Fight, Flee or Forgive?
From a podcast by Simon Guillebaud
Foundations for Farming (FfF). started in 1982 when the farm which Brian Oldreive was managing in the north of Zimbabwe was nearing bankruptcy. Brian asked God for help and his prayer was answered one day when he realized that in natural creation there is no deep soil inversion and that a thick ‘blanket’ of fallen leaves and grass covers the surface of the soil. He started experimenting with Conservation Agriculture (CA). The results were outstanding - an 8-fold increase in yield - and soon only minimum tillage was used at the farm. Since then, the FfF approach has been taught by churches across Zimbabwe and expanded internationally through partners such as USAID, World Food Programme, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), International Organization for Migration, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Craig Deall is the International CEO of Foundations for Farming (FfF). and shared his story with Simon in a podcast. How do you respond when a gang shows up to steal your beautiful farm, sanctioned by the authorities?
I'm a third generation Zimbabwean. My father was a spitfire pilot in the Second World War and when he came back he opened up a farm in Northern Zimbabwe. We were not a Christian family by any means but my parents were good people and they brought us up well. Sadly my dad died when I was 14 and I went off the rails. My mum tried to keep the farm for me but it didn't work out so she had to sell it. After I completed school and national service, I began to work for the new owner of the farm and then a few years later I bought the farm back from him.
I did have an encounter with the Lord during my time in the military. I miraculously escaped death during a firefight only to be told later that a dear old lady, who I barely remembered, got an unction from the Lord to pray for me at the very moment the bullets started to fly. I fobbed it off as a coincidence. Years later, I fell in love with a beautiful Christian girl. We were unequally yoked but I could not help but see Jesus reflected in my wife. She never preached to me or pushed me to go to church. She just loved and served me. When our two children were born, I saw the absolute love and trust that they had in me as their dad and it broke me because it gave me a picture of a heavenly father. I couldn't deny him any longer.
So I'm a farmer but now I'm a Christian farmer. We had probably a thousand dependents on the farm. I always presumed that I loved them but I suddenly realized that I only looked at them as assets. Their activity made me wealthy. My wife persuaded me to to build a church on the farm and I began to worship with them shoulder to shoulder and I suddenly saw them through Jesus's eyes. They were not employees, they were image bearers of a living God.
However, I was fiercely ambitious, a proud achiever. I was that foolish farmer that Jesus refers to in Luke, where I was building more barns, eating, drinking, being merry. I was building my empire and not his empire. We were exporting stuff all over the world. I was becoming very successful climbing the ladder of success only to find that eventually that ladder is against the wrong wall. But God was slowly moulding my faith and things were about to change. God was going to shake me and break me to get me to a place where I was useful to him.
When Zimbabwe became independent, Robert Mugabe's acceptance speech was so reassuring. He asked white farmers to stay as we were the backbone of agriculture. Years later, an opposition party was birthed and the Zim government saw a threat to their political power. Under the guise of reclaiming land from the colonialists, despite the fact that I bought my farm well after Independence and I was actually an indigenous Zimbabwean, a rather violent Land Reform process started. There were marauding gangs of slogan chanting, usually inebriated youth swarming onto our farms. The police were instructed to just fold their hands and watch. There was no recourse to the Judiciary. We, as white farmers, had no rights. We were classified as non-indigenous. White farmers were being stripped of everything without any recourse or or compensation.
One day, my local police officer came to me and said, "We've been told that tomorrow, hell is going to break loose and I'm not allowed to help you. I'm just letting you know that we've been instructed to just stand by and watch."
I was the chair of our local District Farmers Association and I had spent two weeks during these violent land invasions trying to keep the peace between these different marauding groups of invaders and frightened farmers, bearing in mind that most farmers were militarily trained and had a gun cabinet full full of weapons.
I came home one night exhausted and said to my wife, "When they come to our farm, what are we going to do?" and she very calmly said, "Well, we should pray with them." Now that was not what I was thinking but that evening I promised the Lord that's what I'll do.
I'd got to know all the groups that were going around our district. Some were far more belligerent and violent than others and there were two individuals that were just top of the list for violence and and aggression. I'd added to my prayer saying, "Lord, I will pray with them but please Lord not those ones." Well that was a mistake.
A few days later they were in our yard, spoiling for a fight and I suddenly found myself at a crossroads moment. Was I going to be obedient to the Lord or was I going to try and take the law into my own hands and make my own plan? The Holy Spirit came to the rescue and I had the strength to walk up to these two individuals with their mob, screaming at obscenities at me. I put my hands on their shoulders and I asked if I could pray with them. They said yes and then my wife came out and we locked hands with them and I prayed for them and their needs.
I was being obedient. We unlocked our hands and I opened my eyes. There before us two lions had turned into lambs. Their countenance had changed. They just looked different and they said to me, "Mr Deall, you're a good man. We're leaving you now." They turned around and left with their gang. The big miracle of that story is that those two troublemakers where never seen again. They just like disappeared. They weren't involved in anything anymore.
My neighbours were astounded because they were all bracing themselves wondering, "Who's next?" They asked me what happened and I said we prayed with them and they left. It was such a testimony to many unbelieving farmers around me. Farmers had been beaten up and murdered, given minutes or hours to get off their properties. Farm workers were in a no man's land. They couldn't protect themselves, were told we were the enemy, and suffered severe violence and trauma.
For me, what happened on that day though was that God stripped me of my ethnic pride, my arrogance, my inherent racism. He graciously led me on a road to forgiveness. We managed to stay on the farm for three years after that. We had dozens of incidents where gangs would arrive at our gates, tell us to go and leave everything, but every time we would invite them onto our veranda and pray with them and they would go. It was just supernatural. The Lord was just teaching me so much about obedience and about being a servant and taking the lowest seat at the table.
However, over time, people were taking up residence all over the farm and it was getting smaller and smaller and untenable. It got to a point where we would need to start bribing to stay there. We decided we were not going to start that and so we voluntarily vacated the small part of the farm that was left to us.
The biggest losers were the families on the farm who who lost their means of income. They bore the brunt of all the violence if they were seen to be supporting us. They were left destitute.
We had to move into the city. We weren't totally destitute because the Lord had graciously given us those three years where we were able to stop investing into the farm and save up to buy a house in Harari. We were so much better off than the vast majority through the Lord's goodness on the forgiveness road.
In Matthew 5v39-41, Jesus says, "But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles." For us that meant if a man steals your farm, teach them how to farm. So I went back to the farm after we had lived in the city, to try and teach the people who had taken our our land.
Looking at the bigger picture, we were faced with three alternatives; fight, flee or forgive. No answer is wrong. Many of my friends fought and lost their lives or just about escaped death. The vast majority left the country because they literally had no alternative. We as a family decided on the forgiveness route. There was a supernatural lifting of that burden of anxiety, angst and vengeful thoughts. I've heard someone say forgiveness sets the prisoner free and then you suddenly realize you are the prisoner and that's what happened to us. I didn't have any bitterness. I was able to leave the offense at the foot of the cross and leave it with the Lord. The Lord will deal with it and I am free.
Craig goes on in the podcast to tell what happened next.
Listen to the 58 minute podcast here:
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From a podcast by Simon Guillebaud, 26/03/2025