whatever special gifts she has.

Visiting Malawi with HOPE International

Collaboration is a central value to our organizational culture. We strongly believe that we have much to learn from those around us in all spheres of our work. In my role as donor engagement specialist, I am responsible for refining our Vision Trips and supporting transformative experiences around the world. In August, I had the joy of traveling to Malawi with HOPE International, a fellow faith-based nonprofit, to gain a different perspective on Vision Trips and deepen collaboration between our two organizations.

How Vision Trips Impact Local Teams and Families

First of all, I would like to emphasize that when we receive visits from donors or Plant With Purpose staff in Mexico, both the local program team and the participating families feel grateful for the support they’ve given for more than twenty years. Not only are they funding the program and projects, but they are collaborating and praying for the development of our shared vision. These contributions improve the quality of life of groups and communities living in conditions of poverty.

Vision Trips: Bringing our Work from Head to Heart

The sense of unity in one of my first mission trips was amazing. In the evening our group would gather with our host families and church members in a tiny Costa Rican village. We would share experiences from the day, learn worship songs in Spanish and become acutely aware of all that we had in common. That connection and fellowship, over 30 years ago, was life changing and became one of the key events which led me to work with Plant With Purpose.