hearts for unity.

Brookwood Baptist Church
Shreveport, Louisiana

These guys came to visit me two weekends ago, and can I please tell you that their hearts for Shreveport and the members of their congregation have simply touched my heart.

Their hope and their prayer is to see the different phases of their community united together in love--just like Rwandans!

They have ministries for the elderly, children and young adults in their church as well as the special needs children of Shreveport and their families who are often overlooked and turned away from church doors.

Brookwood Baptist, I am proud that you have decided to drink coffee & do good! Here's to future of Shreveport and to the future of Bukonya!

sneakers.

I wonder what it would look like if you made a visual map of dots in a space to depict the number of marbles each of us are juggling and their respective importance in relation to each other?
what i wish would look like this...
calm, cool, collected
probably looks more like this:
anxious, frantic and in danger of dropping everything.

Healthy work environments include healthy perspectives on your work. Recognizing what you can do as well as what you cannot do.

For some of us that requires more effort on restructuring so we can even being to understand what is a priority and what is not. For some of us that meets having the strength to just say "no" to things we really don't have the time, desire, or ability to accomplish.

For some of us it means getting up and actually doing all the things we've said we're going to do. This creates a healthy sense of pride for our work and seeing that we can achieve good things will motivate us to continue achieving our goals.

Most people who say they're not runners
never even get their shoes on.
Jonathan Golden

I often stress the importance of simplifying, streamlining & prioritizing as well as letting your actions speak for you. Recognizing what you can do and also what you can't; but you know what? Sometimes it's just good to cross something off the list...cross anything off the list. And don't cheat like I do sometimes (you know, adding something you've already done and then crossing it off). Sometimes you have to put your shoes on and just start running--just get something done!

The past couple weeks, along side my brilliant team members, I've been working on cementing the information and acceptance packets for the Bukonya Excursions planned for Dec 2009 and Summer 2010.

So I've started running. And you know what? I think I kind of like it.

Know why?

Because next week I won't be telling you I'm working on the excursions, I'll be telling you they're DONE!

So. New goal: Instead of shoes that look like this:

Let's have shoes that look like this!!!!

So tune in next week. It's gonna be a sight to behold.
Kind of like this:

building trust. building bukonya.

The stories of Rwanda inspire me every day to be a better person: to challenge myself more, to forgive more, to trust more, to live more, share more, be more.

I hope they can be the same for you.



This day was one of the greatest days of my life. I took this right after my interview with Clementine; right after the malnutrition assessments, the eye exams and a five hour long church meeting. I took it after joining Land of a Thousand Hills on Friday and getting on a plane Monday night...after drinking coffee at my church for over a year and hearing about the good we were doing by drinking specialty Rwandan coffee. I took it after realizing I had to be a part of this story because it really is more than just a cup of coffee.

When I say you should see the hills, I really mean it.

drink coffee. do good.
-cd

murakoze

Everyone, meet Bruno.


Bruno sent me this picture with his first bag of Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee.

He called me to tell me that he had gotten the coffee on his lunch break and would be heading back to the office wearing his brand new Drink Coffee Do Good t-shirt and taking his coffee to share with his coworkers.

"Christina, I am so proud that I can go back and share with them the coffee that is from my country. I am so proud, you just do not know. Murakoze (thank you), Christina!"

All day long I dream up ways for me to help get others involved in the story of Rwandan coffee.
As I recall the emotion in Bruno's voice, I'm struck by what a privilege it is to be invited into your stories as well.

Murakoze, Bruno!!!
Murakoze to all who are drinking coffee & doing good!

2 + 2 = 6

Wanting to do something is a lot different from doing it.

As we walked along the hillside in Bukonya, Jonathan and I were introduced to two orphans, one of whom suffers from extreme malnutrition.

Before close of day, Jonathan had found out where the family of orphans lives, a small cottage the size of an average walk-in-closet, and arranged to take to them some of the sandwiches we had left over from our packed lunch. He insisted on taking them himself so he could be absolutely positive they were delivered that day—that instant.

Some moments call for reflection. Some call for immediate action.

Laziness is a poor form of prudence when the moment calls for action.

I want to eat well. I want to exercise. I want to spend more time with my family. I want to get eight hours of sleep a night. I want to learn Greek, French and Hebrew. I want to learn to play the violin and the piano. I want to paint more and write more.

These things require timing, planning, and intentional arrangement of my days and weeks in order to make sure that I have time for them to happen. When I don’t set them as goals and when I don’t set myself to accomplishing my goals, then they don’t get done. When you have a desire, and you make that desire a goal, it will require sacrifice. If you’re not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve your goal, I don’t recommend making it one. Sometimes you have to sacrifice things you think you want now for things you will want more in the future.

Some fights we fight for the principal. Some fights we fight to win. You won’t always win, even when you put everything you’ve got into it. But my, oh my, isn’t it nice to go down saying you gave it everything you had?

But you’ve got to know what you want to fight for. You have to know what you want to get behind. You must know what desires are strong enough to make goals because goals require plans and plans will require sacrifice.

One of my goals is to see a community in Rwanda transformed through coffee.
Part of my plan is to get you to make it one of your goals as well.
Then we’re working together.



Two heads are better than one.
Four hands are better than two.
Six are better than four.


I can't do this without you!

starfish and coffee

Ever played a wii sport and been frustrated because you felt like the controller didn't work only to realize it was your form that was preventing all those pins from falling together? Maybe you were trying to make that ace a little too fast in wii tennis or you twisted your wrist so far in wii bowling that you didn't quite connect the sensor to the base. Whatever it was, you had to spend time perfecting your form to make the connection. It's time consuming and it can be frustrating.

I've talked to some of you. Some of you are fighting cultures in churches that just don't seem to have the capacity to change. Some of you are working with individuals who think they get it, but they're really way off the mark. Some of you are fighting time, fighting budgets or fighting yourselves, struggling to make the connection.

Recently I've been struck by the idea of the process. Clementine and Claudette got that reconciliation with Jean is a process--that's why they joined their land to his land: so they could have a place to work out the process of reconciliation. The process is an art, a process that requires attention and consideration, consideration of how all the different stages of that process connect to make the whole. When we neglect perspective on the whole process, individual parts of the process can suffer!

Sports players know the importance of focusing in on every part of their swing. Their success in connecting with the baseball, golf ball, or achieving the right release point in bowling depends on how well they can manage the connection between every part of their swing.

Perfecting a process can also bog you down. You can get too far into the work to be able to see it clearly. Sometime we need to stop looking at the breakdown and revisit our goal, the desired outcome, and regain our perspective on what we're doing.

It's been two months since I was in Bukonya. Two months since I saw 75 out of what are approximately 500 children suffering from malnutrition. Tomorrow, our man on the ground, Innocent, is meeting with the providers of Nutri-form and investigating the provision of a peanut-based suppliment by the Rwandan government. Before I spoke to Woody, one of our supporters from Florida, I had a pretty poor perspective on the situation. All I was seeing was 60 days. Woody saw starfish and told me this story:

There once was a little boy walking along a beach full of starfish. Every step he took he stooped down to pick up a starfish and throw it back into the water. An older gentleman, coming from the other direction, stopped the little boy and asked him what he was doing. The little boy said he was saving the starfish. The gentleman looked at the little boy and said, "Little boy, you'll never save them all."

In reply, the little boy bent down, picked up a starfish and threw it back into the water. "Just saved that one," he replied, and kept walking, picking up a starfish every step and throwing it back into the ocean.

So where are you in your swing? If you're working on perfecting a specific stage, make sure you're fully focused and don't lose sight of how it connects to the entire process. If you happen to be where I am: if you're bogged down, too far in, too wrapped up in one part of your swing--if you seem to be stuck, then take a moment. Stop. Breathe. Take a walk. Refocus on your goal.

My goal?

One More Starfish.

be thou my vision.

This past Sunday I spoke at one of our supporting churches here in the greater Atlanta area. I love to speak in front of people. I once went all the way to the national level of the National Management Association's American Free Enterprise Speech Contest. I think if you google my name you can still find Lockheed Martin intercompany documentation of my participation. (Please don't.) I once dreamed of starting a company where I would make speeches for people, traveling across the country to different conventions speaking in the stead of brilliant minds who may or may not suffer from a serious case of stage fright.

As I scanned the congregation during stories of widows, orphans, victims and reconciliation, I noticed several tears being shed by several different people.

I found myself wondering why they were crying. What was it, specifically, that touched them to the point of tears?

Tears, scientifically, have a perfectly logical explanation. The lacrimal glands secrete lacrimal fluid which flows through the main excretory ducts into the space between the eyeball and the lids. When the eyes blink, the lacrimal fluid is spread across the surface of the eye.

O sistema lacrimal
a = glândula lacrimal; b = ponto lacrimal superior;
c = canalículo superior; d = saco lacrimal;
e = ponto lacrimal inferior; f = canalículo inferior;
g = canal lácrimo-nasal.

But why do we cry when we're happy, sad, angry, or upset? When your emotions rise, your limbic system gets involved. If the emotion is intense enough to activate the receptors in the parasympathetic branch of your autonomic system, your lacrimal gland will begin to produce tears. And since it's linked to your nasal cavity, it can cause sniffly, runny noses, coughing and redness of face as well.


Thank you, class, Biology 101 has released for the day. Your homework: when was the last time you cried and why? I'm only joking.

"Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while,
so that we can see Life with a clearer view again."
Alex Tan

My real question to you is this: did you see them?
They were in between the lines and in the margins.

They were in the back of your mind, underneath all the papers...

Sometimes it take a good cry for us to see things clearly.
Sometimes we're too busy to notice there is something worth shedding tears over.

Slow down. Look around. See Life.
Drink Coffee. Do Good.

Linguistically Speaking...

After dreaming of it for many years, it's now going to be possible for our supporters and coffee drinkers (YOU) to visit the Bukonya Coffee Cooperative!!!

I know! How exciting! So, the next time you're in Rwanda, planning a missions trip, or skipping town on a coffee lover's honeymoon package, be sure to keep us in mind!

What this whole process did start me pondering on is words. I recently finished C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces, which I highly recommend, and fancied this quote a great deal:

Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, “Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that’s the whole art and joy of words.”

The point of all of this is to say that what we have made available in Bukonya is not a tour, but a visit.

The word "visit" comes from the Latin word vīsitāre - go to see, or rather from the more frequently used form: vīsāre - to view or to see. I can go to see my Mother and I can see a tree on the side of the road. I can view paintings in an art gallery, but do I interact with them?

My point is this: Every time you drink a cup of Land of a Thousand Hills coffee, you're making a difference for someone. Social Justice is more than just a thought, it's an action--an investment in humanity. Through drinking coffee, you are already in community with the people of Rwanda. Now, I'd like for you to meet them. To visit with them.

Every day when I look at my soy latte, I picture Clementine sitting on the hillside in the setting sun, smiling peacefully as she tells me about Jean and the coffee they farm together.
I picture Pilaje.
I picture Manny, walking down the hill beside me as we talk coffee.

I picture our orphans.

I picture the children with malnutrition, and how many there are, and how coffee is going to provide them nutrition to become healthy again.

Every day I think about how to share with you about these people I have been blessed to sit and converse with in Bukonya. I pray the words I choose are accurate and expressive, because it's important to me that you fully comprehend the depth of Clementine's peace, the joy in the eyes and laughter of our orphans, and Manny's immense knowledge and love for excellence in coffee production. It matters to me because they matter to me, and I hope in some small way the words I choose help paint a picture where there is not yet a memory.

In the days between now and when we're standing together on the green hills of Rwanda, I leave you with a conversation between Alice and the March Hare and wish you luck today in not just meaning what you say, but in saying what you mean.

"Then you should say what you mean," the March Hare went on.

"I do," Alice hastily replied; "at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know."

"Not the same thing a bit!" said the Hatter,

"You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!"

trust.

Are you familiar with the team building exercise “The Trust Fall”? It’s where you climb up a pole or a tree to a platform 6-12 feet above the ground, cross your arms over your chest, and fall backwards into the tightly joined arms of two rows of people standing below you. You fall backwards into this net of arms and the idea is, when they catch you, you will have magically learned what it means to trust the people on your team. Make whatever analogies and draw whatever conclusion you will from this exercise. The only conclusion I ever drew from it was NOT to trust people. Why? My team didn’t catch me. It took a long time to rebuild my trust in that team.

“Trust is difficult to rebuild, even when there is forgiveness.”

That quote is from a sermon given by Archer Leupp at his church in Peshtigo, WI. The sermon is entitled “Losing the Weight of Unforgiveness.” As I listened to the sermon I was struck by many things, that phrase in particular struck me above all the rest.

It reminded me of my surreal encounter with three of our coffee farmers in Rwanda: Claudette, Clementine and Jean.

If you’re not sure about whom I am speaking, then you and I should connect and have a conversation about this amazing story!

Clementine and Claudette are two women who farm coffee alongside Jean—the man responsible for murdering their respective families during the 100 days of genocide in 1994.

When I asked Clementine how it is possible to forgive the man who murdered her father and three of her siblings in cold blood and not just to forgive him but to share land with him, to work side by side with him in her daily labors, and to share with him her hopes and dreams for the future. She told me that it was and is made possible by three things, “the government [who gave her the land and coffee trees], through farming coffee, and by the power of God.”

Can you believe that we’re a part of their story?
We drink their coffee!
We’re a part of what made and what continues to make this reconciliation possible!

You, me, Archer, Ali, Brian, Michael, Lauren, Cindy, Janvier, and so many more of you with whom I have connected and so many more of you I haven’t even met yet! We’re all a part of this story.

See? It really is SO much more than just a cup of coffee.

**Archer’s sermon can be found on FBC Pestigo’s webpage: http://fbcpeshtigo.com
**A .pdf of The Reconciliation Story can be obtained by shooting me an email asking for it! Christina@drinkcoffeedogood.com Or giving me a call at the office @ 1-866-875.4369

cart before the horse.

Cart Before The Horse.

Many years ago, a friend of Land of a Thousand Hills traveled overseas to do a Habitat for Humanity build. They were about to chop down a tree in the plot of land where the house was to be built when the future homeowners stopped them. The Americans were confused. Why were these people so adamant that this tree not be cut down? Did they not want the house to be built for them? Why would you try to save a tree when it would cost you a home?

Finally, the builders were able to understand that this tree, so insignificant to them, was actually a coffee tree, and the sole source of income for this family.

Which made me dream up this comic. How often do we put the cart before the horse? How often do we dream up a great idea and without thinking it through and end up doing more harm than good? How often do we cut down the tree so we can build the house without thinking of the purpose the tree might serve? Not just in our charity efforts but in our work relationships, our personal lives, and our private goals and ambitions?

Today, in one of our many conversation about what Land of a Thousand Hills is doing in Rwanda, Robert said something that really moved me.

"We are here to make sure there are no more orphans, Christina. We are giving parents jobs and paying them a living wage so they can support their children, not giving them handouts so that they become lazy and learn to rely on someone else for their bread and butter so that one day, when the money doesn't come anymore, they have no choice but to abandon their children to the streets to fend for themselves. There they will inevitably fall into prostitution or drug abuse, most likely both, and foster a whole new generation of children whose parents cannot provide for them. No. No, sir. I won't stand for it."

We have to make sure these kids in Bukonya have homes and families and food to come home to in the first place. What's the best way we can do that? We give their parents work. Real work. Sustainable work. Work they can be proud of, work they can believe in. Work they can pass on to their children so their children can provide for their future families. And out of the excess fruit of their labors we can then return to bless them.

Robert won't stand for it and neither will I. Not while I can help it. And I hope you won't either.

No carts before the horse here, people. Let's give these people work to do. Let's buy so much coffee that Bukonya has to open it's coffee fields to farmers from other districts who are commuting in to help farm enough coffee to meet our demand! Let's stand together against poverty by helping train people's hands while we help them heal their hearts and their families and their communities. That's how we change lives. That's how we make a lasting difference.

The more coffee we drink, the more good we do. Why?
Because it's more than just a cup of coffee.

drink coffee. do good.

it's an invitation.

The church service had been going on for almost two hours when a group of children in matching outfits filled the stage. I sat wide eyed they turned to face where Jonathan and I were sitting. This wasn't going to be a performance for the church, it was something special these children had prepared for our visit. As they began to dance a grin split my face in two and my heart began to swell. I love watching Rwandans dance. They use their entire bodies; they use their entire souls.

A few moments into their song, my friend Innocent leaned over and said to me, "These are the orphans of Bukonya. They have prepared this song you for and for Jonathan. The song they are singing to you says,

'Satan had a plan to destroy us,

but God invited Americans to come and support us.' "

Then, they INSISTED that Jonathan and I join in the dancing.

Incredible to see how joyful they are, how full of life! You were never know they were orphans who have suffered the trauma of genocide.

A few facts for you:

Nearly 1 million people lost their lives in the Rwandan 100 days of genocide perpetrated in 1994.
Statistics suggest that approximately 300,000 children perished.
95,000 children were left without parents, some lost their entire families, siblings included.
95,000 children watched their mothers, fathers and siblings be brutally murdered. Mothers and sisters were often raped by known hiv-positive males, most were throw into ditches, forced to beat, kill and rape each other, or left on the side of the road to fester and die slow, painful deaths.

And these are the smiling, dancing faces you see today. What a transformation.

The truth of their song humbled me. What they are singing is true. It's an invitation. God has invited you to be a part of something. We have the choice to say "yes" and we have the choice to say "no"--that's the gift of free will.

I'm here to tell you this invitation isn't to sell all your belongings and move to Rwanda. It's not to give half of your monthly wages away. This invitation is to make an intentional decision to do good every time you brew a pot of coffee. That's easy enough, right?

It's more than just a cup of coffee.
drink coffee. do good.

the road to bufcafé.

The road to Bufcafé is a hard one. Twenty minutes from the center of town there is a 145-degree left turn that takes you off paved road onto a road of packed red clay that is anything but smooth. The paved road was level. The clay road winds, dips, and climbs its rippled and potted way up into the green Rwandan hillside. There are still people everywhere. They line the sides of the road in bright, often mismatched clothing. I am amazed at their ingenuity, at a stack of sacks the size of a chest-of-drawers strapped to the back of a 13 year old’s bicycle; at a five year old boy balancing on his head a roll of green, leafy sticks as tall as I am and so thick I doubt I could even wrap my arms around it. Who are these people? I have seen the houses they live in. They are small, probably the size of your average dining room and used for as many people as you can fit inside. Sayidi, my driver, fits nine: himself, his wife, six children and two orphans. I have seen their streets, their water, their poverty, and still I marvel at their joy, their passion and their contagious smiles. Who are these people? Where did each one come from? Where are they going? How? And with what motivation? To what end?

The steep, winding road to Bufcafé is also the road to meet Epiphanie. Epiphanie lost her husband in the genocide of 1994. Years later, living in abject poverty with little more than hope for a better future, Epiphanie joined alongside many others at one first coffee washing stations in Rwanda. If the term “coffee washing station” sounds vague to you, imagine what it was for Epiphanie. “No one knew what to do,” she tells us through our translator, Krissy. Less than ten years ago Epiphanie was one woman at one coffee washing station. Today she not only runs one but employees nearly 7,000 Rwandans in the process. Ten years ago she knew nothing about washing coffee beans. Today she is the sole-proprietor and entrepreneur of Bufcafé, one of the more successful coffee washing stations in all of Rwanda. Less than ten years ago she had almost nothing. Today she sells her coffee around the world.

It is impossible not to smile when she looks at you. There is a kindness and a peace that emanates from her smile. She reminds me of an ancient oak tree, well rooted and strong. An economic downturn that reaches even her will not stop her from singing and dancing. (Here is a short clip of Jonathan and I dancing with Epiphanie and her workers when we first arrived at Bufcafé. Epiphanie is in blue.)

You can see it in her eyes. This woman has survived many storms in her life and she will survive this one too. She knows each of her 7,000 employees by name. She knows their families, where they went to school, and who they are as people. She knows that tomorrow is another day, and that her life has the potential to positively impact others.

I am grateful for this meeting with Epiphanie. Not just for the opportunity to know her story, but for the opportunity to know her as a person. For the opportunity to see hope for a better future still shining out from her gentle eyes.

Meeting her has given strength to my dream. A dream that really is more than just a good cup of coffee. The dream is life, justice, growth, health, compassion, truth and reconciliation—it is hope for a better future. We can help Epiphanie, her 7,000 employees and thousands of other Rwandan’s achieve a better life just by drinking their coffee.

Which makes me wonder. How are you doing? Did you have a cup of coffee today? Do you know where it came from and the name of who grew it? Was it good? More importantly, did it do good? I sincerely hope so.