“If a man steals your farm, teach him how to farm.” 

We’ve all heard sermons and messages on forgiveness and turning the other cheek, but the story of Craig Deall takes these truths to a whole new level. Craig actually lived this. Under the rule of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe forced thousands of industrial farmers to give up their lands. In a moment, generations of family wealth was gone. But rather than seeking revenge or restitution, Craig chose the path of reconciliation—actually working for the very men who stole from him!

Craig shared his story, starting from when he loved the land more than God—a struggle for any entrepreneur enamored with their own venture—to when that land was taken away from him. Throughout the whole journey, Craig lets us into what God did with his faith through hardship, what it really looks like to forgive our enemies, and why storing treasure in heaven and not on earth is no longer just a sermon point anymore.

Talking with Craig was truly inspiring for us, and we think you’ll be glad you listened in.

Useful Links:

Foundations for Farming

The CEF Community in Action Around Craig Deall and Foundations for Farming

Harvest and Heart Change in Zimbabwe

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

 

Henry [00:02:50] This is a really special edition for us. As we were talking to Craig before we got online, we talked about the fact to have how encouraging it is that we've had so many listeners from so many different countries and how the movement of faith driven entrepreneurship is spreading around the world. And absolutely especially to Africa. And I had the great privilege, honor and blessing of being able to go to Africa and to a couple of faith driven doctrinal events. We had one in Kigali, which was great and one particularly good one in Nairobi, with 110 faith driven entrepreneurs coming together and talking about what God is doing through their lives in East Africa, in great company software services companies and technology. And if you haven't been in Nairobi, the amount of economic development there is astounding. Also, the commitment of the local believers is really, really encouraging. And I get a great chance of going all around the world. And we did, of course, these factories and entrepreneur events in India, which were super cool. I don't know of any place that I've been to to include Indonesia where we do a lot of work. That's it's exciting as what's going on in East Africa. And speaking of Africa, of course, I get to know our guest today, Craig Diehl, through our joint participation in something called the Christian Economic Forum and the Christian Economic Forum is this wonderful gathering of leaders there are committed to honoring Jesus and all committed to economic development and doing that in a way that honors him. And I want to since we're doing this with Craig as he is in Zimbabwe. Craig, as we get started, of course, we want to talk about your story and the history of it all, but maybe we start with where you are right now. What is life in Zimbabwe like right now?

 

Craig [00:04:32] Henry. Thanks for inviting me into this podcast. Yeah, it was the moment we're in a pretty tough spot. We have runaway hyperinflation starting again.

 

[00:04:42] I don't know if you are aware that in 2008 we were the fastest collapsing economy in any peacetime situation. We broke all the world records and we're heading that way now. And I think we're second to Venezuela at the moment. We are facing massive power outages. We have power for probably only as electricity. That is only for about six hours a day. We comes on at 10:00 or 11:00 at night and is gone by 6:00 in the morning. So we've become a little bit nocturnal. It obviously impacts tremendously on any businesses. Anybody who relies on electricity will most businesses do. So it's a huge drain on the business sector. Everybody is running generators, trying to keep their shops and equip their homes with solar inverters and stuff like that. And of course, with the inflation, we just don't know the value of a dollar anymore.

 

[00:05:40] So things are pretty tough, but we are a resilient. And we'll get through it again, I'm sure.

 

Henry [00:05:48] Speech, resiliency, I bet. Because you alluded the fact that you've gone through this hyperinflation before. But let's go right into your story. God weaves stories into all of our lives. Yours is one of the most powerful ones I've ever heard of an entrepreneur. Bring us through that, please. Tell us about what does it look like to be an entrepreneur in Zimbabwe? Starting in the beginning, please.

 

Craig [00:06:12] All right. So, Henry, I would consider myself a white African. I am third generation Zimbabwean. My father opened up a farm in the north of our country in 1948, and he carved it out of virgin bush. And then I had the blessing of growing up on that farm and being a farm kid and just had a very privileged and wonderful upbringing on a farm. Unfortunately, my dad died when I was pretty young. He died when I was just 14. And so I went in through my teenage years. I went into serious rebellion. And I had, I think, two passions in life. During my later teenage years, one was drinking copious amounts of beer and the second was persecuting Christians. I thought Christian men in particular, I thought they were very weak people. And so through my rebellion, I had these two passions really in my life. But the Lord had a sense of humor because I eventually fell in love with a Christian girl. And she very disobedient Lee. She agreed to marry me. And we soon learned very quickly why God says in the Bible, don't be an equally yoked. So but just having a godly woman in your house. And she never preached at me, never tried to force me to go to church. But when the children started to come along, I saw that the way she was bringing them up and the way that she would pray with them and tell them Jesus stories at night and all that. It just slowly rubbed off on me. And I must confess, I was a very reluctant convert and gave my life very weirdly to the Lord. So now we were farming. I was doing really well. I had a huge ambition. We had a 3000 acre farm. We grew passion fruit, mangoes and citrus, which we exported all over the world. I also ran a big good of cattle and we grew other crops as well. But my ambition and my wealth really got in the way of my work with the Lord. It's always a blockage and I just needed I didn't need heart surgery. And I realized that I loved the land more than I loved God. You know, when Adam was given dominion over the land, he was told to rule over the land. And in the second, Adam, Jesus came along and he said, we must love the people. And I think I had it the wrong way around. I loved the land and ruled the people. And so my wealth and my fierce ambition got in the way. And we were doing exceptionally well. We were turning over vast amounts of our turnover was big. And as I say, we were exporting produce all over the world. When I look back on those days, call myself a Christian, of course. Obviously, I had committed my life, but rather amusingly, I look back on those days and I would consider myself a Christian streaker. I had the helmet of salvation and nothing else on the horizon. And so we were doing really well. And it was just a wonderful time because my children were growing up. We were sending them to the best schools. And Zimbabwe was just a beautiful place to live. And everything was going really, really well for us. But we didn't know what was coming around the corner.

 

Henry [00:10:03] So tell us about that. I love the fact that you're able to paint this picture of the mango trees and the passion fruit trees and herbs, a cow. Many of our listeners aren't going to know about how Zimbabwe staff is the breadbasket of Africa and the amazing natural wealth of that country. Garden of Eden ask type. The beauty is astounding. So I get this picture as you talk about this, this very, very I'dlike existence and then talk is what year are we at right now when things turn turn.

 

Craig [00:10:37] In the year 2000, Zimbabwe had been independent for 20 years and suddenly our president. Mugabe, through a political imperative, realized that he was in danger of losing power and he realized where the swing vote lay, the swing vote lay with the commercial farmers. Farm workers. Now, we employed hundreds and thousands of farm workers. I myself, we employed over a hundred and twenty people so dependent on us on the farm. We probably with their families and wives. We're probably a thousand people. So we were a big constituency and the authorities realized that they had to get the swing vote back. And the only way they could do that was to disembowel commercial agriculture. And that was to drive all the 4000 white commercial farmers off the land. And it was a violent time. And it's happened sort of overnight and there was no recourse. Remember, we couldn't call the police or the army or your local politician because everybody was against us from being masters of our own destiny. It made us very proud. It made us very arrogant. I must confess that. And then suddenly we had all hell broke loose on the farms and we had marauding groups of people who had come to the farm and just take whatever they wanted and throw people out of their houses and just cause general mayhem and said I was one of the more fortunate ones that I wasn't ever violently attacked, but many were. And it was a very scary time. We had, you know, when you're in an isolated farmhouse and you've got a wife and family. And so we suddenly just had our world turned upside down. And it was literally an overnight experience. So what happened to us in particular was because I was the leader of a little community. This all happened in March 2000. I was called to all these different farms trying to just generally calm things down and betweena frightened farmer and marauding group of people. And I was just trying to get a semblance of sanity and peace in the district. But it was about a week after that. Every day I was just trying to fight fires. And then when I came home one evening, I said to my wife, I said, Bridgette, what what are we going to do when they come to us? When they come to our farm, what are we going to do? We were about the only Christians in our district. And so she very matter of factly said, well, for what we'll do is we'll pray with them when they can. Now, that wasn't exactly what I was thinking. But in the comfort of my armchair that night promised the Lord that that's what I would do. And this was the start of the heart surgery that I needed, where God need to do just break me down and get my wealth and my arrogance and my pride out of my system. And so there were five or six marauding groups going around. And one of them, I'd got to know them all.

 

[00:14:08] But there were one particular two guys who were very aggressive and usually high on something and very unreasonable, you know, and they would come and just really cause very unpleasant mayhem and were violently inclined.

 

[00:14:28] I checked up a bit of a proviso prayer to the Lord. Get out of jail card. I said, yes, I'll pray with him, but please, not that blood.

 

[00:14:36] And that was another mistake, because the very next Monday they were in our yard and aggressive, shouting, spitting, swearing at me. And I just was at a crossroad moment. What was I going to do? So what I did is I Jesus and me and I just went up to them and I put my hands on their shoulders and I said, I'd like to pray with you. And the first miracle happened because I said, yes. And then my little wife came out and we held hands and I prayed probably a 45 second very unspiritual prayer. But when we unlocked our hands and opened our eyes there before me, two lines, it turned into Lamm's. Their demeanor changed. Their facial expressions were calm and peaceful. And they said to me, Mr. Diehl, we're going to leave you now. And off they went. They took them up with them. And the funny thing was the miracle of that story is that those two gentlemen weren't seen again. And it was just an incredible. It was a trigger that I'd seen God in action for really up close and personal, and I knew that me and my family triggered our son a journey of forgiveness. This process happened probably between 2000 2003.

 

[00:16:05] All 4000 farmers were forcibly evicted from their farms. There were only a handful left. By 2003, 2004. So literally because it was state sponsored. There was absolutely no recourse to the courts. There was no recourse to any law authorities. And as I said, we were just subject to the whims of local landlords and people that would just come in. And many of people were given 24 hours to get off their farms and were given. Longer than that. We had grace. We were given some years. We weren't as bad off as so many others.

 

[00:16:43] Many people were violently evicted. And then we all had to migrate into the cities and we were left with, you know, some people just got away with the shirts on their backs. Some people could take their furniture. Some some lucky ones were able to take some of their farm equipment. But by and large, you'd lose everything. And there was never any talk of compensation or any kind of financial restitution. So it was a very heady time for our nation and for farmers in particular.

 

Henry [00:17:19] So you end up getting nothing to this farm that you had built and had legal ownership of since 1948. You talk about it being taken away from you over a period of years, which it sounds like it's a much better circumstance than, say, our mutual friend Ben Free through where there's a lot of violence, where he was very much physically assaulted, almost to the point of losing his life. But nonetheless, after this several year period of time, you no longer have ownership of this farm that you had once owned. Is that correct?

 

Craig [00:17:48] Yes, that's correct. Because there was never any deed of sale. I do have the title deeds, but that was all been annulled and all farmland was nationalised.

 

[00:17:58] And so we had no recourse to any judiciary or anything like that. So, yes, we were literally thrown out without any compensation or without any recourse to the law. And yeah, that happened to about 4000 of us.

 

Henry [00:18:14] So what do you do next then? So you've been on this farm for all this time and is now no longer years. So what do you do? You go back to school or walk us through what that transition means for you?

 

Craig [00:18:27] Yeah. The strange thing for me was that because my father had died, the farm was sold when I was young and so it was out of our hands for some years. And only when I went farming myself, I went to work for the new owner of the farm. And then after a couple of years, I bought the farm back from him. So it was quite an expensive way of inheriting a farm. But what actually happened?

 

[00:18:52] Because now I bought the farm well after independence, the government always had first writer to buy any land transaction. I bought the farm back in two thousand and nineteen eighty six. Robert Mugabe had been in power for six years already by then. So there's the often the unfair assertion that we stole the land. I bought it legally through the Zimbabwe system. So having farmed there for 25 years, myself and my father, a long time before that, we suddenly were thrown out and had to migrate to the city and see what we could do from there. But it was a time of God was really working in me because he uses broken people and he was only able to use me once I'd been broken down in this way and knocked out all my pride and my arrogance. Now, no option is run, but for us as a family, we decided that forgiving was our option. Some of my friends try to fight and they indeed got killed. And I respect them for that. For fighting. Many did. 90 per cent, I think of my friends left the country. But we felt as a family, as I said, no option is wrong. But we felt as a family that if we were going to go to another country and if you're carrying your rucksack of bitterness, there's no nation in the world far enough away. It still smells and you can't deal with it no matter with the bitterness even outside the country. So we took the forgiveness road, which probably I believe is the hardest one, because forgiveness is a is an action. You know, sometimes you do something and your heart will follow. You don't wake up one day and just feel. Forgive me. And I was searching scripture at that time and wondering, you know, what is this forgiveness thing? Because I've never really had to deal with it face to face on a big scale like this. And you know, Luke 6, where it says if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If your enemy is thirsty, give him something to drink. Turn the other cheek. All those scriptures that were just written and read in my Bible, which means it was the words of Jesus said they are without speculation. And so I knew that we just had to do it. We just had to do this forgiveness thing, you know? And once we made that conscious decision to forgive, the burden just lifted and we were able to.

 

[00:21:27] And even today, I am able to walk free of any angst or bitterness or unforgiveness, you know, in those scriptures say to you, when your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat. Your natural flesh will say, well, why should I feed my enemy? It's just gonna make him stronger to hurt me even more.

 

[00:21:48] But Jesus has another way. Jesus says, no, that's not my way. That's the world's made my way. Just do what I say and watch what I'll do. And that's what he did in our life. We just were obedient. We did what he said. And the scripture where it says that if a man steals your coat, give him your tunic as well. And that's I think we'll send Rick six for us. That meant if a man steals your farm, teach him how to farm. So that's what we did. And it's not easy. But at the end of it, that burden lifts and unforgiveness, as so many people say, is like drinking poison and hoping the other person is going to die. And it brought me into a really sweet relationship with my farm workers because, you know, they were the ones who suffered far more than me.

 

[00:22:41] And we had a wonderful day that last day on the farm, the day we left, we had built a little church on the farm. And I gathered all our workers and Bridget and I sat before them and washed their feet and just asked for forgiveness. And we were very, very sorry for if we hadn't been good employers and we were able to leave that actually walk off the farm that day with wonderful peace in our hearts.

 

[00:23:07] Now, what happened then? We came to town and I've never been in the city and I didn't really know how to interact with city folks or anything like that. I never drank milk out of a bottle, that kind of thing. That was a huge time for us of adjustment, of just learning to live in the city. And of course, what happened as a result of this land grab. Was that the economy started to collapse. And as Zimbabwe is an agriculturally based economy with a backbone is agriculture. And when agriculture is decimated, it's like the parable of the talents. When you're faithful with the first resource, God gives any nation which is its land. Then he adds, he adds mining, manufacturing, industry, commerce, all the rest. But if you're unfaithful with the land parable of the talents tells us, he takes it away. So we had a collapsing economy, as I said earlier. The fastest collapsing economy in the history of the planet in peacetime. Our inflation was twenty three and eighty nine zeros after that. Per cent inflation just unheard of. We walked around with 100 trillion dollar notes in our pockets, which could buy a few loaves of bread. But that collapse happened. And then, of course. So we were now in the city at this time. And my wife and I, for 25 years, we had six pension policies retirement annuities, pensions, insurance types, policies which were to look after us in our old age. And we had faithfully paid into all six of these things for 25 years. Of course, when the collapse came, we had to cash it in and twenty 25 years and six policies later took us out for one meal. That's the collapse that happened. So for us. Storing your treasures on earth is just not a sermon point anymore. We've been through it.

 

Rusty [00:25:14] It's an unreal story. I mean, I think I can speak for Henry and William and myself that we're all just sort of blown away by your testimony and what you're telling us here. Craig, thank you. Can someone ask a question? It's probably hard to do, but can you convert your story to advice to those who are struggling with the idea of ownership and stewardship and what it means because you're one who's had it taken from you. What advice would you give to the rest of us?

 

Craig [00:25:46] Yeah, I just you know, there's this tradeoff between seeking justice and forgiveness. And what a stewardship. If I had my time again, as I said earlier on, I loved the land more than I loved God. And so we've got to realize that the land belongs to him. It doesn't belong to anybody. And I was just tasked to be a faithful steward on the land at the time. But I put too much emphasis on ownership. And so if I had my time again, I would do that differently. I would certainly be a faithful steward without having to own the land. But there is also another side to that is when you own something, you tend to develop it because it's in your name and everything like that. But for certainly we are called to be stewards of our families, our farms, of every aspect of our life rather than own it. And if we realize that even our money and everything doesn't belong to God, it's rather before I would make lots of money and then ask God to protect it. Well, I think it's the other way around it. God is saying, hey, this is my money, I want you to protected and steward it. And once you have that concept of ownership and stewardship, it gives you such a freedom in the way you deal with your finances.

 

[00:27:06] So justice is undoubtably the cornerstone of any society. And the Bible is riddled with God loves justice. But for us, I believed that justice can be a fruit of forgiveness. James 2:13 says that mercy trumps justice any day.

 

[00:27:26] And I would say that forgiveness is more for the forgiver. Rather than the perpetrator, and I sincerely believe that if you forgive here on Earth, if you forgive someone here on Earth, no matter who he is, whether he's cut you off in the traffic or whether he has stolen your farm, if you forgive that person, God wins a battle in the heavens simply because we do not war against flesh and blood. But we have warring against principalities and powers in the heavens. And the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they have divine power to demolish strongholds. And Jesus is very emphatic when he says that this scripture. Matthew, five thirty eight and thirty nine just blows me away. Even today. And I I just can't grasp the magnitude of what Jesus is saying. He says it's no longer an eye for an eye. But he said, I say to you, do not resist. The one who is evil. And then he goes on to talk about turning the other cheek and everything set aside Jesus words there unconditional that without room for speculation. And so I just had to be obedient to that. And Matt sound absolutely ridiculous. And it might not fit with anybody else's theology, but that's how it fit for us. And the process of forgiveness just never ends. I'm 20. What are we are 19 years down the line and I still get pangs of angst now and again and longing for the farm and the farm life and all that went with it. But you've just got to keep working at this forgiveness thing doesn't go away completely. But you've just got to keep dealing with it. Even as recently as last year, I bumped into a fellow who was a government official and he marched me off to a kangaroo court. During that time of land invasions and ridiculed me in any way, I helped himself to a huge slice of the farm. And then I bumped into him in another setting, and he was sitting right next to me. And I I just I had that familiar pang in my stomach, that ping of resentment. Anyway, I said to him after the meeting, I said, Do you remember me?

 

[00:29:41] And he said, No, he didn't remember me. I think that was good. Was just reminding me that forgiveness is for the forgiving. He hadn't lost a day's sleep in those 20 years from what he had done, but I knew that I had to make it right with him. And so I visited him one day and I said to him, I just want to tell you face to face that I. Forgiving you for what you did to me that day and and how you treated me and how you. You stole my farm and then I. I just had an action from the Lord to go around to his side of the desk. And I put my hands on his shoulders and I just said, and I want you to forgive me, please, because I have hated you for all these years. And I just want you to forgive me for hating you. And again, a supernatural event. It's not something that I do anything like that. It's just God gets the victory but gets a victory when that happens. And the victory for me, I might not see this side of eternity.

 

[00:30:44] But the victory is absolute peace in my heart. Absolute genuine peace in my heart from just being obedient to what God says we should do. And just looking reminded of the agonized look that must have been on Jesus's eyes when he looked down on those soldiers and said, forgive them. And if I could just taste a little bit of that, it just swells inside me. The. Love for our Lord who would do that for us.

 

[00:31:18] And I just feel that I needed to be obedient to that as long as I can call myself a Christian. I need to do those things. It might be that radical theology, but that that's just us.

 

William [00:31:32] Amen, Craig, this is William here. Thank you so much for walking us through what I feel like is just a trip through the Bible. I just hear so many stories of you faithfully being a vessel for God's forgiveness and grace and understanding where he's put you in the story that he is weaving through the country and through your farm and through your family. And so it leads me to, unfortunately, as we wrap up just where we're just gonna have you today, what parts of his scripture are coming alive to you? Maybe in new ways. You've been so gracious to share some of the lessons he's taught you over the years and how that's playing out in your life. I'm just fascinated with why is he taking you today and how is that manifesting itself in your life.

 

Craig [00:32:16] Thank you, William, sir. That journey of forgiveness led us to obviously many, many tears that we read in some 26 says if you sow in your tears, you'll reap sons of joy. Your natural instinct is to hunker down and just be feel sorry for ourselves and feel resentment. But we decided to sow and sewing for us was teaching farming. And that's how I joined foundations for farming, where we teach the very poorest of the poor in our nation and throughout Africa because we love them, because we dont want them to fail. And love for me is wanting, you know, the most good for anybody, even those that don't deserve it. So we continue to serve like Joseph and Daniel in our nation. We got an incredible farming technique based on what we see in creation and management system, based on teaching the very most vulnerable and the poorest people, the least of his brothers in a nation. And so we do that. And for us, we say that once they had a farm in Africa. Now Africa is my farm because God has given me just such wide scope where I'm able to help people. And we look at just our foundational scripture, a challenge to leave you with. No as as 8:58. It's about the true fast and the unselfishness of Christ. And if we can, that's what we try to teach through our farming methodology is the unselfishness, the humility and the faithfulness of Christ Jesus. And so as I have 58 years, I read scripture, which we come back to all the time. It's where we won't be needing our nation, we needing our nation of Zimbabwe to be turned around and to heal the healed and inversed 11:12 of our 58, which says you'll be known as the rebuilder on the ancient ruins. But it says if you obey the first eleven verses in the first eleven verses, talk about the true fast. The Israelites were doing all the religious stuff and they were fasting and praying and cried out to go and say, Why aren't you listening to us? And God answers very simply says, Because you're praying with a selfish heart. And if you pray with a selfish heart, I won't hear. And so our selfishness is tested when we make a plan for the poor, because God then says the true first is this when you make a plan for the poor. Which is wrapped up in loose the chains of oppression, feed the hungry, clothed, make it. Then he says your acheson's will break forth like the dawn. The glory of the Lord will be your rearguard. You'll be known as a well-worded garden, in a sense, scorched land. And so it's this heart for the poor. This absolute unselfishness has the ability to turn around a nation and bring it into prosperity. So we go to where Jesus goes. We go to the poorest of the poor and we serve them as diligently as we can. And that, we believe, can break that twin bandages of poverty and dependency across a continent.

 

William [00:35:23] Amen, thank you so much for sharing that with us and all the God talks you, I just. It's amazing. Now, we love doing this podcast because God speaks to so many people. Their stories and your story is one that I'm very grateful to hear and grateful to continue to hear how God works through you and your friends and your family and the country.

 

Henry [00:35:43] Craig, I'm grateful for your time and your story and your faithfulness and how guy continues to work through you. And he most assuredly did that today. I think this is a great time also to turn people on to foundations for farming that orig. This is the organization that you and Bridget and others are involved with now. And just looking at the website and the foundations behind foundations for farming is amazing. It's it's a great ministry and just super cool.

 

[00:36:09] You effectively lost the farm and then are teaching folks how to farm that farm and other farms. Well. And loving on them. And that's an amazing message. As you talked about, if somebody asked you for your clothe, you give it to them. But you've done more than that. You gave them more than a farm. You went ahead and you gave them the cloak. And then you show up every week the dry cleaning form. And that blows my mind. Thank you. God bless you, brother. We've all been blessed.