God's Golden Acre

2005 Heather Reynolds and Dale le Vack
ISBN 1 85424 706 9 (UK)

A biography of Heather Reynolds – the inspirational story on one woman's fight for some of the world's most vulnerable AIDS orphans.

At first sight, this is not a book that would have appealed to me. It is about a white lady who cared for orphans in the Valley of a Thousand Hills region of South Africa in KwaZulu Natal.

But from the start I found it intensely gripping, real, and personally very helpful. Heather was brought up in South Africa, the daughter of white people who ran a trading post. Her father was a drunk though she speaks very warmly of him, and she made a very bad marriage which her mother could have prevented but didn't. Her elder brother was handicapped and her life was a shambles until God got hold of her in her twenties. This book pulls no punches.

She met a man who really cared for her, and when her divorce came through, she married him and did not look back. This man, under God, enabled her to make a comeback as a person. Fluent in Zulu as well as English and Afrikaans, under God, she committed her life to the care of poor Zulu families. In human terms she had little going for her and few resources, and for years lived close to the breadline, fighting to help the poor people around her in the midst of opposition from her white neighbours who saw no reason to help 'black people'.

The hand of God is very clearly seen in the way that Heather was led, the people that God led to associate with her, and the amazing timing of supply that only God could provide.

This book has been of particular interest to me because of visits I made to All Africa Bible College when it was situated at Hillcrest overlooking the Valley of a Thousand Hills on the N3 motorway between Pietermaritzburg and Durban. The college has now closed and the premises bought by 'Focus on the Family, South Africa'.

I particularly remember a couple of incidents that occurred while Janet and I were staying at AABC with the boys, when intruders came up the very steep hill from the Valley of a Thousand Hills to the college at the top and attempted to break into staff houses. It was very frightening for all involved, and the electric fence and other defences did nothing to keep intruders out of the college premises.

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