Putting faith to work - #lakewoodnews

Since the late 1990s, Stan Brown and his wife, Tami, have been teaching Kazakhstani farmers to grow apples and other fruit trees.

The Browns live in Castle Rock now, but they lived full-time in Kazakhstan until 2010. Stan returns to the Central Asian country several times a year as the project manager for the orchard management training program they founded there with the help of IDEAS, a Littleton-based nonprofit group for which Tami is director of international operations. They also run a for-profit tree nursery there.

"It's training poor farmers how to improve their lives," Stan said.

Kazakhstan is not the only country where IDEAS operates --; and agriculture is far from the only field it has professionals in. IDEAS has more than 100 people doing long-term assignments in 14 countries, including Thailand, Jordan, India and Egypt, while another 20 to 40 per year go on short-term trips. Their projects range from nursing to dentistry to teaching and information technology.

"Our mission is to demonstrate love in tangible ways," says Sarah Rymer, director of communications and recruiting for IDEAS. "Our specific niche is professional skillsets."

By IRS standards, IDEAS is not a faith-based charity, Rymer said, but most of the group's work is in partnership with local entities that are. Volunteers sign a statement of faith and are mostly Christian. However, Rymer said, IDEAS does not evangelize.

"We are not traditional missionaries," she said.

Birthplace of apples

Kazakhstan has a rich history of fruit tree cultivation --; in fact, the first apples were cultivated there. When the Browns moved there, however, the country's orchards were in disrepair and its farmers had fallen behind on modern techniques.

"The agriculture had fallen into a very sad state because of the economic collapse of the Soviet Union," Stan said.

After taking a survey trip to the country, the orchard project was born.

"We had observed that the geography was very similar to eastern Washington," Stan said.

Washington is the leading apple-producing state in the U.S., growing 10 to 12 billion a year, mostly in the rural central and eastern portions of the state, according to the Washington Apple Commission.

"It's been very encouraging to see the fruit industry there take on modern elements and be productive," Stan said of Kazakhstan.

Children of missionaries, the Browns were both raised abroad, Stan in Pakistan and Tammy in Kenya. They met at Wheaton College in Illinois and have paired their professional skills with religious beliefs to work in developing countries for decades, with Stan working in business development and Tammy in public health. Before Kazakhstan, they lived in Turkey.

The biggest obstacle to getting westerners to work in Kazakhstan is a perception that it might be a dangerous or undesirable place to live, Stan said.

"Because it has 'stan' in its name, people think 'Pakistan, Afghanistan, war,'" he said.

However, he said the country is modern and has a lot to offer.

"It's a beautiful country with beautiful mountains," he said. "When people over there ask us what Colorado is like, we say 'it's a lot like here.' "

A family affair

Stan and Tami's daughter and son-in-law, Lauren and Shledon Nest, also work for IDEAS, as health care professionals in Thailand.

Lauren, a nurse by training, grew up mainly in Kazakhstan, while her parents worked there. Now, she and Sheldon, a son of Colombian immigrants who was raised in New Jersey, administer a program that trains people from the Karen ethnic group in rural parts of Thailand to be health care professionals.

"I never would have imagined myself working with Karen people," Sheldon said via email. "But when I learned of this opportunity I jumped at the chance to be a part of something that has lasting impact."

Lauren and Sheldon met at Liberty University, a Christian school in Virginia, where Lauren received a nursing degree and Sheldon earned a degree in health promotion.

Sheldon went on to get a master's degree in public health from Colorado School of Public Health while Lauren worked as an emergency room nurse in Fort Collins. The Nests have been in the city of Chiang Mai, in the northern part of Thailand, for more than a year now, and their daughter was born there eight months ago.

They believe they were meant to help there, Lauren said in an email: "We believe that God has called us to use our professional skills to work with individuals and communities that are marginalized and have very little access to quality health care."

from Lakewood Sentinel - Latest Stories http://lakewoodsentinel.com/stories/Putting-faith-to-work,239901