God Of Our Fathers Poem by Gert Strydom

With their eyes set on the distance
our fathers
trekked into their promised land
as children of the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

After the murders on Piet Retief and his men
our fathers made a holy covenant
with the almighty God
to rescue them in their laager at Blood River
against a very big army
of about twenty thousand Zulus.

With their victory
they did not go forth
to wipe out every single Zulu,
rather with the Bible in the hand
they wanted to teach
other people about God.

When the Xhosas slaughtered
almost all their livestock,
were burning their own harvests
believing the medium Nonqawuse
that ancestral spirits
will rise to wipe out the white man

and thousands of them
were dying from starvation
our fathers reached out their hands
and in neighbourly love gave food to those people,
doing what they could
to try and save them.

When droughts, illness of the livestock,
locusts were ravaging, even when the British Empire
came to take the mineral treasures,
were burning down farms and towns,
were murdering women and children
in concentration camps

our fathers went on their knees,
placing their destiny in the hands
of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
knowing that his shadow was falling over them,
that He keeps account
was folding His Godly hand over them

l’Envoi
and now that thousands of farmers
are being killed on their farms
are being tortured, murdered and robbed
Afrikaners with qualifications
and experience, even artisans
are unemployed on the street,
people in cities
are hijacked, robbed and raped

I am praying to the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
to keep His hand over us,
to draws His laager
around the lives and property
of everyone that comes to Him,
to free us from this oppression.