Runchan Chawwiwat, a farmer in Thailand, is open to starting a compost pile near these fruit trees on his property after attending Unto®’s agriculture workshop. Unto is the humanitarian aid ministry of Cru®.
Runchan Chawwiwat, a farmer in Thailand, is open to starting a compost pile near these fruit trees on his property after attending Unto®’s agriculture workshop. Unto is the humanitarian aid ministry of Cru®.
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In a small valley in rural Thailand, a narrow, clay-dirt path winds around Runchan Chawwiwat’s garden beds and fruit trees. Chirping chicks scatter at the sight of foot traffic, and commercial farms surround on all sides.
In addition to pastoring in local village churches for most of his life, Runchan, 57, began farming over a decade ago. His family’s vision is to cultivate the land God blessed them with and eventually live off their harvest.
“By working on the farm,” he says, “we can not only provide for our family and live a simple life, but also serve God and contribute to our community.”
Runchan points out bananas, mangoes and avocados. He planted bamboo near the upper edge of his property to protect against rainy season flooding.
“I had a chicken coop here,” he says, motioning toward a small muddy patch, “but when a big flood came, all [those] chickens drowned. The water was like a river.”
Runchan scans his property and strategizes where to start compost piles, a practice he learned from Unto®’s four-day agriculture workshop.
Thai workshop participants and Bangkok Cru® staff members commemorate their time together with a group photo. They stand in front of the village church in Phop Phra, Thailand, that hosted Unto®’s agriculture workshop.
Digging Deeper into Unto's Instruction
Because workshops adapt to the participants' needs and concerns, no two workshops are exactly alike. But trainees in the food and agriculture program learn some common foundational lessons.
Soil health and composting: What is soil made of, and what makes it healthy? In this lesson, participants learn about the three parent materials of soil: clay, sand and silt. “Loam” refers to the ideal mixture of all three. In Thailand, farmers work with clay-heavy soil, making it difficult for their fields to hold water and nutrients. Salim*, Unto's agriculture program manager, teaches that adding organic matter like compost, manure and mulch will improve the health of their soil.
Raised garden beds: This technique is the central teaching for nearly every workshop. At the demonstration site, Salim asks participants to dig a trench one meter wide and 20 centimeters deep (approximately 40 inches wide and 8 inches deep). Then they fill the trench with compost materials collected on-site: such as banana leaves, plant matter, water and manure. Once the trench is filled, the soil is piled back on top to create a slightly elevated mound with a narrow foot path on either side. This method of farming promotes light, fluffy soil packed with nutrients and balanced with water.
Nutrition: Unto’s teaching goes beyond the field, educating participants about nutrition, the importance of eating a balanced diet, and basic kitchen hygiene. Using a sheet of felt and small cut-outs of different foods with velcro backing, Thai participants assigned each food to its corresponding group. Unto also teaches how nutrition changes over time. For example, growing children need a lot of energizing foods like fruits and vegetables, and protein-rich snacks such as eggs, yogurt and legumes. Older men and women should focus on fiber, dairy and leafy greens to promote digestive health and bone strength.
In a world captivated by innovation and efficiency, Unto’s agriculture workshops challenge farmers to observe nature’s patterns and adopt farming practices that stand the test of time. When the workshop ends, participants leave with everything they need to start growing — on their farms and in their faith.
Unto, the humanitarian aid ministry of Cru®, expresses the kindness of Jesus in the toughest places on earth by relieving suffering, restoring dignity and revealing hope. The ministry focuses on three programs — food and agriculture, clean water, and critical aid — that serve the physical and spiritual needs of people around the world.
For the food and agriculture program, this includes distributing vegetable seeds and conducting agriculture workshops like the one Runchan attended in Thailand.
Pastor Wanchai, leader of the church hosting Unto’s workshop, reviews how to build a bucket drip-irrigation system. When water is poured into the bucket, it flows through irrigation tubing and is evenly distributed throughout the garden.
Unto’s agriculture workshops begin each day with a devotional to connect that lesson to the Creator of everything. This stands in stark contrast to the government-sponsored training programs Runchan is used to.
“Government programs don’t talk about God or nature’s design … but the [Unto] speaker brought in the idea that everything was created to be good,” Runchan says. “I had no idea that soil already has all the stuff plants need to grow — like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. It’s so cool to know that God created everything we need.”
Participants dig a trench — the first step in building a raised garden bed. After the compost elements are added, soil is added to create a meter-wide (approximately 40-inches-wide) planting area slightly above the walking path.
Because God gives purpose to all creation, farmers can learn organic agriculture practices just by paying attention to nature’s patterns. Take composting, for example.
“There is no trash in nature,” explains Salim*, Unto’s agriculture program manager in Thailand. He points out that nobody fertilizes the forest. Instead, animal waste, un-harvested fruit and fallen leaves replenish the soil’s nutrients.
Runchan cuts reeds to build a raised garden bed. These reeds will sit on banana leaves in a 15-meter-long (about 16-yards-long) trench and will be topped with manure and soaked with water to create a compost pile inside the garden bed.
Through the food and agriculture program, Unto distributes seeds and teaches people how to garden or farm more effectively, offering lasting aid that restores agency – empowering farmers to provide for their own families.
A local pastor pours water from a nearby fishpond into the trench, soaking the reeds and banana leaves. Raising fish is common in the area and has benefits, such as providing organic, nutrient-rich water.
“There’s nothing like a farmer harvesting their own food,” Salim says. “There’s so much pride in [saying], ‘From this soil, from this land, I cultivated this. I can feed my family with this.’ It’s so different from going to the grocery store and filling your bag.”
Building trust is critical. Salim acknowledges that it takes a lot of faith for farmers to leave their fields for four consecutive days.
“Winning people over,” he says, “convincing them that these techniques are going to be beneficial and they will make more money — that is the biggest challenge.”
Runchan (left) helps lay irrigation tubes. Though he’s interested in trying many of the practices taught in Unto’s workshop, he said making the connection between God and farming was most eye-opening. “It makes me feel good to know that I’m working with God’s creation,” Runchan says. “I never thought about using the Bible to help me garden before.”
Workshop participants work together to secure irrigation tubing using sticks and branches.
After teaching more than a dozen workshops, Salim finds that directing participants toward nature’s example gives credibility to his teaching.
“What we teach is not the creativeness or intellect of the Western culture,” he says to the Thailand workshop participants. “What we’re learning is actually from your land. This wisdom actually belongs to you. And your ancestors knew about this.”
This local merchant lives in Phop Phra, where Unto® held its agriculture workshop. Phop Phra is a small district in the western province of Tak, near the Myanmar border.
Unto encourages farming methods that can contribute to long-term soil health, rather than gravitating toward common chemical products. Using potent pesticides to treat crops could solve an outbreak quickly but could also make people and animals sick, contaminate water sources, and strip the land of helpful insects and pollinators.
In Thailand, Salim taught workshop participants how to make their own pesticide sprays using household or homegrown ingredients like soap, chili powder or neem oil mixed with water.
The use of harsh chemicals is common in Runchan’s community, and many people are not aware of the possible side effects or necessary safety precautions that accompany them.
Four women listen to instructions for the day’s demonstration.
Runchan is one of few farmers committed to an organic approach and hopes his farm can be an example to his neighbors.
“I believe organic farming would be beneficial for everyone,” Runchan says. “At the moment, farmers often sell their produce and then buy food from the market, which may contain unknown chemicals. By growing our own food, we can guarantee that it’s organic and healthy.”
A local farmer takes corn off the cob and repackages the kernels. Flooding in her fields pushed her to harvest too early, rendering it inedible for people. Now, she’ll use it as feed for chickens and cattle.
Street markets are peppered with merchants selling everything from fresh food and produce to fabric and clothing.
Unto’s agriculture team may provide support and expertise, but the long-term success of these workshops relies on the commitment of local ministry teams. Often, in-country staff members with Cru will stay connected to participants long after a workshop ends.
Thawee Doipraison, a Thai staff member with Campus Crusade for Christ International® (as Cru® is known in Thailand), shows a clip from the film “JESUS” on an iPad and facilitates a discussion with five women from the local Lisu tribe. Workshop participants often come from nearby tribes and villages with few Christians.
Runchan expressed disappointment in the training offered by the government, because it provided no way to ask questions after the program ended.
“Post-workshop support is essential,” Ruchan says. “Often, government agencies don’t follow up after training, leaving participants to fend for themselves. For example, they might teach people how to grow avocados but not provide any guidance on selling the harvest.”
In 2024, Unto developed a trainer’s guide for agriculture workshops, so that all the lessons, resources and devotionals could be translated and shared with local ministry teams around the world.
“We’re not trying to create ongoing projects [in the same location],” Salim says. “There are always new needs, and [Unto’s] vision is to be in the toughest places. As soon as a place gets easier, we’re trying to build some sort of sustainable solution for the local teams … and then we move on to the next bigger challenge.”
Journey Aquino, a volunteer with Unto®, helps prepare bucket irrigation kits and seed packages for those graduating from the agriculture workshop. Most materials are purchased locally.
Unto defines the toughest places as areas of the world that are difficult to reach physically or resistant to receiving the good news of Jesus. Unto team members utilize the agriculture program in remote communities challenged by economic instability, political unrest or drought.
In Tanzania, agriculture workshops provided an unexpected opportunity for ministry with the Masai people in summer 2023. Though the Masai are traditionally sheep and cattle farmers with little experience growing crops, they invited Unto to teach on agriculture after a years-long drought led to an increasingly limited food supply. They learned a desert farming technique at the workshop that enabled them to grow their own food for their families.
Early in 2024, Salim and his team left an excess of seeds with workshop participants in South Sudan. Despite the ongoing civil war and famine, those participants are taking the extra seeds and sharing what they learned with their friends and families.
“We’re hearing every day, ‘Two more people came to the Lord!’ And that’s the people that we didn’t even meet [at the workshop],” Salim says.
After a graduation ceremony, participants leave the workshop with everything they need to replicate what they learned in their own farms and gardens.
Beyond numbers, Salim measures success by whether local ministry leaders and participants are empowered to utilize these techniques after the workshop.
In Venezuela, Unto hosted a virtual training session during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. As food prices continued to surge in that country because of political unrest, the national director of the local ministry learned the workshop’s framework and led eight workshops herself.
Four village pastors, including Runchan, attended the workshop in Thailand, and each of them intends to teach what they’ve learned to the people in their churches.
“Everyone in the village owns land. They can do this kind of farming,” Runchan says. “I focus on the kids. I take them to the farm almost every weekend. I want them to see that you can be happy and live a simple life without spending a ton of money.”
A child balances a sack of grass while walking down a road.
Inspiring his students to believe in themselves and their land is one of Salim’s primary goals.
“They will say, ‘I have grown this, I am the farmer.’ That’s the dignity piece — you are restoring that dignity,” he says. “They are taking pride in their land once again.”
Participants may not remember everything they learn in Unto’s agriculture workshop, but as the local farmers cultivate their fields, Salim hopes they will remember to look to the forest and consider how God would farm.
In Phop Phra, many people use thanaka paste to protect their skin from the sun. It is made from the bark of the thanaka tree and is also commonly found in Myanmar and India.
* Editor’s note: Name changed for security reasons.
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