Pork Rhyne admits he’s been humbled by a pig. A six-hundred-pound breeding sow named Louise put him in his place and changed his life for good. While managing a farm that raised cattle, goats, chickens, and pigs, Pork Rhyne said, “I had a problem dealing with pigs compared to the other livestock, and God used that to humble my heart.”
After Louise had broken out of four different paddocks, Pork Rhyne received a call on his day off. “It was so bad,” he said, “they had to call me back to the farm to corral her and get her contained.” He gathered Louise into an isolation pen with plenty of pasture, space, feed, water, shelter, and straw. The perfect place for a fussy pig. Or so he thought. After closing the gate of the chain link fence, Pork Rhyne walked to his car. Sensing something was wrong, he turned to see Louise standing at the gate. Continuing to walk, he turned again to see her stare peeking out from behind her floppy ears. She’s fine, he thought and kept moving toward the car. Turning one last time before entering his vehicle, he witnessed Louise bellow, screech, and charge the gate. Lifting it off the hinges, Louise threw the gate twenty feet into the air! Free once again, she trotted to Pork Rhyne’s side with grunts of victory. “I realized she was out of my control. That’s when God humbled my heart. I got down on one knee, grabbed Louise by her chubby cheeks, and said, ‘You know what, Louise? I’m going to love you so hard that I just might understand you, because right now I don’t.’”
Pork Rhyne knew he had to find a way to raise pigs successfully, so he began spending extra time with them. He sat out in the pasture watching the pigs play, tear grass out by the roots, and swim in the ponds. “I laid by them, and they laid by me,” he said. “They asked for belly scratches, so I developed a friendship with pigs. That’s where I developed a farmer’s eye.” Pork Rhyne became interested in more than just food, water, and shelter for the pigs. He began learning and caring about the overall wellness of the animals. “I realized the problems the pigs were having were actually ME problems. I was doing something wrong, and I needed to correct it.” In his research, Pork Rhyne learned that pigs are hygienic and possess the intelligence of a human toddler. As he learned more about pigs, his passion for them also grew. He developed from being humbled by Louise to a professional pig consultant and teacher.
The Business Man
Rhyne Cureton’s nickname, Pork Rhyne, describes his business and marketing brand, too. Pork Rhyne uses his knowledge and testimony as a ministry primarily to small-scale livestock production farmers across the country and overseas in East Africa. Working with farmers to improve the health of their pigs, he also helps them improve their ability to create or find a local market for their product. Pork Rhyne is all about pigs.
A homesteader in North Carolina, Pork Rhyne teaches farmers how to keep their animals healthy by making the soil healthy. As a good steward over the land, he understands how fields stripped bare by harsh commercial farming need healing. The ground should be nurtured and used in a way that’s not harmful to the land or our neighbors. Focusing on the soil and the grass, he said, “As a farmer, I would make sure the grass and forage are healthy. Then I’d know my livestock will be just as healthy from that.”
Each summer, Pork Rhyne travels to Uganda and Tanzania with his Ugandan-born friend, now a college professor. On his first mission trip with Dr. Julius Sonko, Pork Rhyne met with humility again. In his attempt to teach villagers how to raise their pigs, he suggested they feed beans for protein. His teaching was met with mumbling by the villagers. Later, the translator explained that those villagers didn’t even have enough money to purchase beans to eat themselves. Pork Rhyne admitted, “I was humbled to realize my teachings were borderline offensive to the people listening. I decided I would never make that mistake again.” As he learned more about their resources and practices, he suggested the villagers feed shredded banana leaves to their pigs. A great source of fiber and micronutrients, these leaves were much healthier for the pigs than just the table scraps offered. Sometimes, Pork Rhyne must be truthful and tell the Africans that their resources aren’t enough for raising pigs, but maybe chickens. He might also suggest they focus on vegetable production until there’s enough to feed pigs.
The same problem can happen in the United States. Pork Rhyne has mentored pig farmers only to find their pigs emaciated and near death. “We need to be good stewards of what God gives us,” he said. “If we’re not successful at going big, we need to down-size or go back to the drawing board. There’s no shame in that.” Staying smaller with pig production and focusing on profitable local marketing is precisely what Pork Rhyne has learned to do and what he longs to share with others, both in the United States and East Africa. Perhaps that’s why he has also earned the title “The Pork Evangelist.”
The Free Man
Long before he became The Pork Evangelist, Pork Rhyne was in bondage to addictions. Abandoned by his father at the tender age of eight, the young boy lacked a male role model. “In my early twenties,” he shared, “I couldn’t say I was a man.” Unable to fill his life with love and security, he covered his fears by hiding in pornography, alcohol, video games, and food. Feeding these addictions helped shield him from his insecurities about life, God, himself, and relationships with others. Although Pork Rhyne attended a church then, he lacked a solid mentor. He felt misunderstood, like Louise. “But God showed me, through the vulnerability of one man, Jesus Christ, that there was hope for me. I had done everything in my power, but I personally couldn’t get myself out of my vices and addictions. I needed help outside of myself.”
While at his lowest, Pork Rhyne chose to attend a recovery group. There he found a community and a pathway to healing. He admitted his addictions and participated at a new church where he found loving, compassionate, and long-suffering people. He discovered men who were willing to disciple him. “So that’s where my healing began, when I started sharing my struggles, my sin, and my pain with my Christian friends and my recovery group. I define recovery as a lifestyle of transformation.” In all that he does and shares, Pork Rhyne strives to obey Jesus’s command to love God with all he has and to love his neighbor as himself. When considering actions, he challenges himself and others to ask these three questions. “Is what I’m about to do loving God? Is what I’m about to do loving to myself? Is what I’m about to do loving to other people? This is how I navigate through life.” These three questions make God’s will clear and decision-making less complicated, freeing Pork Rhyne from worry. “I can navigate with God instead of being rigid about how God interacts in my life.”
The Challenge of Pride
Humbled many times, even by pigs, Pork Rhyne admits to battling pride. As a new business owner, he tried to do everything independently. Once the time commitment overwhelmed him, Pork Rhyne let other people step into his life to help him. Involving a community in his business allows him to do what he needs to while still caring for himself. “When I have community, my pride can subside. God did not call us to be alone.” Pork Rhyne notices the same pride and lack of community with some homesteaders he mentors. There can be conceit in self-efficiency. What begins from a good place of relying on ourselves outside of government can turn into pride.
Some people think we need to produce everything that we want or need. In reality, Pork Rhyne suggests people need to be fruitful rather than busybodies. He said, “I’ve had to realize and teach people in my business and marketing classes that you should really set room for five slots in your life.” Prioritized in this order, he names God, spouse, children, then two places where people have mastery. For Pork Rhyne, that’s pigs and teaching. He encourages others to do their two things with excellence and depend on the community for the rest. He said, “So, whenever I’m not able to create or produce something myself, I can support my neighbor. We cannot do everything alone or even as a family unit.”
Pork Rhyne sees many homesteaders isolating and believes that’s a mistake. “God has called us to live out the Gospel, and we can’t do that if we’re always stuck on our homestead. At least we can create an atmosphere where we invite others to our homestead or where we live. Hiding away from the world does not allow sharing the Gospel.”
Life has taught Pork Rhyne that it’s okay not to have things go how we want them to. “We all have wholesome visions of how we want our lives to be, then tragedy happens, a family member abruptly leaves, a relationship or business deal doesn’t work out, or we lose money. It’s easy to be resentful. But God is still in control, even when things don’t go the way we hoped. We need to trust God in those moments and draw close to people who love Jesus. We don’t need to be alone or live in fear.”
Pork Rhyne relates to the Bible verses found in Luke 8:26-37. In this story, Jesus releases a demon-possessed man by sending his legion of demons into a herd of pigs. These pigs then plunge down a steep hillside into a lake, where they drown. Pork Rhyne said, “When I first read that story, I thought, That’s so unfair. Why pigs? I love pigs! I missed the whole point of the story. A man enslaved in bondage, with no power of his own, was freed. That’s the story! I saw my own story in that.” Once enslaved to addictions, trauma, and insecurities, he says, “God used pigs as a vehicle to set me free. He gave me a purpose and a calling. I can walk in the direction of
faith and peace in my life.”
A pig named Louise introduced Pork Rhyne to humility. But Jesus Christ gave him the best reason to surrender. He can lay down his will and pride because the Gospel changes everything.
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PORK RHYNE
7020 Passeres Court, Charlotte, NC 28215
rhyne@porkrhyne.com • www.porkrhyne.com
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Pork Rhyne offers farm and marketing business tips and a one-month intensive mentorship program at his website. He loves to help pig farmers build their confidence in raising pigs for quality bacon. Pork Rhyne is also open to receiving invitations to scheduled homesteader events.
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Elaine Tomski is a wife, mother, grandma, and contributing writer for Plain Values magazine. She and her husband, Jeff, appreciate the beauty of God’s creation from their hilltop near Killbuck, Ohio. Elaine is the author of Pregnant and Praying, a prayer journal for expectant mothers.