Agros

Thy Kingdom Come On Earth As It Is In Heaven

As a faith-based ministry Agros is inspired and informed by Scripture and the vision verse that we’ve chosen to reflect the ministry of Agros is Isaiah 65:17-25. It’s a Kingdom of God vision that describes the wholeness of life that emerges when the Kingdom comes “on earth as it is in heaven.” It’s a beautiful image of renewal and restoration and delight (vs. 18-19). 

It’s a vision that focuses on the most vulnerable — infants and elderly — and promises a healthy start and a full life (vs. 20). This vision is the inspiration for Agros’ Healthy Start ministry that focuses on maternal health and child nutrition – supporting pregnant women in the practices of pre and post-natal care and a safe delivery, and on the first 1000 days of a child’s life through nutrition and monitoring healthy development.

Families paid off their home and land loans.

Further, each Agros community has a health clinic that provides essential public health, not only to Agros communities, but to neighboring communities as well. These clinics have delivered critical care in saving the lives of the elderly through wave after wave of COVID over the past 2 years.

It’s a vision that focuses on the blessings of establishing a place to call home (“build houses and dwell in them”), access to fruitful land (“plant vineyards and eat their fruit”), and the abundant security that comes from productive labor (“long enjoy the work of their hands”). Agros’ community agrobusiness is making this Kingdom vision a reality in the lives of hundreds of families, and through our Village within a Village strategy we’re adding entire new communities of families each year. With the development of our Harvest of Hope agribusiness incubators becoming fully operational over the next three years, Agros will create avenues to the transformational power of our agribusiness model for thousands of families in Nicaragua, Guatemala and beyond.

This biblical vision inspires the heart of Agros’ mission of breaking the cycle of poverty. Every family enters the Agros journey as those suffering the indignity and despair of unrelenting poverty. Each day they face the fundamental experience of a day laborer — the terrifying uncertainty of not being hired that day, of not earning enough to provide “daily bread” for their family. Imagine being a parent who despite their deepest yearning and hard work cannot conceive a future for their children different than the daily entrapment of poverty in which they live.

This is an unspeakable tragedy. This is the heartache and hopelessness which Agros disrupts. Agros interrupts this despairing hopelessness with enormous opportunity — a healthy start, a full life, a place to call home, fruitful land, opportunity for productive labor. It’s an unimaginable reversal of fortune — from entrenched poverty to intergenerational prosperity.

“They will not labor in vain,
nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord,
they and their descendants with them.” (Isaiah 65:23)

This Kingdom passage ends with a vision of intimate relationship with Yahweh — the God who hears (vs. 24); and images of reconciled relationships that produces an enduring peace (vs. 25).

This is the vision of God’s Kingdom coming which inspires and animates Agros’ mission and daily work. Your partnership makes this happen. You are an instrument of God’s Kingdom — participating in the restoration and reconciliation of people, places, and systems.

Thank You & May God Bless You!

 

You can find a version of this piece in the Winter Newsletter.
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Ken Kierstead

Ken is the Executive Vice President at Agros. He joined the team in 2018. 

His passion is rooted in serving the overlooked populations of our world.

Ken lives in Seattle with his wife, and loves being father to his two children and their spouses, and now grandfather to five grandchildren.