Caroline Friday is a novelist and award winning screenwriter with several film projects in development for both television and theatrical distribution. She is also a 2008 Kairos Screenwriting Winner for spiritually uplifting screenplays, sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation. Caroline currently serves as EVP of Sixth Day Media, LLC, a film finance and production company headquartered in the Atlanta area. She lives in Marietta, Georgia, with her husband and three children and can be found at www.carolinefriday.com.

Faith Like Potatoes is a delightful Christian film that my good friend and ministry partner discovered at a local Christian bookstore. It is a bio-pic of Angus Buchan, a South African farmer of Scottish descent who leaves his farm during the political unrest and moves his family into KwaZulu Natal to start a better life. Surly and mean, Angus vents his frustrations on his fellow Zulu helper, Simeon, his wife, Jill, and his children as he struggles against the cruelty of a rough and rugged land. He starts out with nothing but a small camper-like trailer, a truck full of personal items, and a tractor. When Simeon wrecks the tractor, things go from bad to worse. Anger consumes him until he has nowhere else to go but to God.

Spoiler Alert

Angus is played by Frank Rautenbach, who is an appealing mixture of Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, and Greg Kinnear. He convincingly portrays a hardworking man fighting against life’s obstacles, who ultimately hits rock bottom before turning his life over to Jesus. Excited about his newfound love for the Lord, Angus has no fear or trepidation in witnessing to his friends and the Zulu natives. He stands firm against rigid, religious opposition. However, the turning point in his spiritual walk happens one night when a terrible lightning storm claims the life of a young Zulu woman. In desperation, her relatives summon Angus to the woman’s home, where he is expected to call on his God for a miraculous encounter. Unwavering in his faith, he grabs the dead woman by the shoulders, calls on the name of Jesus, and she awakens! You can imagine how this miracle sent his faith soaring into the clouds!

Like seeds planted in the ground, Angus’s walk with God steadily grows and flourishes as one miracle follows another, including a supernatural rain to douse a raging fire about to claim his house and farm, and the revival of a crop just three days after it was pelted to the ground by hail. This leads to a second, part-time career as an evangelist. Local farmers and businessmen fill the stadiums where Angus tells them the good news of Jesus Christ. Life becomes good, happy, and prosperous until tragedy brings his faith to a screeching halt.

A tractor accident involving Angus’s little nephew sends him to a new low, bringing with it a crisis in faith. But as in any great Christian tale, a spiritual knock to the ground only strengthens faith that much more, enabling Angus to believe a word from the Lord that he should plant potatoes in the dry, dusty South African soil. Everyone around him thinks he has lost his mind, but as always, Angus has the last laugh. When an abundance of large, healthy potatoes are harvested, despite the climate and farming conditions, Angus finds that his faith has become just as strong and healthy as the potato crop; it is powerful and resilient and ripe for God’s new calling on his life.

The movie was enjoyable, uplifting, and entertaining, but the accompanying documentary is what provided the true inspiration. As the real Angus tells it, he rises every morning at 4:30 and spends time with God and the Word until he hears the Lord speak to him. This has lead to the birth of an enormous evangelistic outreach and international ministry that started with a bright yellow eighteen-wheeler truck with the name JESUS painted on the either side in dark, bold letters. As the documentary shows, Angus left the farming duties to his sons and began traveling all over South Africa in this yellow truck, preaching the gospel to enormous crowds of South African natives hungry for God’s Word. Miracles, signs, and wonders accompany him everywhere he preaches.

What an encouragement this man is! His simple, childlike faith has produced a supernatural outpouring, just like that first crop of potatoes he planted years ago. I had tears in my eyes as I beheld the beauty of Angus’s expansive farm, where he and his family grow and eat their own food, the schools and orphanages they have built, and the blessings that follow him everywhere he goes. His story is a reminder of the power in the simplicity of the gospel and the unadulterated faith of a man unaffected by religion and denominationalism. As Angus Buchan can attest, there is nothing our God won’t do if we hear from Him and believe!

I highly recommend this movie to you and your family as good entertainment, as well as a boost to your faith. Like me, you may be encouraged to consider venturing out into the mission field or to step out boldly in faith into an area where God has been speaking to you. Either way, Faith Like Potatoes will not disappoint. Watch it and enjoy!