Profile: Uncle LS

On our recent visit we had an opportunity to reconnect with Uncle LS.  I thought it might be good to share his story with you. My old supervisor introduced me to Uncle LS.  He lives in a village that is tucked back in a valley off a highway and then a dirt road that is about forty-five minutes out of town.  My supervisor tells of the time when he discovered the valley and was struck with the thought of “How will these people way out here ever have a chance to hear the gospel?”.  Later, when they hiked into the village, it turns out that they had heard the gospel from a group of Burmese missionaries almost a year before.  Uncle LS was not a believer but his wife and daughter were strong Christians who would routinely go out and share with others.

A couple years ago, Uncle LS and his wife were working out in the fields when there was an earthquake.  Because they lived in a valley, there was also a rockslide and his wife was injured and died.

Uncle LS’s daughter would still go out and share with others, despite her husband not being a believer.  Her husband would often drink and get angry with her going out to share the gospel.  When he would get angry he would often beat her.  She would still go out and share, until one day he beat her and broke her leg.  After that, she quit going out and sharing with others.

When we went out to meet Uncle LS for the first time we were amazed by the beauty in his valley.  It was a very narrow and secluded place with steep ridges.  When we were there, it felt like we were completely alone.  In fact, when Luv-Luv and I would go out there without the truck we would have to hike back to the road and then hitchhike all the way back to town.  Uncle LS struggled with loneliness.  After his wife died, his daughter and her family moved to town and he was left alone in a shrinking village.

Uncle LS allowed us to set up a corn test plot in his village (actually, he was VERY excited about it).  He was always willing to have us come to his house, do any projects we like, and usually wouldn’t let us leave without us giving lots of excuses on why we needed to get back to town.  We would always promise him that the next time we visited we would stay the weekend with him.  (Which we later did.  It was miserable.  Our straw beds were infested with fleas and the dogs barked all night.)

We would often share with him about the Gospel and the God that his wife had believed in.  He would always say that he was open, but he never made Jesus his Lord.  One time we gave him a parallel bible (where all four gospels are lined out next to one another).  Because I couldn’t read the language, I didn’t realize that is what I gave him until the next time he told us of how he read it all, but he couldn’t understand why the book repeated itself so much.

When we went back to visit him this summer, we arrived at his house and it looked deserted.  We assumed that he might have died over the past two years, so we went and asked some of the other villagers.  After about an hour of hunting for him, we found him working at a rest stop on the highway.  He worked with some of his friends and went from being lonely to surrounded by people all the time.  We spent a long time telling him about the gospel again.

Today, he is doing much better than he was when we first met him three years ago.  He no longer struggles with loneliness.  Please pray for Uncle LS.  He is still not a believer and continues to seek the truth.

Profile: Luv-Luv

Luv-Luv, (which isn’t his real name, but it is what his grandma calls him, so we will too) is from the Philippines.  He isn’t one of the guys that we try to reach in a village, but instead he is one of our partners.  Luv-Luv grew up in a small village with his grandparents and his faith is a product of missionaries sharing the gospel with him several years ago.  Because he is so integral to what Underground Coffee International does, I thought it appropriate to share some of his story first. Luv-Luv and I go way back and we were roommates for a year when we both lived in East Asia.  Through a series of divine appointments and circumstances, we ended up meeting, and later becoming teammates.  Luv-Luv has a background in agriculture and specifically coffee growing.  We believe that God has placed him in our path so that we can go out and use coffee to reach those who have never heard.  In many ways, Underground Coffee grew out of his experience of seeing coffee being used to reach local villagers, and our plan is to have him as Underground Coffee’s first sponsored missionary.

My wife and I had the pleasure of having Luv-Luv go with us on the trip to East Asia this summer.  It was a little more expensive to have him fly out and meet us than it would have been if we’d have gone on our own, but the benefit of having him there with us was immeasurable.  As an Asian villager, provides insights into things that go on in villages that none of us would have picked up on.  He also helped us understand a lot of the coffee growing end of things when we talked to people about strategy.

Please pray for Luv-Luv.  He is currently working small jobs in the Philippines waiting on enough support to be raised so he can go and become a missionary in East Asia.

East Asia Trip

Over the past few weeks several of us have been on a trip to East Asia.  The trip was a great time, not only to connect with people about coffee, but also to catch up with old friends.  Having lived there for two years, most of the trip was spent out in villages catching up with local friends and introducing them to other missionaries.  When I left, a lot of Americans were in a state of transition so many of the village contacts that I had known had fallen through the cracks.  There are so many people there that need to hear and so few workers that can go out to share and disciple with them.  My old team, which at one point was about fifteen people on the field, is now down to a single couple and a handful of local believers.  The exciting thing is that the local believers are starting to take ownership of their faith, however there is a lot of work for so few people.  Over the next couple of months I’ll share some of the stories of our local friends and how they are doing.