Farm Life

The cleaning crew!

It’s official – we’ve moved onto the farm!  On Saturday, August 29th we loaded everything up, cleaned house and said goodbye to our first home in South Africa.  We are thankful to neighbors that so graciously hooked up trailers to their vehicles and drove our stuff out to our new home on the farm, and to our friend that also helped load/unload and provide dinner for us.

The Lord gave Josh the name “Joyful Valley” for our property.  The area we live in is called Ruiterbos.  There are 3 living quarters on the property that is almost 50 acres – a full house, flat and servant’s quarters.  Our family lives in the full house, with Abby sharing a room with Gracie.  It consists of 3 bedrooms, 1 office and 2 bathrooms.  The office is perfect for homeschooling.  Matt and Bree live in the flat, and Eric will be staying in the servant’s quarters once it is ready.  The homes are beautiful and beyond what we ever expected to stay in while here in Africa.  I remember the Lord speaking to me when we lived in Pretoria back in January, and He said He was going to restore in greater measures all that we had given up (house, garden, finances, etc.) to come to Africa.  An entry from my journal dated December 20, 2014, talks about how I had been skyping with a dear friend back in the States.  While sharing with my friend the house plans I had drawn up to build a home on the Footprints base near Johannesburg, she heard the Holy Spirit say “think bigger.”  Interestingly, not long after we moved onto the Footprints base (which would have been in October 2014), I kept hearing the words “dream bigger.”  It was around the time Josh and I were making decisions about him being the head master of the school there.  As you know, a series of promptings from the Holy Spirit and confirmation through counsel, we left the Footprints base on New Year’s Day of this year.  On January 17, 2015, my journal entry talks about mine and Josh’s visit to Mossel Bay before we ever decided to move there.  The entry reads, “We went on a hike from The Point along a trail that led us to a beautiful view overlooking the ocean.  No buildings were in sight.  Josh and I found a place to sit and pray/worship together.  We were bold in our requests, dreaming big with God and asking specifically for land that is fertile and large enough for a huge garden, a house and room to build.  We want the place to be a sanctuary people can come to meet the Father there.”  This is when the Lord confirmed to me that we were to move to Mossel Bay – that He was giving us Mossel Bay.  God has answered our prayers, protected us from “settling” and faithfully provided us with a sanctuary that has fertile soil and lots of land for gardening.  We can garden year round and hope to start preparing the garden within the next week or two.  We are in complete awe of His hand at work!  Originally we were told that we couldn’t move onto the property unless we purchased it.  With that said, we continued to pray for the land if it be God’s will but started to look at other rentals because we didn’t have the funds to purchase.  Those other rentals, although nice, didn’t sit well with me in my spirit.  As we all pressed into God’s heart and what He wanted, Josh asked me what I felt we should do.  I told him, “Either we heard God say the farmland was ours or we heard wrong.”  I suggested we contact the agent to see if the owner of the farm would be willing to lease the property to us until we have the funds to purchase it.  If God wanted to close the door, now was the time for Him to do that.  But God!  The owner had a change of heart and said YES!  Only God!!  So…here we are, on the farm, trusting that God will provide the finances to eventually purchase it so that we can continue to move forward with His plans for this land of milk and honey!

Roscoe (male pup), Daisy (female pup)

In our last blog, we wrote about some needs we had.  We are thankful that 3 out of the 4 needs have been met.  The person that moved out of the farmhouse had 2 sets of bunk beds, a fridge/freezer and a few other miscellaneous items available for us to purchase at a great price.  We also visited the SPCA (aka humane society) and were able to adopt 1 dog and 2 puppies.  It is a thorough process where they even inspect your property before approving the adoption to make sure it’s a good fit for animals.  We brought the 3 new additions to our family home on Friday, August 28, the day prior to moving.  The oldest dog was a recent stray but is incredible with kids and does her job of protecting us on the land.  We believe she’s a German shepherd and possibly collie mix.  While walking alongside the kennels praying over which dog(s) to pick, I knew she was the one for us the moment I laid eyes on her.  We do not know the breed of the puppies yet.

Rosey (female)

Matt and Josh took the kids for a walk on the land.  As they walked through the lower field, Josh noticed there were mole mounds and the soil was very dark.  He started kicking the mounds over to discover that all the soil in the lower field is dark and black.  For a farmer, this is great news!  Black soil can mean it is full of nutrients, especially nitrogen.  While on this walk, Josiah came to a river and said, “Wow, Dad.  Is that our river?!”  Yes, my son, yes it is!!

As of today the river on our property is now 4x the size it was 24 hours ago after a heavy rain fall.  It also created another new fork off the river.  We discovered some leaks in our house and the flat where Matt and Bree Gager sleep.  Matt and Bree had gone to their flat to retire for the night when they discovered water leaking heavily into their flat.  Bree sent Josh a picture to his phone of the leakage so he went down to help Matt.  It was pouring outside.  Matt had discovered one source of the leak – a missing door to the attic outside.  While climbing down from the ladder to get supplies, the ladder broke and folded in half.  Thankfully he landed safely on the ground without injury.  After gathering some supplies, including plastic trash bags, rope and a headlamp, they were able to temporarily stop that leakage.  Then Matt and Bree rolled up some towels and blocked the water from coming under the door and pooling around their beds.  Josh came in the house soaking wet and numb.  Not long after, he received some comical messages from Matt on his phone:

“We have worms coming into the house to escape the flood.  We are moving everything to higher ground.”

“All this work has made me hungry.  We need to order carry out.”

A message from Bree read, “Matt’s whole butt is numb!”

The farm life, haha!

Josh, Matt and Bree found their first snake on the property today.  It was a small house snake.  It was hiding in between some concrete blocks they were moving to make a shelter for the dogs.

The previous tenant on the farm stopped by today to fix the geyser (aka water heater) because Josh and I have been without hot water in our bathroom and kitchen.  He informed us that the main access road to the highway was washed out.  This is the main road we use to get to town.  We also found out that a bridge on the secondary access road is under water.  Right now it is impossible for us to get into town without a 4-wheel drive vehicle because of all the rain we’ve been getting these past couple of days.  Our little Opel just won’t cut it.  However, it’s supposed to clear up by the weekend.  Thankfully we went grocery shopping on Monday for the week, otherwise we’d be using leaves for TP and eating grass and monkeys for meals!  That was an adventure in itself to drive to the grocery store, as our tires spun and slid while Josh gunned it in order to make it through our muddy “driveway.”

We are still in need of a vehicle, as the one we currently have is on loan and won’t cut it out on the farm for very long.  Someone has generously offered to donate $5,000 towards the purchase of a vehicle.  We are truly grateful!  We’re estimating that the cost of a used 4x4 that would seat us all and be able to pull a trailer is $20,000 US.  It would be nice to have one vehicle that covers both needs.

In a little over one week, our family will be celebrating 1 year of living in South Africa!!  Man how time flies.  We hope you have enjoyed following along on our journey thus far and that you continue to enjoy the adventure!  If the Lord is leading you to help provide financial support in what He’s doing through us in South Africa, you can submit a tax-deductible donation on our Web site at www.four18.org.

We will be posting pictures of the farmland and house soon once we get unpacked and the rain clears up!  Until then, much love and blessings to you!