The Farm

In a post I wrote last week, I mentioned that I'd try to tell the story of how we now have a coffee farm.  At the beginning of January, we all sat down as an organization and came up with two big coffee related goals for 2015.  One of the goals was to register our business so that we can export coffee grown by farmers that we're working with.  The other big goal was to try to find a strategic piece of land where we could set up a training farm.  The training farm would serve as a place where we can grow coffee, try out new techniques (new fertilization, different coffee varieties, processing) and also bring the farmers in for trainings.  The hope is also that in a few years we can use this farm as a place to not only equip farmers but also equip believers.

Luv-Luv began searching around in the mountains for some villages that might be good options.  Because we wanted to be strategic with our coffee farm (and because we have a pretty limited budget) we knew that it would take a lot of leg work and God answering some big prayers.  Luv and I spent over three months looking at different villages.  We talked to farmers, government officials, friends and friends of friends but nothings seemed to fit.

I've mentioned before about how we sponsor a local friend to go out and mentor pastors in a few villages in the mountains.  After three months of searching and finding nothing that would fit what we need, we finally asked our local friend if he knew of anything.  A few days later he came back and said that one of the ladies in the local house church (which Underground Coffee helps support) wants to sell her land.  Her asking price for the land was reasonable, as opposed to many of the crazy prices others on the mountain had been asking for their land.  We did not think it would be possible to find land in the village with the house church because it is just off the main road.  Land here, like everywhere else, gets much more expensive when it is close to a major road.

When we went to talk with the lady about her land, we explained some of the purpose of what we are trying to do with coffee in her village.  She loved the idea and wanted to help us.  Also, because foreigners cannot own land here, we told her that we wanted to have a 30+ year lease on the land.  The lease would require a little more paperwork and waiting than it would to just sell the land, but at the end of those thirty years her family would receive the land back as a working coffee farm.  Because she is a Christian, we were able to liken it to the Year of Jubilee.  

However, the land wasn't perfect.  Our ideal farm would be between twelve to twenty acres in size.  The land that she was selling was just over nine acres.  And while the soil on the land is very good, getting it ready to plant will take A LOT of work.  The lady in the village also didn't have any land title documents, which meant we needed to have the land surveyed.  We felt God moving in the situation and proceeded to advance her the money to get the land surveyed.

We waited a few weeks for the survey results to come back and prayed that maybe the land would be a little bigger than the lady thought (and hopefully not smaller).  When the survey came back the lady was surprised to find out that there was not nine acres of land.  Instead there was almost fifteen acres!  We agreed that we would lease 12.5 acres of the land this year and then next year when we have more budget money we would look into renting the last two acres of land.  The lady came back and asked if it would be alright to, instead, give the remaining two acres of land to the local church.  She said that God blessed her by giving her more land than she thought she had and she wanted to give something back to Him.  The church will use the land to grow coffee and vegetables and use the money generated to fund ministry.  So now we have a farm that is in ideal size, in an ideal location that borders land that the local church will be working.

Every time I think about how this story came together, I can't help but see the fingerprints of God all over it.  And there are several other "more than coincidence" things about this story that I just don't have the space to tell about.  It is going to be a long journey to get this land ready for planting next year, however we are excited that God has blessed us with the opportunity.  Thanks again for everyone's continued prayer and financial support, which has made all of this possible.

The Chicken or the Egg

Which came first?  It's the question that people have been asking about chickens and eggs forever.  It is also one of the toughest questions to answer with trying to get a coffee business established in South East Asia.  And I think the reason why it is so difficult is because I'm an American.

As an American, I'm used to having an orderly system.  If I want to do something, I can just punch a question into a search engine, follow a few steps and then I'm ready to go.  Even complicated things like starting a nonprofit or fixing a computer can be done with some research and a little hard work.  But things in the developing world aren't as neat and orderly.  In many ways, it is still the Wild West out here.  Laws aren't really written down here (and if they are written down, they are rarely enforced).  There is little oversight, lots of corruption and people in power hold the keys to everything.  When I meet with a government official here I literally sit down across the table from the law.

Two of our biggest goals this year have been to start a business that allows us to get farmer's coffee directly to America and to find some land in a village to start a training farm.  Since we live in the Wild West and can't speak the language all that well, trying to meet these goals has involved A LOT of asking people here what to do.  It would make sense that first we start the business and then acquire the land, however that isn't the case. After asking several locals, expats who have started businesses and government officials we were told that we are required to have land to register a business.  However, we also have to have a business to acquire the land.  So which comes first?

As an American, this stresses me out.  I like to have a plan, make a budget and have a to-do list.  I can also overthink things just a little bit.  Fortunately I work with Luv-Luv who is from a developing country, rarely overthinks anything and has the life motto of "Bro, relax five minutes."  He helps balance me out.  

So after months of researching, meetings and asking questions about land and business we realized that we just need to make it happen.  We shouldn't shouldn't worry about the order of things.  As with the chicken and the egg, it happened and the details don't really matter.

Over the past month we have finalized a long-term contract for some land in the village to start a training farm.  It is amazing how things came together for the land and I'll try to write a post next week telling the story.

Asiaversary

I'm aware that I'm WAY overdue for a blog-post; however, I wanted to take time today to post something.  One year ago today, we left America and began our journey to Asia.  I was planning to write something about it but my wife beat me to it (and did a much better job in the process).  So I'm stealing the post from her personal blog and copying it below.  Thanks for reading, praying, and partnering with us on our journey.  And please go out and celebrate for us with some Mexican food or BBQ.

Exactly one year ago today we were boarding a plane heading to the other side of the world, far away from everything that was familiar. It wasn't my first trip to Asia, thank goodness. If that had been the case I think there would have been a few more freak- outs and minor breakdowns in those first days and weeks here. As it was, I knew to expect the outdoor market in all it's raw meat glory, the trash in the streets, the smells. But that barely scratched the surface. I don't think westerners, no matter how well-travelled, are ever prepared for Asia and the complete world of difference that exists between here and there.  Not just the food, the houses, the streets, the sanitation system (or lack thereof) and the religion, but even the mindset and the way people here view life and the world is so strange to a foreigner.

So my small breakdowns happened later, in the months that followed, when it sank in that this was not a vacation. This was HOME now. How could this be home? It didn't feel like home. There was no place here-not even the house we were living in-that felt comfortable to me. The beds were hard, the bathrooms were strange.  I just knew that any minute a hoard of ants would come streaming out of the holes in the couch and I could not quit watching my baby obsessively for signs of dengue fever that everyone said was inevitable for everyone living here.  I couldn't wrap my head around this new life and there were many days on auto-pilot just trying to make it through.

Not long after we moved here I came across a verse that had new meaning for me in these circumstances. Hebrews 11:8-10 is speaking of Abraham and his obedience and faith in following God.

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land, like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 

Why did Abraham leave everything he knew- his country, his people, his father's household? Why was he obedient? Because he knew this world was not his home.  This has been a huge lesson for me this past year. No, I am not comfortable a lot of the time in this strange (yes, still, even after a year) land. But I have spent a large part of my life doing things to make myself more comfortable. Avoiding situations where I wouldn't know what to do or what to say. Staying in my bubble of Christian friends and church events and rarely, very rarely engaging the world outside of that bubble. Because I didn't know how. Because that world made me uncomfortable.  But God did not call any of us to comfort. In fact, there are very few comfortable stories in the Bible. Why? Because this world is not our home.  No matter how shiny our lives look, they are temporary.  And it doesn't matter if we live in first world North America or third world Asia…..if we look at our daily or weekly lives and there is nothing we are doing that gets us even slightly out of our comfort zones, we need to ask if we are really being obedient to God's commands.  The day we landed in Laos I read a blogpost by another mom living overseas. She said: "Safety and comfort lead only to complacency and control rather than humility and dependance." Those words jumped out at me. I put them on my phone as a screensaver this past year and have looked at them often. It is a huge reminder that we should not always feel safe and in control.

My husband always says time passes very strangely overseas. And it's true. In a way I feel like I stepped off the plane yesterday and also that I've been here for years. I thought after a year I would be fluent in the local language, have a group of close friends and found a church to go to most weeks. None of that has happened yet.  But things have happened in a year that we did not expect so quickly, like finding land to buy for the company and a village to invest in. I have been most amazed this year by things that most people would find not significant enough for a newsletter. Like a small, clean afternoon market opening up near our house where I can literally run in and out everyday with just the things I need, or a little boy exactly Carter's age moving in across the street. These are small gifts from a Heavenly Father who does not promise comfort, but abundant life in Him.