“And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God:”
“The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”
“The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow” (Deut. 28:2, 8, 12).
Do we really believe that God’s blessing on the land depends on obedience? Doesn’t our Western mindset tell us that it all depends on the right moment for sowing, the right fertilizer, the soil and the amount of rain? Sure, we understand that in general God gives rain and sunlight and all that, but is there really a connection between my garden and my relationship with God?
I grew up in an apartment building. We had some flowers on our balcony, and I vaguely remember a few tomato plants in pots. We would spend summer vacation at my grandma’s in a small village where I would run away screaming from tractors and cows. That was the extent of my agricultural and farming experience until Toussaint entered my life.
When he grew up, work in the fields was essential so the family would have enough to eat. The work also brought other blessings. The family learned how to work together well. In the evenings they were thankful for their rest and felt the satisfaction that comes after hard labor. There was no time or energy for useless activities. Idleness during the rainy season was considered a sin, and this value is still in Toussaint’s blood today.
Soon after we moved to our house in 2009, Toussaint contacted a distant relative who owns a big stretch of land behind our property and asked if he could cultivate it. Permission granted, he put himself to work and was soon joined by some older kids from the neighborhood. They would work together, eat together and harvest together. It kept the kids busy and prevented them from getting into bad habits. And at the end, they had food to take home.
For five years now, Toussaint has worked these fields. People have mocked, criticized and envied him. Some were bold enough to declare that if they had a white wife, a nice house and a salary each month, they would certainly not break their backs doing fieldwork! Others said that the soil is too poor to produce much, and Toussaint is too young and inexperienced to be successful. After all, he never invites the old men from the neighborhood to work with him!
I need to explain here that fieldwork in this culture is typically done in cooperation with the village. People join forces and work together, moving from field to field. This is great in theory, but, like so many other things, Satan has turned this good thing to evil. In past years, the field owners would pay their helpers with a good meal. But nowadays, nobody shows up unless there is a jerry can of sodabi (palm liquor) waiting for them. That is why Toussaint works his fields without the help of other village men, and that’s why they think he shouldn’t succeed. But he does.
Another reason why they think he should fail is that he doesn’t perform the proper rituals. In the animistic worldview, everything is connected to the spiritual world. There are important ceremonies at the beginning of field season and at the beginning of harvest. People place charms in the fields to ward off thieves. We don’t do any of this. We just pray every day that God will protect and bless our fields. And while we did have quite a number of thieves roaming our fields this past season, we also had a richer harvest than anybody else and the biggest sweet potatoes and yams around.
People are puzzled, and now they are searching for the spiritual power that blesses our fields. Whenever people ask Toussaint for his secret, he always answers, “I ask God to bless my fields, and I share my harvest with people in need. As long as you are asking the fetish for help, and as long as you are greedy and mean, you will never have the same blessing.”
One day, one of the boys found a sacrifice by our field—a clay pot and an egg. Someone was trying to invite our “spirit” to bless his fields, too.
After all these years, I have learned that, yes, there is a connection between our relationship with God and our harvest. We praise God for His faithfulness and the living testimony of His blessings upon His children. We thank Him for the rich harvests that feed many people. Please pray with us for the people around us that their eyes will be opened to see the real Giver of harvests and of life. We long for them to be able to experience His blessings, too.
