So I’m considering different slogans for Heavenly Harvest Coffee.
“A great cup of coffee with an even greater purpose.”
“Great coffee…Great commission.”
Write me and tell me which you like (or put it in the comments here) and give me any other ideas if you think you have something better.
I am very excited to let you know that we met in our new building Sunday (this should read “New building” like The Price is Right “New car!”). It was so nice. Our skylights worked great so we used no electricity, and the breeze was still there (some were afraid it would get stuffy). David got to do the first sermon in the new building. He talked about advice. Who you should take it from (not like the foolish king who took advice from the younger men instead of the elders and oppressed the people), how you should take it (like David when Nathan revealed his sin), and why Christians have to give advice (out of brotherly love).
I am also very excited to tell you that my brother-in-law, Chris, was baptized on Sunday in Austin. My sister threw a surprise party for him, and said they had a ton of fun! Pictures coming soon.
I think I probably shouldn’t have tried to list the things that the group brought. Everyday I think of something else that they brought us and I think, “Man, I didn’t even mention that.” Well, I appreciate it all!
I just got the information on the united church services that we had on June 11th. This was the second time that the church of Christ in Nicaragua has held the united services, the last time being in 2002. There were 6,653 people in attendance!! Wow, what a turn out! The great thing about this service is that all of the transportation was paid, so any congregation from Nicaragua that wanted to attend just had to let them know how many people would be going and they sent as many busses for them as needed. I wanted to get a picture of the communion supplies, but didn’t get the chance too. They were little plastic juice cups that had a foil cover, and on top of the foil cover, the size of the juice cup opening, was the bread which was covered in plastic. Very efficient for serving commuion to over 6,000 people!
The group sent me their pictures from the trip, so I’m working to get them in the gallery too. I have to do it 10 at a time, so it’s slow going, but they should be up soon.
I’m actually just getting to write because I just now crawled out of the mountain of laundry the group so lovingly left me. =) I had this great idea that the group should bring sheets and towels and such to leave here so that we would have them for other groups and they would have more packing space. Boy did I repent from that! Seriously, it wasn’t so bad, but it was a week long task with the electricity going off every once in a while and all.
We’re planning on updating the website (since it has been a year now) and adding the Heavenly Harvest Coffee. I’ve been working hard on trying to explain our mission plan and our different roles here. If you have any questions about the work, please ask so I can be sure and include the answers in the updated website.
I’m also planning the next quarterly mail out newsletter, so if you’d like to be on the list to receive this, and didn’t get the last one (about May or so), email me and I’ll add you.
Coffee sales are going really well! The Edmond group is doing a great job of selling. I think we’ve sold over 350 bags - that covers all the costs of roasting the 1000 bags, and the packaging and stickers for 2000 bags! So the rest of the revenue goes to farm expenses and supporting the works of the church. I’m so excited to finally see this take off! If you’d like to purchase some coffee, jot me an email and we’ll get your order sent off!
So, we have internet in the apartment again, and I think it’s for good this time. I thought the apartment manager was going to cry on the phone after I checked it and told him it worked great. He seriously had me on the phone for about 30 seconds praising God that it was finally done.
Since the last few days have been utterly boring, with me being sick and doing lots of laundry, I thought I’d try and make you all jealous by telling you what all the group brought us. It really was like Christmas! My favorite is a HUGE box of markers. It has 15 different colored markers with 16 of each color! We have pens, pencils, colored pencils, crayons, glue, tape, flashcards, legos, and battle ship. The kids asked me today if we got anymore games; so much for that attention span. Personally, we got an adaptor for a camera card so that we can use it like a disk (our CD drive still isn’t working right), and some movies and TV shows on DVD, Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper, Velveeta cheese (or whatever it really is), popsickle makers and tons of other stuff I just can’t think of it all right now (plus, I know you really are getting jealous now, and I don’t want to be responsible for that!).
They’ve started on the roof of the church building. It’s so exciting seeing it start winding up. Plus, once the roof is on, the rain can’t stop us. I promise to get pictures up soon!
We had a baptism last week. A man from San Marcos. It was great to have the group see the evangelistic side of the work as well, and that it is fruitful. The man who studied with him has an interesting story. He can’t read, but he knows all of the texts, so he evangelizes by giving a Bible to the person and directing them to certain Scriptures. He has been doing this for years. Isn’t this a great way to spread the gospel? Give it to the person and let them read and discover it for themselves.
We were able to have our coffee roasted and packaged for the group to take back! We had 1,000 pounds, and the group took back about 800 of it. David’s parents took the rest. We are hopful and have trust in God that this final step of the work will be successful, and continue to be successful so that we can eventually self-support the work here.
Speaking of coffee, last Friday we went to Segovia to roast the coffee. I was thinking we were just going to see the start of the process, but it turns out that you roast about 180 pounds at a time, and after each batch you taste it to see if the roast is good, or perhaps different batches need to be mixed to result in a better flavor. What I thought was going to be an hour or so turned out to be 7 hours. That was the day the group came, so it was a good thing we already had everything ready! We did end up mixing some batches, and came up with a flavor and aroma that we are VERY pleased with. You’ll just have to try it out for yourselves!
Today we had services in Managua with all the churches of Christ in Nicaragua. I don’t have final stats on how many attended, but they were expecting about 6,000. We had about 95 in attendance, including several visitors (attendance wasn’t too high because many parents left their kids with family to babysit them). Two of the farm workers, Roger and Jairo, came with us. Daniel, a worker of the farm and member of the church, brought his wife and daughter with him (their first time to attend services). The pictures I put up make the sky look really dark, but we just had a pleasant shading from the clouds and a nice breeze. Managua can get really hot, but God blessed us with a comfortable day.
Wow, what a week! Last Friday we picked the Edmond mission group up from the airport. The plane was only about an hour late (better than normal). We brought several members of the church with us to help greet them, and the kids made signs, which they were very embarrassed to hold up, but we made them do it anyway. Bethany, the youngest member of the team, entertained us all by waving to the group through the glass at luggage pick up for a full 10 minutes. We got home really late, and were up early the next day to do some coffee smelling and tasting. We tried 3 different mixes of our coffee (different roasting) and a few other coffees to compare them.
Then we were off to visit Alberto’s farm. He has a farm that is slightly larger than ours, and has been working on improvements for about 8 years, so it’s a good measurement of what we have to look forward to. Later in the day we went to the Crater Lake to see the view, and then to Masaya where we did some shopping and ate some Nicaraguan food.
Sunday we had services and then had a congregational meal afterwards. It was nice for the members to get to meet and interact with the Edmond group. Sunday evening we did some planning for the week.
Monday it was off to work! The guys went to work on the church building. They started digging the hole for the septic tank, and moving that dirt into the church building to level off the ground and fill in the stage area. Tuesday we called in our farm workers to help with some of the dirt work. By the end of the week, the men had dug a 30 feet deep hole, filled in the stage and leveled the floor, put in the rock side of the stage, and helped with the welding for the roof. They also helped build a temporary structure for a member of the church whose house had fallen over in a storm (it was wood and tarp and the tarp for the roof filled up and it all came down), and put tarp around Juan Pablo’s house (some of the wood has gaps where the rain gets in). What a busy week!
The girls weren’t lounging around either. We held VBS about the life of Christ for over 70 kids Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We thought our attendance would be down on Wednesday because it was raining, but we made 80 goodie bags and handed them all out! We had about 4 who weren’t there. Lee Anne did a great job leading VBS. She taught new songs, and had some of the youth help with the skits that taught the lesson. For activity time, the kids made T-shirts, picture frames that we filled with their pictures, tool belts, and much more. The members of Edmond were so generous in their donation of items, that we were able to give goodie bags with coloring books, crayons, pencils, scissors, stickers, socks, toys, and such to each child. While we weren’t occupied with VBS, we were filling bags of food (we bought hundred pound sacks and divided it) for the care packages for the families. We were able to give beans, rice, oil, sugar, salt, pasta, oatmeal, matches, and coffee as well as clothes and toothbrushes to each family.
I think I’ll have to make this a two part newsletter. More tomorrow…
So we just left the airport to see the team off to the states. The trip went great and everything went smoothly. We even had a 1 hour window of internet in the apartment yesterday! We got a lot of work done on the church building. The floor is leveled and ready for the tiles, the support bars for the roof are welded together and about half are already put up. We got about 30 of the 33 feet dug for our sewage hole. Lots of hard work, and lots of mud! We also had VBS for 70 to 80 kids and gave away care packages of school supplies, food, and clothes. That’s the quick summary (since I’m using the hotel internet), and we’ll get some pictures and more details up soon!