Video: Fighting poverty with a goat-themed poetry slam

Salvador Cariaga, a native missionary and overseer of the Give a Goat ministry in the Philippines, sent a recent update on the sustainable agriculture projects he helps supervise on the island of Cebu.
I visited the work a few months ago and wrote a feature about it — “A gospel of goats” — for The Christian Chronicle:

Salvador Cariaga is furious.
The Filipino evangelist carefully places three bottles of liquor across a blacksmith’s anvil, their glass bottoms clinking as rain pours from the thatched roof over his head.
Quietly, he asks their owner, Bebe, to stand on the other side, facing him.
For an eternal moment, raindrops make the only sound.

Read the full story.

Salvador Cariaga and students from Southwest Christian School in Fort Worth, Texas, pray for Bebe after constructing a new home for her and her children. The effort was part of a mission trip sponsored by Bread for a Hungry World. (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

Shortly after returning home from the Philippines, I learned that Bebe had vowed to stop drinking, had started studying the Bible and was baptized. She continues to study Scripture every Saturday morning, Cariaga said in his report.
“Her story does not end here by any means,” he added. “She has fallen off the wagon several times since then — and may fall some more. As her story is a struggle (like most people, especially the poorest of the poor), so is our work. It is not easy to help people help themselves. That is why POVERTY IS A FIGHT!”
He included a link to the above video, written by Christian poet David Bowden and produced by Ben Hobbes. The video “is intertwined with the story of Bebe,” Cariaga said.
 

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  On behalf of the Board of Trustees of Shepherd’s Hill International, Inc. (aka Give A Goat), thank you for viewing this video and story. For those who wish more information, the website is www.shepherdshill.org.

  Mike O’Neal

  August, 9 2013