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"!"