Page 143 - The Diary of A. H. W. Behrens

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1882
At the beginning of 1882 father came and said, “We have a meagre salary and at Bethanie we are not harvesting anything, you want to get married next year, you must buy yourself a farm, the only one left in the area, namely a portion of Klipkop at the Crocodile River. 660 acres for ₤ 300. I was absolutely astonished and answered, “I am supposed to get married, build a house and now still buy a small farm and have nothing.
How am I supposed to do all that?” Father conquered all
my concerns and I entered into the purchase agreement and, together with this small farm, I also got land where wheat had already been planted. But I had neither a wagon nor oxen, plough or anything.
I sold the mare that father had given me as a gift, together with the foal for ₤ 45 and that was my first payment towards the ₤ 300. Then I borrowed ₤ 90 from a merchant (whom my parents had done good when he was ill) and the first wheat harvest brought in so much that I could pay off a total of about ₤ 200. The second wheat harvest was in 1883 and was very good and I could pay back the ₤ 100 that I had borrowed from Pistorius. The merchant died and on his deathbed he bequeathed the
₤ 90 to me and so I had paid the ₤ 300 and was glad that I
had listened to father. I made an agreement with Kornelius Molibane, a man from the Bethanie congregation, who worked the farm for me for 23 years so that it did not hinder me in
any way in my mission work. I only had to tell him what to do every week and he did