Church

As Christians, church is one of those irreplaceable things for us.  And living overseas doesn't change that.  I would even make the case that because we have a life overseas, a life filled with isolation and difficulties to connect with others, that being a part of a community of believers is even more important.  Living overseas also makes church much more difficult...

A little insider secret is that many missionaries never really connect to a local body of believers.  It is hard.  There are cultural differences.  It is confusing.  With the exception of picking out a tune to a familiar hymn or a word here or there in a sermon, basically the whole service makes no sense.  And it is also uncomfortable (especially if you're trying to corral a toddler while packed in a small room and sitting on the floor).  There's also some security issues if, like us, they are living in a country where the government closely monitors churches.  

However, we came back to South East Asia in January and had committed to being involved in a church here at least two times a month.  Not going to just go and sit in the service, but being an active and involved part of that body.  Because we have developed relationships in our village, we had attended the small house church there throughout the last year and, even though it is over an hour drive from our house, we started going there.

Over the past several months, the relationships we've formed there have started to feel like extended family.  People have welcomed us, helped us, and allowed us to worship alongside of them despite our differences.  Even though village Sundays make for very long days, we look forward to seeing our church family there.

One of our church's biggest projects over the past several months has been constructing a building.  Everyone in the church gave money, time and energy to work on it.  We've had several church workdays in the past few months to try and finish up all the construction.  This past Saturday we finally finished the building and on Sunday morning we had our inaugural service in the building.

The service was a great time of rejoicing and a banner day for the church.  If you've ever been to a kickoff church service in the US, the feel is the same here.  Several of the house churches in surrounding villages came to join and there was over 50 people in attendance (which is huge for our little corner of the world).  This weekend was a great reminder of how truly blessed we are to be a part of what God is doing here and an encouragement to continue to be a part of this Body.

End of a Busy Season

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple months.  As the title indicates, things have been a little hectic around here.  Honestly, I'm only finding the time to write because it has been pouring rain almost non-stop for the last 24 hours.  Although May and June have been hectic, there have been some great victories.  I'll try to give a little bit of a recap:

One of the biggest things here at Underground Coffee is the addition of a new family that will be working with us in South East Asia.  They are from the Philippines and have been lifelong friends of Luv-Luv.  Since we're in an area where we can't talk openly about names, we'll call them BA and his family.  BA and his family have spent several years working as missionaries in another country.  He came to visit on a scouting trip last year, felt God calling them here, and then moved here to work with us in January.  Because his youngest daughter was born overseas and some of the documents weren't filed correctly, his family couldn't come with him.  He went home for April and the first half of May to help them prepare for the move, and in the middle of the month, they were all able to come here and join the team.  It has been great having them, but there is a lot of adjustment involved with living in a new country and joining a new team.

We've also had several visitors out during the last two months.  We've had three small groups of people come on vision trips.  Some to see the coffee, some to see the school we work with, and all of them to see how God is working here in our area.  It is great to get to see friends, and I enjoy playing tour guide, so it is a good time when they come out to visit.  Thankfully all of the groups were just a couple of people, so logistics were easy and I was able to focus on spending time with them instead of trying to figure out how to get one place or another.

The other big thing we've been working on, for the last three weeks, is planting coffee.  This year we decided to plant two hectares (5 acres).  Since this was our first time to do this, we thought it'd be a good amount to start on.  It ended up being WAY more work than we anticipated.  Luv-Luv came back out for three weeks to help oversee planting and train BA, and he was a life-saver on helping with the work.  The two of them camped out on the farm several days each week and had to manage 30+ workers each day.  I was there most days too, and it was amazing to see so many people from our village come and help work on our small test farm.  We were able to meet lots of new people, and now every time I drive through the village I see familiar faces and people wave.

With the last of the coffee planted just over a week ago and the final group on a plane two days ago, now is a perfect time for the rains to come.  It is also a perfect time for our school to end for the summer and for us to be able to take a much needed vacation.  Over the next two weeks we're traveling to the Philippines to be a part of Luv's wedding.  It'll be great to share in his big day (as well as spend a little time afterward on a nice beach).  Now that things are slowing down, I promise to be a little better about keeping the blog updated.

Meeting Monday

The past few months here have been busy.  Among many other things, we've added a new Filipino team member, hired on an additional local guy (we now have two working with us), have cleared out another 2.5 acres of farm land, and are preparing for coffee planting in the next two months by buying fertilizer and finalizing our game plan.  We've also purchased some land along the main road so that we can start to build our new office and coffee processing/wet-milling station.  Needless to say, there hasn't been a lot of down-time.

Despite the busyness, one of the things that we've started as a team is having a meeting every Monday morning in the village.  The Filipinos, one of our local partners and I all get in the car and drive up to the village and meet with our local farm manager there.  We talk about plans for the week, the vision for what we're doing, and think about what needs to happen throughout the month so that we can accomplish those goals.  I even bought a whiteboard with a calendar and everything!  For most of the guys that I'm working with, this is all brand new.  They've never worked at a place where they are part of the planning process.  They've never been asked "What do you think?" and actually had the business plans based off of their answer.  I've noticed that in the few months we've been doing this, our guys have taken more ownership and responsibility of the coffee company and what we have going on.

Also, before we get into the planning part of the meeting, the five of us sit down together for a quick devotional.  All of us have been missionaries or pastors in some capacity over the years, and it is good to sit down together and discuss the application of scripture to our context and what is going on here in our little corner of South East Asia.  Usually I'll talk about a passage for a couple minutes and then open it up to what the other guys think.  There is normally another ten minutes or so of discussion from the other guys with insights from their own walk and past ministry experience.  After that we talk about prayer requests and spend time praying for one another.  The custom here is for everyone to pray out loud at the same time, so we do.  We have three different languages going, all praying for the same things.  After our meeting we usually share a meal together and then get to work on things out on the farm.

Back in America, I used to have Meeting Monday and it was the worst day of the week.  Now it is my favorite.