Living with the community, power of silence and forgiveness while farming

 One of the challenges I have so far noted is how to effectively manage a family small farm while living miles a way from the land at the same time having a formal job or business or consultancy works. I had got a new consultancy job and I was going through orientation and milestone development. My other family members were also busy with school and career development. I depended on the casual field workers to get feedback of what was happening on farm via phone calls, what we call telephone farming. It was about a month for us to visit the farm then we went to the village for Christmas holidays and family get together.

Early January at the beginning of the year in preparation for new season, I finally went to the farm to visit without any warnings or phone calls. I would be honest to say that I was prompted by the Holy Spirit to go there. It was not in my weekly plans. I used a different route from the usual one and got into the farm in unexpected move. I was surprised to find a neighbor packing a sac of cassava before the field traders and one of the boys at the farm. I reached at the exact point of exchanging money and I had an opportunity of seeing how much they were paid. It was not a good moment for both parties but I smiled and they proceeded with the transaction. After that, the young man brought money to me and he told me that they had plans of sending me the sales via mobile money. I again smiled and asked him how much money he was demanding me. I told him to deduct it from the cassava sales they had made. 

We proceeded to the coffee section and I noted that someone harvested coffee and branches were broken all over. I paused and I was wondering what happened. Then the young man again explained before I asked that while he was a way for Christmas holidays, some neighbors and her children came at night and harvested all the coffee. I again smiled at him and reminded the young man that it was that family that hosted me and my family the first time we camped in that village. Then we proceeded and I saw the ripened bananas and some that were not cut well. This time, the boy did not say anything. Then we passed by the nearby house of an old woman. We found her eating one of the produce from our farm, they are unique and she did not have them in her garden. She quickly panicked and asked me how did I come, when did I come, how come I did not make any phone call.....I could see her heart pumping very fast. Then I smiled at her and comforted her that all is well, and in fact I had brought for her some soap and bread as I normally do for the elderly women in that village. She waited for me to say anything about her act but I instead bid farewell and appreciated her for keeping well my farm as a good neighbor. On my way out of her compound, we met the key suspect of coffee harvesting. I humbly knelt down as a culture in Buganda and greeted her. After that I left back to town.

The following week, I started on the new strategy of developing short-termed crops which will require my family members to do frequent visits at least once a week or once in 14 days. That's how we started projects of maize, vegetables, beans, groundnuts, cowpeas and soya beans. By the time, I returned to the village, our farm had gained total respect. I found a talk in the village that I was a witch and every one was warned not to touch anything on my farm otherwise the "silent smiling woman" may be cooking up something. I listened to the talks and wondered why someone referred me to be a witch! But later I learnt that it was the secret of learning how to forgive and not keep grudges at heart. In fact, I did not share the details back home with exception of coffee which is currently the man's project and he has his eyes on that gold. I had to communicate such that he does not expect a lot from the field as there were some natural hazards that had affected the ripened coffee! He believed me but later I explained that I was covering up for the family that was involved. Up to today, he does not know which family was involved, he wished to know them but I kept it to myself. I acquired the skill of the power of silence and total forgiveness from R.T.Kendall as explained in the video below: 

Video explaining steps to Total Forgiveness 

In conclusion, I also had to forgive myself and my family for abandoning the farm for that long. Then I sought forgiveness from God who trusted us with the farm but we got busy looking for money and chasing our careers. Because, I needed forgiveness, It was a MUST to forgive such that my Father in heaven can also forgive my debts and acquire protection of our farm from thieves. Ever since then, we find matooke ripe, sugarcane and jackfruits all over. No one can touch them for God has protected our farm and put fear to our neighbors. They report each other in case they see anyone trespassing our farm. One time, we were busy on farm and one of my children had gone to buy drinking water from the nearby trading center. He was accidently knocked by the boda boda. It was a hit and run. The same families that I had forgiven rushed quickly and gave him first aid and sent one the children to call us. We all rushed to the clinic as a family and a community. I imagined if I had made these people pay off everything they had stolen from my farm, would they have gone this extra mile to help our child?!

 Please share with us some things that once happened at your farm and how you responded and what were the outcomes of your response.