A few months ago, I wrote a blog called Faithful with Little about this season and the little things that God has called us to this year. It was an overview and a tiny glance into what this season is looking like. Now that we are a few months into the year, I wanted to give you a more practical and vulnerable peek into our life, this season, and what faithfulness looks like day by day.
First things first, we wrestle with feeling purposeless. Let’s face it. When we are across the world in Africa, sharing the gospel every day with someone new, we don’t feel purposeless. But here, in this season, in the current day-to-day tasks, it is something we fight. I just want to remind you just like the Holy Spirit reminds us. This season is not purposeless. We have a purpose and need to be in this season. We are preparing the ground for the harvest. It is hard work time. It is the work that bears no immediate fruit and in our culture of instant gratification that is hard. But it is worth it and it is meaningful. You can’t have fruit without this time of planting and tending the ground.
We also wrestle with motivation, or a lack of motivation. We struggle with wanting to do the daily tasks, the more “boring” ones. It can be hard to want to stick with something when you don’t see it leading anywhere or when it seems like you are not succeeding. Even while processing and writing this blog, I struggled with not wanting to. But nevertheless, we must persist.
Right now, we are continuing to run and manage Gospel Coffee. The basics look like packaging and shipping coffee, coordinating with our roaster to get coffee roasted, pressing t-shirts, social media updates, Gospel Coffee business meetings, phone calls with contacts, and things of this nature.
To achieve our goals of making a greater impact in the regions we currently support through Gospel Coffee, our plan is to buy larger amounts of coffee at each location. However, at each location, this looks a little different.
In Indonesia, we have been having phone calls with our contacts, Ron and Ria, to coordinate buying and shipping ideas and costs. The latest plan is to buy from a man that we met while we were there and let me tell you, his coffee is PHENOMENAL. But finding enough coffee to fill up a shipping palette and having the finances to do that has been tricky. Currently, we have a way to obtain a smaller amount of coffee, which is more manageable and less financially taxing. As we grow, we hope and pray we are able to buy larger amounts to support our contacts in Indonesia in their endeavors to make disciples and evangelize to the Indonesian people.
In Mexico, we are currently on a pause with coffee buying. We have bought a second time from our location in Oaxaca and still have coffee. This location is easier to obtain coffee from, even in smaller amounts than a palette which is 1600 lbs of coffee. There is less to manage with shipping since we can have shipped all on land and it’s fairly close to the US. Our next steps with the Bible are being worked out and we are still praying about our contacts in Mexico and for the little church that we made connections with. We are trusting God to work out all the details.
Lastly, in Kenya, we are in the process of making progress. Our goal for Kenya is not only to buy green coffee from our contacts but to assist them in creating a place to be able to water process coffee. This could allow Standing in the Gap Kenya to be contracted by others in the area to process their coffee cherries. It could give the men and women in the discipleship program job opportunities, as well as skills and the discipline that comes with working. We are so hopeful and excited about where this is headed. However, currently, working out the details is pretty mundane and kind of tedious. For instance, we have to work with a time and language barrier to communicate with our contacts, Willis and Mary. We have to work around harvest time in Kenya. In addition, both Willis and ourselves are working on learning more about this process, as neither of us has previous knowledge in the coffee growing, harvesting, and processing realm.
And I think that’s why I want to share this. One to give you a picture of our daily life, and two, because not everything is glamorous and we don’t always just want to do what God has asked us to do. The key to faithfulness is doing it anyway. The key to perseverance is doing it anyway. So many Scriptures urge us to “press on” to “stand firm” to “keep up the good fight” and to “not grow weary of doing good”. And that’s for a reason. Because sometimes we want to give up. Sometimes the “fight” is hard. Or sometimes it simply seems mundane. But I want to remind us, keep going. Press on! Keep up the good fight!
Shalom from the Gospel Coffee Crew
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