I knew very little about agriculture. Nevertheless, one morning in Lira, Uganda, Carol Higgins told me I was about to become an agriculture teacher.
That assignment became a turning point in Field of Hope’s story. After successes—and mistakes—with tractors and the Barlonyo garden, we were moving away from asset-heavy projects and toward programs that could build agricultural capacity in Uganda.
About that time, a pastor from Victory Outreach Ministries took me aside. “Please do anything you can to get young people interested in agriculture,” he said. “When they finish school, they want to move to Kampala, find a job in front of a computer, or buy a boda boda motorcycle taxi. Meanwhile, the people working on small farms are getting older, with insufficient labor and expertise.”
He wanted young people to understand that agriculture could offer them a future—either as farmers or through careers in the industries supporting farmers. His request interested me, but I had no idea how Field of Hope could help.
While working in Lira, I stayed at a guesthouse operated by Bob and Carol Higgins, founders of Otino Waa, an orphan-care ministry with primary and secondary schools and vocational training. Shortly after my conversation with the pastor, Carol stopped me outside my apartment.
“Is it true that you used to work for John Deere?” she asked. I told her it was.
“That’s great!” she said. “I’ve been thinking about starting an agriculture class for secondary students, and you are going to be the teacher.”
I explained that I had worked on Deere’s Construction and Forestry side and knew little about agriculture. She brushed aside my concern and declared I would be perfect. I quickly discovered that you don’t argue with Carol Higgins!
Perhaps I didn’t know where to look, but I could not find useful agriculture teacher guides. Friends at John Deere’s South Africa branch furnished basic agricultural booklets. Using those and reliable information I found online, I spent my evenings preparing lessons.
A few days later, I found myself in a sweltering classroom filled with eager 14- to 17-year-old students, many of whom had lost one or both parents and endured more hardship than any young person should. They were ready to learn agriculture from someone who, quite honestly, did not have a clue.
The classroom was beside a major highway, and passing traffic was deafening. The students looked at me as though I were some kind of space alien—and I felt like one. No one said a word.
Finally, I asked whether anyone knew a praise song. Nearly every hand shot into the air. From then on, we began each class by singing, sometimes in English and sometimes in their local language. Before long, we were dancing, too!
Their joy became even more remarkable as I learned what some had endured. One student had been abducted twice by the Lord’s Resistance Army and suffered terribly in captivity. Yet she could stand before us and recite the Otino Waa creed: “My life has been difficult, but God has been and will be with me.” It ended with a truth the students carried with them: “Life is hard, but God is good.”
To provide practical experience, Field of Hope installed a drip-irrigation demonstration garden. Each student prepared a portion of the soil, constructed a raised bed, and kept the drip system supplied with water. I told Bob and Carol there was no way those boys and girls would want to work under the hot sun building raised beds. Once again, I was wrong. They dug, sang, joked, and worked together. In what seemed like no time, the beds were finished.
The students chose their vegetables, and agricultural specialists taught them about soil care, fertilizers, pests, and diseases. I also assigned each student an agricultural topic—such as mulching, composting, or pest control—to research and teach to the class.
To make things more interesting, I took videos of their presentations. We had fun watching those videos. The camera captured their lessons, expressions, and occasional nervousness, but it could not capture all the promise in that classroom. I loved those young people and was amazed by how bright, capable, and engaged they were.
I began thinking again about the pastor’s words. The garden was growing. The students were growing. And something was growing in me—a conviction that these young people could build meaningful futures in agriculture if they and their teachers had the resources and encouragement they deserved.
I taught at Otino Waa for three months at a time in 2013 and 2014. Afterward, Otino Waa hired a full-time agriculture teacher—which was exactly as it should have been. But something troubled me. Agriculture teachers had few teaching resources. Many relied upon notes gathered over the years, sometimes while facing classrooms of as many as 100 students.
I had entered that classroom believing my job was to teach about soil, seeds, gardens, and agriculture. Instead, the students taught me about courage, resilience, joy, and possibility. I may not have been the agriculture teacher they deserved, but they became some of the finest teachers I have ever had.
They showed me that Uganda did not lack bright young people who could become interested in agriculture. What was often missing were resources and support to help their teachers awaken that interest.
But how could a small organization like Field of Hope address a need that large? Field of Hope had neither the expertise nor the resources to create the needed materials.
Fortunately, God had already brought a remarkable group into our lives through an earlier effort to train smallholder farmers. We had no idea how profoundly they would influence Field of Hope—and agricultural education across Uganda.
Their name was Vivayic.
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.
