Inundo Development is just over a year old and it has been 7 months since we moved onto the property that is becoming a model and training space. In that time, Inundo has been discovering its own unique personality. We continue to realize that it is too simplistic to summarize that the main aim of Inundo Development is addressing food security alone through the Farming God’s Way tool.

It is true that many (perhaps most) of the people that come to Inundo community trainings are food insecure. The training and mentoring can certainly address food security, if the mindsets are transformed and the prevailing agricultural methods are replaced by ones that bring health and life to the soil. For a family that’s chronically hungry, there isn’t much that is more urgent than a sustainable way to put food on the table. We’ve seen people feed their families during COVID 19 because they were already wisely stewarding their land.

But food on the table is just the beginning.

People transforming the way they grow food can actually grow 6 times more food than they need on a hectare of land. So what starts as food on the table grows into business opportunity, which grows into community advocacy for fair markets, which grows into the need for educational upliftment in the schools and fair access to healthcare or safe and reliable housing and accommodation. Most importantly, this new way of thinking translates into a resilience in life that enables people to see God as the source of their hope and success. There is no limit to their creative potential. They become active agents freed to a new level of industriousness and impact.

One of the foundational scripture passages used when we train is Romans 12:2.

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Eugene Peterson, The Message paraphrase

We have seen during COVID 19 just how our buy-in to today’s culture has left us vulnerable. Our reliance on consumerism has all but paralysed our lives in the lockdowns implemented throughout the world. We should all be reevaluating our values and priorities. As Romans 12 says, what is needed is a transformation from the inside out. It is an incredible opportunity to develop a well formed maturity.

So what is the ultimate goal that we keep before us in all our Inundo activities? That, in partnering with the King of Kings, His kingdom would come, and His will would be done here, as in heaven, even during and after COVID 19. And that, as a result, He would be glorified. We understand that the Kingdom comes through redeemed, transformed people. When our thinking is transformed, when our world views are renovated, everything changes. Family life. Education. Health care. Law enforcement. Politics. Churches. And yes, farming. The kingdom of heaven is like yeast in the dough, that gets worked into all parts. When the heart and mind changes, kingdom values change everything and kingdom values provide a foundation for abundant life.

This is why we labour:  the transformation of everything.

Why have we chosen to teach the holistic gospel applied to farming, as an entry point? Because a hungry person can’t think to understand the fullness of the gospel, or how to apply it to everything else. A hungry person needs to eat today, and to have the means to feed him/herself and family tomorrow. And the day after. And so on. In addition, it’s an obvious entry point, as most people have ready access to the means to produce food:  a little space, a little seed, a hoe and, with some help, know-how. Farming God’s Way goes on to teach about God’s All Sufficiency, his equipping and empowering, his sovereignty in all things, and his ability to bring overflow from the faithful work of our hands.

Food security for the poor is a very good beginning, but it is only the beginning. Eventually, those transformed ones become those who transform others:  they become leaders committed to being God’s transformational agents in this world. They facilitate transformation wherever they go and they act as catalysts for change. It is just like yeast which leavens everything it touches.

Lord, may your Kingdom come! EVEN NOW!