🦚 Guatemala - Part 3
Finding Amado Del Valle and the lost soya. & What's Next.
This is the 3rd part in a series on our work in Guatemala. If you haven’t read part 1 or part 2, start there.
🦚 Guatemala - Part 3
Amado Del Valle caught the vision. This was the 1970s and he was a young man just getting started in an accounting career when he stumbled into something that would change the course of his life forever. What he stumbled into was Dr. Carroll Behrhorst’s farmer-to-farmer training program. After Dr. Behrhorst kept seeing patients in Guatemala’s Chimaltenango return month after month with the same problems, he realized that to truly serve the people of this community, he needed to treat root causes. One of those root causes was malnutrition and he believed it started with the farmers. So, he created an agricultural extension program to work with farmers, teaching them how to grow nutrient-dense, clean vegetables and grains using sustainable, organic methods. Amado became one of these extension trainers. He poured himself into the art and science of organic agriculture and fell in love with it.
Joaquin Navas, a native Columbian, felt the Lord leading him to Guatemala. At the time he was living in Canada, but he had always had a heart for missions and had previously served as a missionary in Peru. So, as an act of faith, he packed some bags and went to Guatemala. What he witnessed disturbed him: Stunted and malnourished children, broken families, and poverty-stricken rural communities. His heart was burdened for the people of rural Guatemala. Back in Canada, he began to research the history of Guatemala and learned about its troubled past with natural disasters and civil wars. He also read many redeeming stories of its resilient people and rich heritage. One such story was of Dr. Carroll Behrhorst and his work with the locals in Chimaltenango, Guatemala. Joaquin was captivated. He too, caught the vision of taking a holistic approach to treating disease, poverty, and spiritual darkness.
Joaquin learned that in the 70s, soybeans had been bred and successfully grown in the highland regions of Guatemala, the area he had visited. This protein packed plant was embraced by the locals, and it made a significant difference in the health of the communities that were routinely consuming it. With this in mind, he knew what his first mission would be: find the local soybeans and the folks who were growing them. This would prove to be difficult. Decades of civil war and countless natural disasters had stricken Guatemala since the 70’s, and the countryside and its people were much different now. No one was growing soybeans anymore, and those who were; had all fled the country. But that didn’t stop Joaquin from packing his bags again. He had a mission. And it was Divine.
When he arrived in Chimaltenango, he was exhausted. The bus ride into town was long and he was hungry. He wasn’t sure where to start. All he had was a few names that he had found from a few articles written in the 1980s. He went all over the city asking people for clues and if they knew anyone that could help him find someone who might know the few people he had on his list. Most were deceased or had not been seen in decades. He was discouraged and felt defeated until, “just like that” everything changed. Someone recognized a name on his list and told him where to find him. Amado de Valle was still alive, and he lived just down the road.
Amado was an elderly man now (albeit healthy and active) who had been through unspeakable tragedy. He had long given up on sharing his love and passion for soybeans and sustainable agriculture. However, in God’s providence, Amado had been faithfully preserving the seeds that had been integral to transforming his community as a young man. Decades had passed, but here in Amado’s house, lay the seeds that were bred for the Guatemalan highlands. The very seeds Joaquin was searching for.
When Joaquin showed up at Amado de Valle’s house, it did not go well. The last time somebody knocked on Amado’s door asking about his involvement with Dr. Behrhorst, he was accused of being a communist, his life was threatened, and he was forced to leave his home and country. However, Joaquin persisted, and over the course of many subsequent visits, he built trust with Amado and a relationship formed. Fast forward five years, to today, and a lot has transpired.
Brett and I had our first conversation with Joaquin in late 2023. Prior to our joining, Joaquin was busy laying a foundation for OneHealthPlus. In partnership with U.S. universities, annual soybean trials were taking place in Guatemala to not only preserve the soybean genetics, but also improve them and learn best practices for planting, managing, and harvesting. This continues today. The seeds have been moved from Amado’s home to Missioteca’s headquarters where they are stored in a proper holding facility ready to be used - either for planting or for making into food products.
Because soybeans have natural properties that make the majority of their nutrients unavailable to humans, they require processing. This can be as simple as slow-roasting the soybeans for a period of time. However, for maximum nutrient availability and maximum flexibility in terms of soy products being made once processed, extrusion is most preferred. The problem with this is extruders are expensive and typically designed for large, industrial food processors. Shipping harvested soybeans to these facilities isn’t feasible for a small operation like us. So, the best option is to design our own, small-scale extruder for our own use. And, that is what Joaquin did, in collaboration with the University of Mexico. We are now in the process of having this machine shipped to Guatemala City, where it will be used to turn soybeans into high protein flour! From here, the opportunities are endless. Our plan is to contract local small-holder farmers to grow the specifically bred, non-GMO soybeans (using regenerative, chemical free methods). We will purchase these soybeans at a premium and process them into flour. Once accomplished, we will sell the soybean flour to the local ladies who make tortillas (They are everywhere). These ladies, using a blend of corn and soybean flour, will make tortillas that taste identical to corn tortillas (we’ve taste-tested them!), but will have 3x as much protein! These ladies will have a ready market for their tortillas. We will connect them with our network of churches and schools that feed hungry kids and families - getting much needed protein into the bellies of young, growing kids. The money stays in the hands of locals: local seed, local farmers, local businesses, local families.
In February, during my first visit this year, we stopped by Grace, a ministry and school with which I had a conncetion. As it turned out, this school feeds 250 kids during the school week and had a plot of farmland nearby that was barely being used. After returning home, we felt this land would be a perfect plot to demonstrate regenerative, organic methods to local small-holder farmers and prove their validity. Since May, after our team dedicated the land to the Lord and covered it in prayer, we planted our first seeds and have since delivered over 1500 pounds of produce to Grace’s school kitchen and to a local church who shares meals with needy families. This project has been a major success and we are looking forward to further stewarding this land in the years to come to the benefit of Grace, our mission, and the Lord’s Kingdom.
What is Next?
For OneHealthPlus to continue, we need financial support. Operations have been financially bootstrapped while we sought to get established and prove a concept. With a growing season at Grace under our belt, four full-time Guatemalan farmers on staff, an extruder set-up, and soybeans ready for processing, it is time to scale. In partnership with local churches, we will take training, produce, and economic opportunity into the local rural communities. We invite you to partner with us and help us make this happen by financially supporting OneHealthPlus.
We are incredibly grateful for your support. Please help us spread the word by sharing this letter with whoever the Lord puts on your heart.
If you have questions, ideas, or want to get involved another way, feel free to reach out to me at taylor@acommonlife.co
The story is still being written and I look forward to sharing it with you all here!
Soli Deo Gloria.