Water

Our time back in the States hasn't just been for connection, rest and seeing family.  The time back has also given us an opportunity to develop some skills that can help us in South East Asia.  This past week I spent 5 days in West Texas learning how to drill water wells from Water For All.  

Before getting any farther, I just want to take a minute and brag on Water For All.  The course was run by a couple of missionaries who had decades of overseas experience.  While living overseas they developed a simple, indigenous, and easily replicated method of meeting a need among their people.  Basically, instead of someone spending thousands of dollars on digging a water well, a well can be dug using the WFA method for about $100.  This allows the local people to create their own wells, fix them when they break and create a movement to teach others to dig wells for themselves.  It is a great model and f you have a few extra minutes it is worth checking out their video on how and why they do what they do.

So what do water wells have to do with coffee?

Actually a lot.

A huge misconception is that the world needs water wells because people lack clean water. A more true statement would be that the world needs water wells because people lack water at all.  The problem is more of a quantity issue instead of a quality issue.  If people have a reliable source of water they can usually clean it up by straining, boiling, etc.  The real problem lies in not having a close reliable source of water.  And close is an important word in that statement.  Hauling a few gallons of water several miles each day (even if it is clean water from a well) gets old in a hurry.  So having a close reliable source of water is essential.  This is especially true when it comes to agriculture.

Where we live in South East Asia, there is little irrigation.  If farmers want water they have to find a river and haul it to their farm.  We're having to do this now in order to water our shade trees (at least until I dig our well this spring).  Hauling water isn't feasible for most, so they rely on rainfall. But having water would change the lives of most of these famers.  For example, in our country the rice farmers get one crop a year.  Right across the border in country where most farmers irrigate, farmers can get three crops a year.  This means triple their income.  And when you sit down with someone and tell them about how they can quickly make three times more money in a year, you'll become very good friends.  And good friends are open to talking about anything, including the Gospel.

So it was a great week learning how to dig a water well.  It becomes another tool in my toolbox for being able to reach the people in South East Asia.  And my hope is that it will be a benefit not only to our farm, but possibly to all the farmers in our area.

Home

There are some disadvantages to being a small organization.  We run on a fraction of the funding of large organizations, we don't always fit into models of people that have done this before, and we run almost exclusively on volunteers.  There are however, some great things about being a small organization.  We have a lot of flexibility, we have personal relationships with everyone involved with our organization and we don't have to follow a "one size fits most" model.  I love being in a smaller organization that allows us to have flexibility and fit the needs of our family and ministry.

One of the biggest discussions we've been having is what does rhythm look like for our family.  Because Underground Coffee International is a business as mission (BAM) model, we have a lot of things on the U.S. side of things that need to be taken care of.   Throw in fundraising, connecting up with churches and the need to spend time with family and there are a lot of things to factor in to what the rhythm of U.S. life and life in Asia look like.

So over the next three months we are going to spend time back in the U.S.  I hesitate to call it a break; usually I refer to it as still working and missions but just wearing a different hat.  Instead of spending time with farmers, growing coffee and learning language I'll be connecting with churches and telling stories about what God is doing on the other side of the world.  I'm excited about the change of pace (and the change in weather).

Land Clearing (and how worse can be better)

In my last post I told the story of our test farm in the village.  The goal of the farm is to provide a place where villagers can come and learn new techniques, share information and hopefully hear about the Gospel.  The farm also gives us a physical presence in the village and, in a lot of ways, gives us some street cred. with the farmers that live there.  Each time we're there we are seen less and less like outsiders and more like people who grow coffee in their village.

So the goal of the farm is to share information and to be relational.  We're not counting on it to be a big moneymaker for growing coffee.  We can try some new things there and if they work, great; and if they don't work, well we haven't bankrupted any farmers in the village.  We also want the farm to be a place that helps pump money into the village economy by providing jobs to some key individuals and allowing us to buy coffee from the farmers.

Now that rainy season is ending we have tons of little farm projects that we are trying to get going.  The first (and biggest) is clearing the land and planting shade trees so that we can get coffee planted next spring.  There are lots of bushes and tall grass on the land that need to be cleared out.  And because we're on an extinct volcano there are some big volcanic rocks that we would like to get out of the way.  The plan has been that we'd go to town, rent a bulldozer and spend a couple days getting everything nice, clean and level.  We decided to change that plan after talking to one of our local partners.

One day a few weeks ago I asked our partner about the status of the pastor of the house church in the village.  He said that the pastor's family doesn't have enough money sometimes to eat and the pastor almost took a manual labor job in a far away village so they could have money.  He decided to stay in the village because he felt called to pastor the church, even if he doesn't make enough money doing it.  Later that week I was talking to the pastor and told him about our plan to clear the land with a bulldozer.  He said that if we wanted to do it a cheaper way he could organize a group of 10-villagers to clear the land for us for about half the cost.  In the end we agreed to a slightly higher price so long as they did a good job (which they did).

I went out to spend some time with the workers on a couple of the days when they were clearing the land.  The pastor was there along with several other people from the church (and a few who weren't from the church).  They worked for a while and then took breaks sitting under some trees, talking and eating snacks.  It provided the pastor the opportunity to talk to others in the village and hopefully share some about the Good News.

In the end, we're probably not going to have the most level farm in the world.  And there are still going to be some old volcanic rocks under the coffee trees.  The perfectionist in me is kind of bothered by this (although honestly neither being level or having rocks will affect the coffee).  I'm glad that we decided on the older, slow, and sometimes considered worse, way of clearing the land.  Taking the "worse" option allowed us to provide financially for several families in the village and made an opportunity for the pastor to share about Christ.