Foundations for Farming in South Africa

Boet and Celia Pretorius work for Foundations for Farming in South Africa. Here is his update from the following two months. If you are in South Africa, and want to connect with Boet in any of the areas he mentions then feel free to contact him on boet@mweb.co.zw

“Greetings from Polokwane, we have completed a full circle of a large part of South Africa:

Polokwane: We started here two months ago, getting a compost heap in place and getting our car patched up after hitting numerous potholes on the way back from Kalungu in Northern Zambia.

Pretoria: We introduced Foundations for Farming at a primary school in Soshanguve where we are now partnering with Africa – Food for the Hungry. The children in the lower grades greeted me by pointing a finger and firing imaginary shots at this “boer” – maybe not a surprising welcome to the racially tense South Africa.

Pietermaritzburg: Willie du Plessis flew in and together we presented Foundations for Farming to the KwaZulu-Natal Christian Social Services.

Grobelershoop: This was our second visit to this Amos Community training centre along the Orange River. Here we trained the Goodyear team as well as some Pastors from the Freestate. Hennie Viljoen presented “The Business of Farming” in the mornings with Celia and I presenting Foundations for Farming in the afternoons for one week. It was again a wonderful week of building relationships and getting to know the hearts of the Brown people of the Northern Cape.

Bothaville: Here we trained Foundations for Farming for three days with some local farmers who have linked up with Pastors in the Kgotsagong – the high density township. We put in the Well Watered Maize Garden, as well as vegetable garden and compost heap at a Centre for Disabled people. We really enjoyed it being amongst the poor and raising the models where they are needed the most. More than 70 people attended this training, including Willie du Plessis who came all the way from Port Elizabeth with two Social workers. Willie had his hands full with all the administrative challenges of such a large group whilst we could carry on with the training.

Groot Marico: We joined many roll players of the North West Province who were invited by Daan and Beatrice vd Merwe to a workshop to seek and share Gods heart for the development of this province. Conservation, Education, Good Governance, Church and Agriculture were on the table. We were so encouraged to hear and see what God is already doing amongst the Tswana peoples. It was so much fun having Alet-Mari with us during this time, she was supposed to study but enjoyed some brilliant Christ Centered presentations more.

Hoopstad: Together with Polokwane, this is the place where vision has been shared the most. Two pastors from Zambia and a couple doing mission work in Lesotho joined us, together with some local people and the students from Visie Afrika Bible School. It was an eye opener to the course goers when we took them to by trailer to a huge commercial field of maize next to the Bible School where Foundations for Farming principals are practiced on more than 1000 hectares. It just cemented the fact that stewardship with creation is the task of all farmers. Well done Piet and now Adriaan for taking up this challenge.

Ficksburg: Petrus end Marietjie Grove (who are part of Missio Dei – a group of farmers who are living out the Acts church) coordinated this training with the community leaders that they are partnering with in this town. The training was done at a Hospice centre that is run by this group of farmers. We also had a team of six coming from Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal to attend the training.

Mooiriver/Howick: The core of Foundations for Farming South Africa joined us for five days in the misty Natal highlands to seek our Fathers face for the way forward in South Africa. We attended the Mighty Mens meeting – it was so good to sit under the anointed teaching of Cassie Carstens and other. We were so blessed to have Brian Oldreive and Craig Deall join us from Zimbabwe for a wonderful time of relationship building, sharing, braaing and enjoying each other in a relaxed informal setting. The 15 of us were just so aware of the challenges of Africa and particular South Africa and our absolute dependence on God to lead us step by step.

Foundations for Farming training in 2012:

After training far and wide up till now, we will have much more focused training in the future, details will follow soon.

The way ahead:

Potchefstroom: We will be training in partnership with Touching Africa from 1-2 November

Polokwane: the final training for the year will be 10 and 11 November at Eagles Nest Christian School
God has again proved His faithfulness on this trip, at Bothaville my laptop bid us farewell due to the motherboard failure, I was working from an external memory for some years so all the data was safe. Between there and Groot Marico , I became the owner of a brand new laptop. With the ever increasing diesel price, He provided through His family and here we are more than 7000 km later

Thank you for all of you who made us feel so much at home with you, and a big thank you to my “eie vrou” Celia who traveled with, trained with, prayed with and always encouraged me, on a (some times) taxing journey.”

Boet and Celia