A New Direction

So after much prayer, phone calls, emails and talking to friends of friends, we have a new direction.  When Luv-Luv was denied his visa we have been searching for a new location.  Honestly, we saw some signs that his visa might become a problem a few months ago and began making some preparations for a new location (just incase this happened).  During most of the month of August, Luv was back home in the Philippines trying to track down some of his friends that are doing missionary work in a much smaller country to the south of where we previously were, and I was here trying to talk to friends of friends that are also in that country.  Several years ago, Luv-Luv worked in that country and still had a lot of friends there that were willing to help us. So by the middle of August, we had everything lined up, and what we think is a game plan put into place.  Luv-Luv is now living in a much smaller country to the south.  It is still a communist country (which means I won't post online where he is, but since there are only 5 of them left in the world, that will narrow it down some), there are still many unreached peoples there, and in many ways it is more impoverished than where we previously were.

Luv-Luv is back in a town where he used to live several years ago and ministering alongside a coffee farm that he once helped get started.  Over the next several months he'll help missionaries there and share with local farmers, work on his language, and improve his coffee growing knowledge.  The plan is that at the beginning of next year he'll move further north to a location where coffee isn't being grown and use that as a new product to go out and help villagers and share the gospel with them.

As I've very clearly learned over the past few months, plans can always fall through and directions change, but we feel this is a direction where God is opening a lot of doors for us.  Even over the past couple of weeks, Luv has told me about many opportunities that he's had to encourage local believers, both in the villages and in town.  He is currently living in a house with seven local young men and they have morning Bible studies, and up on the mountain he already knows a lot of the farmers have come to know Christ just in the past year.

Please be in prayer for Underground Coffee International's ministry in this new country.  There are still many details that we are working out, but there is also a lot of excitement about what God is going to do there.  Also, please be in prayer for us as we seek open doors in the north over the next few months.  We believe that God is going to do something amazing in that part of the world, and hopefully coffee will provide some avenues to reach people for Christ and create both spiritual and economic life change.