About Us
Jan&Elisabeth Anema
Jan F. Anema
After finishing my degree in Horticulture in 1969 I got involved in several idealistic and revolutionary activities of the 60s and 70s (socio-cultural and political) due to my atheist beliefs.Nevertheless, I lost my faith in a better world and dedicated myself to biological agriculture; an area in which somehow it was possible to give a positive contribution.
Elisabeth Langerhorst Anema
After Secondary School I finished my social worker degree in 1974. I obtained some experience in family therapy in a psycho pedagogic clinic.At that time I got tired and fed up with New Age religious experiences and decided to search God through his Word.
We met in the 60s, we got married in 1974, and on the 25th of April of the same year we had the chance to rent some land where we started a farm and produced cheese. This was a big adventure because we had absolutely no experience in this area.We always had the desire to add a surplus value to our work at the farm. This resulted in sheltering people with problems. This desire obtained a different dimension in 1977 when we became Christians.
Our priorities focused temporarily on the education of our children (1978, 1980 and 1984) and when we started to look for our own farm, a door opened towards Portugal.Initially, we wanted to work in a social reintegration project combined with agriculture, but this project did not move on. After this, we visited Mission ’87 Congress in Utrecht Holland where we were invited to work on a social project, also in the area of agriculture.
This road led us to start a dairy farm in Lavre, in the Alentejo region in Portugal in 1987, where we acquired a farm which had also very good facilities for social work.From 1990 until 2000 we have been involved in drug addict rehabilitation and reintegration projects, as well as been giving support to ex-prisoners and their families.The last 4 years were dedicated to building renovation, study and reflection, which resulted in the projects we are presenting now.