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24 December 2004

Hallo to all my Friends around the world,

This letter will inform most of you where we are and what happened to us.  I have been out of circulation for so long - please forgive me.   You will understand after reading all this.  Some of you have come a long way with us - and know all the things we have experienced since the war in the seventies up to now.  We have fought a long and hard fight - now we cannot any more - regarding land in Zimbabwe. Some will not know all this - so pardon if you do not fully understand it all.   Some of you have been our prayer warriors for years - we salute you - we have come to the end of an era - yet I am still trusting for a miracle - which ever God wants to do with us. I write this in English - as most people can read English - but not my mother tongue - which is Afrikaans.

Well here we are - Danie my husband  - Hano - one of the twins and me - we have been kicked off our farm - Folkington.    It is somehow so hard - so difficult for me to write this information to you all.   It is such a shock to our systems.   We have to work through this as it is so unbelievably cruel.   That some woman - a lover of a political leader - can just walk onto your property - that has been in the family for generations and just take ALL you have - All means ALL - the tractors, all other implements - too many to mention.   We cannot expect any of you to understand what we are experiencing - because it is so inhuman.   As I have said before - so many times - what is the meaning of human rights???  Is this not the highest form of racism that you can get - where black people can just walk onto what is yours and take over - WITHOUT ANY compensation what so ever.  The person involved here - is the minister of Anti-Corruption - now if this does not tell a story of its own - I do not know. Let me start when I was down in the Cape - Southern part of Africa - ministering.   It was two days before I was heading back to Zimbabwe - so excited about going back for the festive season - I planned to invite all people that do not have anywhere to go for Christmas - we were so ready to celebrate God's goodness.  Not that we will not continue to bless and worship God Almighty!   As I said - my friend and I was having dinner when I had a call from my husband - saying:  "Hanli you cannot come home - we have no home anymore- they have surrounded our homestead again and under duress were ordered off the farm.  When I heard it - I was numb - again we heard such news.   He was only allowed his clothes - nothing else.   For more than four weeks I had to stay in the Cape and wait.   My husband and son just had to stay in town with his mom in her small little flat.  He tried everything - seeing this minister and that official.   Remember we as a Slabbert family have already given away 6 farms in total.  Without being paid one cent.   After we have been through admin court several times - we were promised that on this last tiny bit of a farm left - we could continue our farming operations.   Our crops have been in - and this woman will just come in and take and reap this crop. My husband had already spent at least half of the input costs for this crop.   Because the bank has our title deed - we are also held responsible to repay the loan.   We have been forcibly removed from the farm and cannot reap the crop.   How is this possible? This kind of thing sounds like the Jewish situation in Nazi Germany during the second WW.  I told my husband that I will stay in South Africa - but on a certain day I will be back in Zim.   I must state that I received so much support from friends and people I do not even know.  It sustained me.   Some criticized us for still being there and said that we should have been out long ago - Will those people ever know that you cannot just pack up - what has been in the family for generations.   We are not losers - we wanted to fight for what is legally right - our fight is against what is so totally wrong.   But has right become wrong and wrong become right?   I think so.   But the God that I will continue to hold on - is just God.  So often we have felt as if He has abandoned us - but we would be fools to ever continue to think that.   So we have to be spiritually very strong not to loose perspective and sight of what God wants for us.   We in ourselves feel so defeated - so many people looked at us as Christians in the community - to make a stand and hang onto our land and being protected by God.    I still believe that He wanted us back on the farm - but the enemy hates our guts to such an extend, that he continued to fight for that farm.   God is allowing this to happen - but my goodness - does He have a greater plan with our lives.   I am weeping with sadness and with joy in in Him - for He knows the best.   See an instrument like a violin or a guitar is of no use if the strings are sloppy - the moment it is stretched even to the point of almost breaking - then a melodious tune can come out of it.   If you play on it with strings loosely strung - the sound coming from that instrument - will be an abomination to music.   So and likewise will God stretch us - even to the point of almost breaking - to get us where He wants us.   Hope you understand this - this is how I understand what is going on now.

The Monday night before I left Cape Town - Danie phoned - so excited - saying that he has been allowed back on the farm - The Countries flag that was hanging over the boom to the entrance to our farm has been removed and high officials allowed him back on the far.   My husband was sobbing on the other side of the line - so was I - we celebrated we worshiped - we glorified His name.  I slept like a baby that night. The next morning I was somehow perplexed - I started packing my bags - ready to go back after such a long time.   At 10 that morning my dear husband phoned and only said Hanli - pray - because they are back in full force - like a pack of hungry wolves - that was his description - and he said all hell broke loose again.   Was he just being set up? - To go back and sleep in his own bed for one night? And then to be forced off again - to their delight?   They are masters at intimidation and humiliation.   He begged them and stood his ground that he will only leave after his wife is back from S. A. to pack up her house.   They allowed him that.   I arrived the Wednesday - on top of it all - my suitcase was lost - only got it a few days later - my cell phone was stolen - not through my negligence - too long to explain what happened.  It is a two and a half hour drive from Harare to our farm.  The moment I arrived on the farm - my two faithful helpers in the garden and house Eliot and Texsure ran to the car and just said:  "So sorry Madame" -  and wept with me.  These two guys stood their ground - they stayed in the house all those weeks and defended our house.   They were locked in and even before they were locked in - they refused to work with the woman.  They were threatened to be killed - but they showed their loyalty towards us and guarded that place - he even fired a shot in the air to scare them - a very brave move in Zim because the only ones allowed to use firearms - are the police. I left Cape Town at 7 - got up at 4 to get ready - so it was a long day and yet I had to start packing immediately - until late into the night.   Even that night people sent food.  The next day - more friends came to help pack - some brought food and drinks - those are your friends.  May God bless them.   Some of them have been through the same experience - so they know what it feels like.   The next day it was a mad rush to just throw things into boxes.  We only had time till that afternoon before the sun sets.  My maid cam the previous evening- as she was not allowed near the house- as she walked in she fell at my feet and wept - I went down on the floor with her- and the two of us just sat there - flat on our backsides - with our backs against the kitchen cupboards - without saying anything - just wept and got it out of our systems. Before I left - I picked all the most beautiful roses from my rose garden - put it in a vase and left it in the bare and empty lounge - for the lady of the house -who will take over that night - her name is Happiness.

Now we find ourselves - without e-mail and telephone connections - in a cottage of Janse and Antoinete - our dear friends who helped us move our stuff onto their farm and storage rooms.   The Lord will bless them.   So often I look at my husband - trying to be so strong and he is - but how very difficult it must be for him?   He is the one who provided for us so well - he said just now it is like a nightmare - he loved farming and the land so much!  Now I watch him sitting at the table in this little cottage working through some papers. He came over to me where I was typing and read parts of this and just started weeping in my arms - I could hold him and just let this big man CRY - WHY NOT?  Yes others will be quick to tell you - why worry - you have each other - you have so much - you are healthy - I have no answer - how can they understand our predicament?  You can only relate to us - if you have experienced this.

I loved my garden - I loved my home I loved walking even amongst the war veterans who took most of our land any way,   I will miss it.   It was a place I could come to after each ministering trip and get regenerated again.  Hano -  Our young son - who was so energetic in his farming so enthusiastic.  Nicolaas our other son (the twin) was so shocked - will never have the opportunity and privilege and be able to say his last good byes to the farm.  The same with dear Hanel our daughter - she loved the place so much.   Our children were fourth generation born here.   As some South African poet once wrote "This earth - is not our dwelling place"  - " Hierdie wêreld is ons woning nie".

Thank you for your prayers.   You will be blessed for standing with us.   We will not give up - we will not stop trusting God - it is now the time to show that we will praise Him - regardless.   That is what I have been preaching all over the world to others - I also have spoken so much about forgiveness - here again we had to forgive those who defamed and humiliated us.  And we will do it yet again as we will not allow bitterness to settle in.   God has forgiven us so much - we cannot afford not to forgive.   Humanly speaking - it is not so easy - but when you do it as unto Him - there will be no task too difficult to perform.  I will not keep silent - about God's way of molding and shaping His own children.

The saying goes I may know how to trust in God - but only by my actions it will be known.

Be blessed and enjoy the blessings He wants to bestow on you.

Love in Christ

Hanli

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