Faith Like Potatoes is a movie about a Scottish farmer, named Angus, living in Zambia. This was during the time Zambians were at war with each other and they were killing white farmers throughout the nation. He decided that he needed to move his family to South Africa where farmers were doing better and were making more money. He was a very angry man and did not believe in God. When he moved to South Africa he had to overcome a language barrier. He had workers who did not understand him and he could not understand them. Farming was stressing him out, he eventually had to go on tranquilizers to make it better, but that treatment didn’t work. Then one day his wife was invited to a church function that she forced Angus to go to with the rest of their family. At the event they were invited to go to church the next day and his family sat in the front row, much to Angus’ dismay. The sermon was about farming in South Africa told by farmers in the area. Angus was moved to tears by the sermon and ended up standing in front of the congregation with other people who had accepted Jesus Christ into their hearts. From this point on, his heart was changed and he approaches farming and life in a completely different way.

One day in the dry season, he is burning the dead crop to prepare the land for the next crop and there is a runaway fire into the wooded area near his farm. Other farmers came to help try to tame the fire, but it seemed like it wasn’t ever going to die down. He told one of his workers to pray for rain, but since it was the dry season his worker knew it wasn’t going to rain; however, God answered Angus’ prayer and it did rain. Angus begins to travel and tell people about the Gospel and farming and how his life was changed. He even got to travel back to Scotland. After his return he helped heal a woman who was struck by lightning. The other women came to him because they knew he had faith in God and they wanted him to help this woman. Angus prayed over the woman and she was healed. He also experiences a family tragedy. While taking his niece and nephew on a tractor ride, his nephew falls off the tractor and gets crushed by it. The boy ends up dying in Angus’ arms. It is through this challenge that Angus learns that God isn’t always good; He is going to be trials and tribulations that we have to overcome. In the end, it is through this challenge that his faith strengthens. At the very end of the movie, Angus decides to grow potatoes in a season that he was told they would not succeed. He did it anyway placing all of his faith into the potatoes and hoping that they would grow. They did and Angus had a wonderful harvest of potatoes when no one said he would. The other farmers weren’t sure if they would grow and since potatoes grow underground, you are unsure of their progress. It isn’t like corn where farmers can see the crop producing.

The issue that comes from this movie is that in order to survive Angus had to overcome some elements that are out of his control. He has to deal with war, a language barrier, a family tragedy, a lack of faith and land that needed lots of improvement when he first bought it. At first, he had to deal with a war that he had no control over. He moved his family from Zambia to South Africa so that his family would not have a higher risk of being killed. The language barrier was an aspect that he could control. He could learn the language and try to communicate with the Zulus. Eventually, Angus does learn the language, but when he was an angry man before Christ entered his life; he really struggled with the language difference between himself and his workers. The family tragedy was extremely difficult because Angus began to lose faith. He started to question why God would do something like this to him and his family. His faith was strengthened by the tragedy, but it took a long to time to get to a place where life was almost back to normal. The land is always something that he could not control. He wasn’t sure if it was going to produce a crop or not. His family relied on the land to survive. The land produced their food and their income without it they would have not been able to live in South Africa. They would have to find another place to live. His faith was an aspect that he could control and once he had Jesus Christ enter his heart everything about him changed. His entire demeanor was different and he handled the difficult times in life with a new perspective that he hadn’t had before.

The way that Angus changes once God enters his life is quite prominent in the movie. He was unable to deal with certain aspects of farming when he was constantly frustrated and angry. I think that without God Angus would not have been able to handle all of the obstacles that come to him. I think that the ultimate response to God was when his nephew dies in his arms. That is a true test of faith and strength. Angus didn’t lose faith, even though there were times when he was close, and it took a long time for him to regain a normalcy to life. The land that he was living on was his lifestyle. Angus didn’t know anything else but farming. His father was a farmer, his great-grandfather was a farmer and so Angus hadn’t learned anything else. I think that if Angus couldn’t farm he would have been to give his family a home.  I really enjoyed seeing the change in Angus’ life and how the entire story changed. I would recommend this movie to anyone especially those who are losing faith. Angus reminds me that no matter what is going on in our lives, God will always be there and we can change from the lessons that he teaches us. Faith Like Potatoes is a movie that I enjoyed and learned a lot about my own faith from. It is encouraging to me as a Christian to see that we can put our faith into anything, including potatoes.