Have you ever looked back and realized that one of the defining moments of your life did not feel defining at all when it happened?
Perhaps it began with a simple invitation, a casual conversation, a name mentioned after a meeting, or a telephone call you almost did not make. Nothing about the moment announced that it would change the direction of your life. Only years later could you see that God had been quietly connecting ordinary events into something far greater than you could have imagined.
That is how the Vivayic story feels to me.
In my last post, I shared some of my experiences teaching agriculture at Otino Waa and my frustration over the shortage of practical teaching materials in Uganda. I mentioned that a remarkable group would eventually help Field of Hope address that need.
That group was Vivayic, a learning and training development company with expertise in agriculture and education. They help organizations turn knowledge into practical, engaging materials that people can understand and use.
But the path that brought Vivayic into our lives began years earlier through a series of seemingly ordinary events. Brandy invited Cathy and me to become part of a new nonprofit called Field of Hope. Later, she invited Brian Harvey Hogue, then director of operations for the Farm Journal Foundation, to one of our early board meetings in Des Moines.
During that meeting, Brian listened as we shared our hopes and dreams for Field of Hope, including an ambitious plan to develop advanced training for smallholder farmers. We wanted to address soil, crop quality and storage, diversification, mechanization, cooperatives, and other subjects that could help farmers improve their livelihoods.
It sounded like a wonderful idea. There was just one significant problem: I was not an agricultural educator, and I had no training materials beyond whatever I could find on the internet. With considerably more enthusiasm than expertise, we had committed ourselves to something we had no earthly idea how to accomplish.
Brian heard both our hopes and our need. He recommended that we speak with Seth Derner from Vivayic. It seemed like one small recommendation during an ordinary board meeting. None of us could have imagined where it would lead.
I had never met Seth and knew very little about Vivayic. Nevertheless, Cathy and I nervously called him, explained what we were trying to accomplish, and asked whether his company might be interested.
Seth listened. He asked questions. He seemed genuinely interested but said he would need to discuss the idea with his business partner, Doug Kueker. We thought it was a miracle that he did not hang up on us!
As the call ended, I played what I thought might be our strongest card: We had saved $3,000 that we could contribute toward the project. Seth, to his credit, didn’t react. He simply thanked us for calling.
Looking back, $3,000 was almost laughable compared with the value of what we were asking them to undertake. But it was what we had, and we offered it in good faith.
Sometime later, Seth called us back. Vivayic had decided to say yes. But their answer carried another surprise: They would not accept our $3,000. Instead, Vivayic chose to give the project to Field of Hope and the farmers of Uganda.
Vivayic researched the Ugandan farming landscape and developed a beautiful PowerPoint presentation, a detailed facilitator’s guide, participant booklets, games, and interactive activities. Everything was carefully adapted to the realities of farming in Uganda. They did not simply give us information. They showed us how people learn.
The farmer training was a success because Vivayic took our small idea and invested its considerable talent, creativity, and heart into it. They treated our little organization and the farmers we served as though we were among their most important clients.
Their generosity did not end when the project was completed. Vivayic began inviting Brandy, Cathy, and me to gatherings of their remote team. They listened to stories from Uganda, wore Field of Hope shirts, celebrated our work, and treated us like valued partners and, eventually, like family. Seth even traveled to the Quad Cities to meet Agnes Obote when she was visiting.
At the time, we thought the farmer-training materials might be the greatest gift Vivayic would ever give Field of Hope. We had no idea that this was only the beginning.
Several years later, while I was teaching at Otino Waa, I met Lianna Scholz, a talented agriculturalist teaching at Restoration Gateway near Karuma, Uganda. Because useful teaching resources were scarce, Lianna was developing her own detailed agriculture lessons.
One evening at a friend’s home in Kampala, Lianna and I discussed the difficulties we were both experiencing. I told her about Vivayic and wondered whether they might help strengthen and expand what she had begun. That conversation became another important catalyst.
I kept thinking about what Vivayic had demonstrated through the farmer training: They understood how to turn information into learning.
So we went back to Seth and Doug with a much larger request. Would Vivayic consider helping Field of Hope create practical, engaging agriculture teacher guides specifically for Ugandan secondary schools?
Once again, Vivayic said yes.
But they did not assume that a team thousands of miles away already knew what Uganda needed. First, they wanted to listen.
In 2016, a Vivayic team traveled to Uganda on a visit led by Field of Hope co-founder Brandy Young. They visited schools, farms, villages, and communities. They listened to Ugandan teachers and observed the realities of teaching large classes with limited resources. A video team documented much of what they encountered so the experience could be shared with the rest of Vivayic’s remote team.
They came not believing they already had the answers, but ready to learn from the people who understood the country best.
Then the enormous task of developing the guides began.
Vivayic’s Whitney Thurmond passionately shepherded the effort, bringing together Lianna and numerous other Ugandan and American agriculture teachers and subject-matter experts. Every member of the Vivayic team became involved. Their challenge was to transform Uganda’s national agriculture syllabus into practical, accurate, and culturally appropriate lessons.
They developed guides for S1 through S4, covering the first four years of secondary school. Each guide contained a full year of lesson plans, activities, assessments, and practical experiences. Separate teacher resource books provided cutouts, scripts, and other tools to help bring the lessons to life.
While aligned with Uganda’s national syllabus, some lessons also reflected Field of Hope’s Christian foundation. Bible verses and biblical examples involving agriculture helped illustrate principles such as stewardship, perseverance, planting, and harvest.
Vivayic also recognized that excellent books alone would not change teaching. Many Ugandan teachers had themselves learned through lectures, copied notes, and memorization, so that was naturally how they taught.
The new guides relied heavily on experiential learning—fieldwork, demonstrations, discussions, games, and other activities that allowed students to learn by doing. Keep in mind that the teacher guides for each year typically run about 400 pages, with sometimes more than 90 daily lessons, all strictly following the Ugandan syllabus.
Vivayic therefore helped Field of Hope develop a three-day teacher-training program that introduced the guides and how to use them, along with experiential learning, lesson planning, classroom dynamics, strategies for large classes, and practical activities. At the conclusion of the training, teachers received their guides.
It was more than handing them books. It was welcoming them into the Field of Hope family and equipping them to help students experience agriculture rather than simply memorize it.
Then, almost as soon as the original S1–S4 series was completed, Uganda changed its national agriculture syllabus. Years of work had to be reconsidered and extensively revised.
No one could have blamed Vivayic for saying, “We have done our part.” Instead, they returned to the drawing board.
They completed revised guides for S1, S2, and S3. The new S4 guide has been especially challenging because the syllabus includes several agricultural options from which teachers may choose. But Vivayic continues working alongside Field of Hope.
When Uganda changed its syllabus and years of work had to be done again, Vivayic stayed. That may say more about them than anything else I could write. They have given us their best, celebrated our work, and cheered us on every step of the way. I have seldom experienced such generosity, love, and kindness—especially offered with so much joy.
What began with Brian hearing our hopes and recommending Seth, followed by Cathy and me making a nervous phone call with only $3,000 to offer, has grown beyond anything we could have imagined. Today, Vivayic’s agriculture materials are present in 438 Ugandan schools. Field of Hope has trained 469 teachers, and those schools collectively educate approximately 219,000 students.
Those guides did far more than provide lessons. They changed what Field of Hope was capable of becoming and helped open the door to one of our principal pillars of service: helping young Ugandans see agriculture as a worthy and hopeful future.
How that gift grew into an entire community of teachers, students, training, and opportunity is the story I will share next.
For me, only two words adequately explain it:
Only God.
About the author: Mike Hafner is a co-founder of Field of Hope, which he helped establish alongside Cathy Hafner and Brandy Young 15 years ago. Since then, Mike has made nearly 40 trips to Uganda, witnessing firsthand the people, partnerships, and experiences that have shaped the organization. Through this series, he shares some of the stories that have stayed with him and the people who continue to remind him why this work matters.
