Let us start by being brutally honest with each other. Most if not all of us have had the thought, "If God would just follow my plan, it would all be fine." At least I hope I'm not the only one that has had this thought from time to time. We all think we know best if others (including God) would just listen to us, we could solve so many of the problems around us. I admit that sometimes I think that God isn't doing things fast enough or doing them the way I think they should be done. I wonder if this mindset amuses or irritates God. He must feel a little like me when I get driving advice from my 7-year-old riding in the back seat. "Go faster Daddy!" or "Just go already!" (sitting at a red light) or "Are we going the right way?" All of which are not infrequently shouted from the back seat. I am trying to learn to allow God to work in his way and his time frame when doing what He has called me to do. I had a grand plan for Peanut Better from the very beginning. I had everything planned out including an optimal timeline and exactly how things would get done— to which God has had to constantly remind me that His ways are higher and His timing is perfect. The more I let go and the more I trust, the more I see this. I admit, that patience is not my greatest virtue. Some would argue I don't really have any virtues, but I know I am not a patient person. After all, I am an emergency physician, and we don't do waiting very well. Everything we order is stat or now and we expect it then. God doesn't take my orders and it is a good thing. My plan for Peanut Better was simple: we would make the Peanut Better in my home state of Georgia and ship it around the world to where it was most needed. However, on my most recent trip to Kenya, God opened my eyes to other options that I didn't think were possible. On that same trip, I skipped the safari to spend a couple of days with a pastor friend of mine, Tonny Wasike. After arriving late that evening, the next morning we were sitting in his living room and I was telling him about my plans for Peanut Better and how I would like to ship some to his orphanage once I was able to get up and running back in the US. He looked at me and said, "We can make it here much cheaper". He was right, but the control freak in me was thinking, “I don't know if they can do it right.” Honestly, it isn't a complicated formula but my controlling tendencies were getting in the way of seeing new possibilities. After a few moments, I asked him if he could get peanuts from the local market, and how much would they cost. He looked at me without hesitation and said, "We will grow the peanuts ourselves.” This is where my American mindset can be a hindrance, as I try to solve problems with money and he was proposing to solve the problem with hard work and physical labor. Thank God for my Kenyan brother thinking otherwise. I smiled and asked, "Do you really want to grow them? Wouldn’t it be easier to just buy them"? There goes my American way of thinking again. He said it would be easier but they could “do it better and for a lot less money". I must admit I was feeling a little silly for thinking money was always the solution to the problem. Nonetheless, we still had one more major issue to address. Peanut Butter requires an additional source of protein to be added in the production process to raise the overall protein content. I then asked Tonny, "What about another protein source? Where could we get some additional protein, like whey or milk protein"? He asked if soy could be used. I told him that would work and then asked him if it would be easy to get soy powder. He said it would be easy since they can grow soybeans too. Of course you can, I thought to myself. However, to work properly the soybean powder must be ground very fine with consistent particle size. He then asked if I would like to sample some of their soybean powder. I said absolutely, but I was honestly expecting a see a lumpy or coarsely ground soybean powder. What I received instead was a finely ground, perfect soybean powder. Tonny then informed me that his wife Daisy, the real farmer in the family, had grown the soybeans for fun recently. I then asked her how she was able to grind this so perfectly. She simply smiled and said, "I used two stones". Now completely humbled, I knew that God was showing me that Peanut Better could also be produced in Kenya and that Tonny and Daisy were just the ones to pull it off. Later that day we made a test batch of Peanut Better using supplies from the local Kenyan grocery store. For this job, I enlisted Tonny and Daisy's daughter, Dianna, who enlisted herself. I showed her how to make the first batch and she took over from there. Her years of preparing food for the 50+ orphans under her parent's care made her the ideal person to make Peanut Better. It was settled, and with the right players now in place, we committed to making Peanut Better from seed to finished product in Webuye, Kenya. At this time of this blog post, we are preparing to break ground at plant our first crop of peanuts and soybeans and I am so thankful that God's plans and timing are always perfect.
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