From an early pioneering farming family, Garfield Hayes was born July 1938 in the South Island of New Zealand. After leaving high school, he had a period of compulsory military training, then in 1957, with 15 other young people from New Zealand he participated in a large conference at Mackinac Island Michigan, American headquarters for Moral Re-Rermament.
Garfield spent the next nine years working with MRA in the USA with visits to farmers and agricultural universities, plus a six month stay in segregated Atlanta with the theatrical production, The Crowning Experience. Also, he had time in Brazil and Canada with a South American play El Condor. Six years in India in 1966 was the next call where he and his Australian wife Helen Brown hosted homes in Poona and New Delhi. Some of this time was spent obtaining an import license for five Australian dairy cattle for the new conference centre at Panchgani, with not a penny spent on bribes. "What an adventure and a lesson in how to bring change to situations," he recalls.
He was brought up on a 3,000-acre sheep, cattle, and cropping farm in the Hakataramea Valley so farming was in his blood. Back in New Zealand he became the official elected representative of his fellow farmers on their national council. The experience on the farm again taught him to daily seek and depend on God's practical direction. He had 37 years farming and now his son Andrew continues the farm, still with no subsidies, but with 2,000 dairy cattle supported by a huge irrigation scheme. Garfield has continued to participate with Initiatives of Change in New Zealand.
