Have you ever seen the movie Faith Like Potatoes?
I remember a few years ago my mom pulled it off the shelf at some store. She read the back to me as I kinda pretended like I was listening. “Doesn’t that sound like a good movie?” she asked enthusiastically. I grunted and shrugged in a sort of agreement. Later when we got home, she gathered the family up to sit down and watch the movie. I cannot remember what else was going on but for some reason I had absolutely zero interest in watching the movie. Begrudgingly I sat down because “the whole family was watching it” and I watched the plot line unfold.
The movie is based on a true story and follows a farmer in South Africa. He plants potatoes in his field because he felt like God had called him to, despite everyone else saying he is insane. I don’t remember much about the movie except that there was one scene after another where God performed crazy miracles. I just sat there saying “yeah right… Stuff like that doesn’t happen in real life.” The one that I remember most was when there was a fire in the field and they were carrying water to put it out but it was not really enough. The farmer began to pray for rain and almost instantly the rain began to pour down and put out the fire in his field. When the movie was over my mother said “Wow… Wasn’t that a great movie?” I thought to myself “eh, it was ok. But horribly unrealistic.”
Our first week in Mozambique was defined by God showing up… Time and time again I saw His hand moving in my life. While what I was seeing was a little more apparent than what I was used to, He was for the most part moving the same ways that I had grown accustomed to seeing in my life, until He showed up in a truly unexpected way.
It was during dinner, one of our first nights in Mozambique, that our ministry host Jaco came to us. He told us of his friend MeChris (not sure on the spelling). His friend is a farmer in South Africa.
The southern portion of Africa is in a severe drought right now. If you have been following my Facebook posts you have probably seen my requests for prayers for rain in Mozambique. The people here live off the land and when the rainfall totals are so far below the average for this time of year, people go hungry and farmers lose their farms.
Jaco told us of how MeChris had not had any rain on his fields and was concerned that we was going to lose his farm. His plants had not grown and weren’t going to if lye did not get rain. Jaco asked us to please pray that it would rain on MeChris’ farm.
We decided to pray as a group and so we went around and each of us took a turn praying. Right in the beginning, less than 10 seconds after the first person began praying we heard Jaco’s phone go off, but naturally, we were praying so we did not check it.
I remember as it came around to my turn I caught myself thinking about how cool it would be if it actually rained… if we saw a miracle in our first week on the world race, but those thoughts were quickly pushed from my mind and replaced with the same thoughts that I had experienced when watching that movie. Those things don’t happen in real life, at least not to me.
Once we had all prayed and closed out with the “amen” Jaco checked his phone. He had a sound clip that MeChris had sent. He played it for us and my jaw dropped at the sound of rain coming from the phone speaker… not a light rain, a straight up down pour! Not only did God answer our prayers that night, but He answered them before we even asked. How insane is that?!?!? I still cannot believe it.
We continued to get updates from MeChris throughout our time with Jaco and Maria. It rained almost everyday. At one point it rained only on his field, his neighbors had no rain, but his field received double the amount he had prayed for. God showed us His provision, and in that he taught me the importance of faith like potatoes. Even in my doubting, God was faithful.
By the end of our month in Mozambique, MeChris sent us a picture of his field. The rows were filled with fresh little green plants. How awesome is our God!
He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” – Matthew 17:20
