One of the first workshops we did on our farm was when we invited Jonathan and Lynn from Farming God’s Way in Johannesburg to do the first training session here on the farm. We invited them to come down to do a 3 day training course on the farm and we got about 22 people from the local communities to attend. During this 3 day training the group really enjoyed it and benefited from it.
We have been doing other practical workshops here on the farm to teach people how to plant and grow their own vegetables, as well as separate trainings in the townships which are much easier for them logistically. We decided that as we are 30 minutes out of town the training in town is much better as we can train many more people.
We choose local coordinators who invite the people to their houses and we come there to do training and at the same time plant a lovely garden for the coordinator who hosts the event at their home.
We also deliver the seedlings directly to the community via the coordinators at these training sessions so they can also monitor the various gardens in their area. We ask for orders of specific seedlings that they want so that we know they will grow what they love to eat.
We are now starting a focused training plan whereby we train e.g. 3 students and then they each go back to the community, plant their own gardens and train 3 students each. And then that new group of 9 students will each train another 3 students. So this really grows through their own efforts and it expands like that till as many as possible have planted Gideon’s Gardens in their areas.
Can you imagine how quickly this can grow and most important is to have follow up and committed ones to get involved to make sure that they do plant according to the principles of Farming God’s Way.
We would like the very committed ones to actually do the official Farming God’s Way training programme so that they can be certified. Right now the focus is just to teach them to grow their own food in the townships.
A very important part of Gideon’s Garden projects is that they can also help plant gardens for the elderly, disabled and orphans who need support.
During the training we also teach them about God’s love for them and how His natural law is one of abundance, not of lack.
We teach them to look at a simple paw paw . When you open it it has abundant pips inside so one paw paw has the potential to grow masses of paw paw plants from those pips. And each plant can have lots of paw paws on it – each with abundant pips inside. And so God never wanted people to be hungry as He provided us with the abundance of His nature . We just need to plant, care for them and then reap what we sow.
One of the greatest benefits I believe will be a drop in crime when people are able to feed their families and sustain themselves so they will not fall prey to the criminal elements in their area out of a state of hopelessness.
It would be so wonderful if we could get an area adjacent to each township – about 5 hectares of municipality land – to be able to implement this training for the larger community. I have already discussed this matter with some of the people in our municipality and they had no objection to it. Even if we have to buy the land – as long as we can train closer to the people on a larger scale.
We are busy training in the local creches and would love to begin in all the local schools and old age homes in our area. Rome wasn’t built in a day as they say – and a long journey begins with just one step.
One of the benefits of doing this training in the creches and schools is that so many children come to the creche or the school without any food and this way they could get a bowl of vegetable soup to sustain them as well as take vegetables home to their poor families.
Due to the challenges we face with such unreliable water supply in the community, we are planning on buying water bowsers and placing them in strategic places, so that all those with Gideon’s gardens will be able to water their plants whenever they need to.
I will put the You Tube link below of FARMING GOD’S WAY.
They run excellent courses to teach people how to grow their own vegetables in the simplest cost-effective possible way to provide food for their families and be able to sell any excess produce.
Shephard Training
Pastor Zimba Training
Mike Training
