When we arrived at what we’ve come to know as the “center” of Chadirac, where the coffee trees are being grown, a couple of us realized that the bumpy ride had caused a “nature call” of sorts, and as a result, we got to be the first on our team to experience the community pit latrine.  Allow me to say it was a PLEASANT suprise.  It was incredibly clean, concrete, and had seemed to have no smell at all.  That may seem trivial to share, but believe me, when you are over an hour up a mountain and that is the only toilet, it matters!  Those who built it did their job well.

Our job for the day was to clear the space for what will eventually be the community coffee wash station.  This central location will allow all the families in the community to work together to process their coffee beans and prepare them for the drying process, after which they will be packaged and shipped to Land of a Thousand Hills in Atlanta. This meant that multiple banana trees would be cut down, their stumps removed from the ground, and all of the material used to create a retaining wall on the downhill side of the hill.  Then we would pull the uphill dirt down against it to begin to fill in and create a more level area.  Dirty work?  no doubt.  Tiring?  YES.  fun?  ABSOLUTELY.  We all hit the ground with picks, hoes, and rakes and it seemed like community members just started appearing from everywhere.  We worked solidly for 2 hours, and the hillside slowly began to transform.

Changing up the afternoon, we jumped back in the 4x’s and headed up the hill to the twice a week market day at Gwayavye.  As we wandered through the crowded marketplace on the top of a hill, the smells and sounds of the local vendors seemed to consume your senses.  It was an area awash with color, laughter, food, families, and excitement.  Then we headed over a few hillsides to the nursery where the second set of coffee plants is being grown.  As a treat, we took a hike up what looked like a goat trail to the top of a hill that provided us with an amazing view of Haiti’s surrounding countryside.  While the climb seemed straight up, the view at the top was worth it.

Upon our return down the hill to town, we ran our usual pre-dinner routine of cleaning up, then enjoyed our dinner of rice, pototoes, and a conch, fish, and shrimp combination that was delicious.  Post dinner, we began to share our stories for the day, and please believe me when I say that if you know any of the members of this team, you will want to ask them to share their experience with you when they return.  These evening debrief times have become a valuable piece of the trip, and something we all, I believe, look forward to every night.  Until tomorrow, adieu.

to see pictures of day 4, visit the Chadirac and Gwayavye set on Flickr

View photos from Easter to Catalyst West at our Flickr Photostream

Grace Harvest Church – Moorepark, CA

Our first time to stop at Moorepark, Grace Harvest was hosting Pastor Emmanuel Sackey, our partner and Pastor from Somanya, Ghana, Africa.  We haven’t seen Pastor Sackey in over a year, so it was great to reconnect and have time to refresh vision with him!  Watch for some exciting things coming soon connected to Pastor Sackey, Share5, and Revival Harvest Ministries.

Catalyst West Coast II – Irvine, CA

Back for it’s second year at Mariner’s Church in Irvine, CA, the crew of Catalyst West put on another great conference.  Amy spent a good portion of her time with the Land Of a Thousand Hills Coffee crew, and I volunteered with the Catalyst team in the resource store.  The kids?  Well, they were doing one of their favorite things… encouraging people to Drink Coffee Do Good.

Emily and Dillon rocking with Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee from Share5 by WorldWins on Vimeo.

You undoubtably ask how on earth can a person do all of these things before breakfast?  The secret lies below the frothy surface of my morning’s Double Bohoro Bohoro Latte (with a touch of vanilla.)  “Bohoro Bohoro” – Translated it means “Slowly, Slowly.”  It is the phrase that a priest will use to describe how reconciliation between a Hutu and their Tutsi countrymen will happen, and it is the name on the bag of these roasted seeds of redemption from Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee that I hold in my hand.  I’ll let them tell their story.

The coffee beans in this bag traveled more than 8,000 miles just to make it into your cup. Each one was hand picked on a Rwandan farm, tenderly cared for along a journey down a bumpy dirt road on a coffee bicycle, and eventually traveled across the whitecaps of the Atlantic Ocean to make it to Roswell, Georgia, where they are roasted in small batches by an Artisan roaster for what will undoubtedly be one of the best cups of coffee you ever taste. But the geographic distance is not what makes this coffee amazing. The longitude and latitude, although exotic, are not where the miracle lies.

The true distance of these beans, the real journey, is that they traveled a road of forgiveness. These beans represent reconciliation. These beans represent grace and hope for a people torn apart by violence. In the same way you come together with friends over a cup of coffee, farmers torn apart by genocide in Rwanda are coming together in their coffee-growing community. Great healing is taking place. For Hutus and Tutsis, orphans and mothers, reconciliation is becoming 3D. Grace is alive.

And with these beans, with each bag, up to $3 travels back into the Rwandan economy providing a just, Living Wage for each farmer. That is the distance these beans traveled to make it here. From hurt to hope. From loss to life. From Rwanda to you.  (- from the bag label on my Bohoro Bohoro Espresso, Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Company.  Written by John Acuff)

So… can your coffee do that?

Find out more and start your next morning differently at DrinkCoffeeDoGood.com

Couple great excerpts from the article:

• What emerged from Pritchard's keynote talk was not a passion for the
  environment so much as a passion for people, their health and
  well-being, and particularly for social justice. "If our abuse of the
  environment raises, for example, the rate of debilitating asthma
  attacks, then it is a compassion issue for the church." (Rusty Pritchard, Co-Founder of Flourish)

• South Atlanta pastor Leroy Barber spoke of how his church worked to
  "green my 'hood." His parishioners live with all the unsightly and
  unsanitary things other Atlanta neighborhoods avoid: chemical plants,
  an auto impound lot from another municipality, a landfill, poor public
  transportation. He described his church's efforts to improve the lives
  of their neighbors through economic development, health and nutrition
  programs, and even pedestrian safety campaigns. "That's good news for
  the poor," he said.

• The dominant spiritual message was the need for neighbor love and the social justice activity neighbor love entails.

• A number of social justice ministries were represented at the conference. The most popular booth belonged to Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee,
  (a Share5 Partner ministry!) with its slogan–"Drink Coffee. Do Good."–and its endless urns of
  really good joe. The ministry helps Rwandan genocide survivors to form
  coffee-growing co-ops, then helps them speed their best beans to market
  where they command top prices. These co-op farmers typically increase
  their revenues by a factor of 4.5, exceeding the prices paid in
  fair-trade programs. Land of a Thousand Hills markets their product to
  and through churches.

            (all excerpts pulled directly from the Christianity Today article…)

It is great to hear that there is a movement of compassion finding its way into all corners of Chrisitanity today.  If not compassionate, what are we when it comes to our daily lives?  If we lack compassion, can we really call ourselves Christ-like?

The highlight of our involvement with Land of a Thousand Hills in the last year, however, happened in late February when the first Sustainable Cycle Coffee Bikes were delivered to the eagerly awaiting Bukonya Coffee Growers in Rwanda!  These grower families were able to purchase their new custom-designed cargo bikes as the result of two-year microfinance loans provided both from LOTH coffee sales and direct donors to the project.    – A handful of these loans were directly funded by Share5 donors!  -  The great thing about these loans (and microfinance in general) is that in 2 years, we can use the same money to fund another loan to another grower!  Your gifts keep on giving!

Before custom-designed cargo bikes were made accessible to coffee farmers, Rwandans either walked 4 or 5 miles to collection points or used dangerous homemade wooden bikes (see photo) to deliver their cherries. Not only were the wooden bikes unsafe, they were not efficient and often completely unsuitable for carrying the heavy bags of cherries.

In 2005 Tom Ritchey, a pioneer in the world of mountain biking and owner of Ritchey Design, created a cargo bike that enables coffee farmers to travel safer, faster, and deliver a higher quality bean as a result.  This higher quality means a premium price for the growers, resulting in an increase in both income and quality of life.

By your support of Share5 and our microfinance projects like the sustainable cycle loans, you are making these amazing moments possible.  I remember sitting with tears in my eyes as I first saw the photo above of these first 8 bikes in the hands of the families who will put them to use during the 2009 harvest season.  Enjoy the fruits of their labors, and yours, with a cup of Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee today, and thank you to those who have participated in this amazing ministry.

Be a part of changing lives around the world! 
Fund a Sustainable Cycle Loan through Share5 ($250) (Remember, it gets REUSED once REPAID!)

     or…
Contribute $5 or more monthly to the Share5 Network Fund

Share5 Overview – Background and Partners from Share5 by WorldWins on Vimeo.

The video above is the first 10 minutes of the message spoken by Chad in April at New Heart Foursquare in Simi Valley, CA.  While the message for the day was "Walking on the Roof", these first minutes provide an overview of Share5, our personal story, and some of our great partner ministries.  Enjoy!

For even more fun at Catalyst West Coast, Share5 is proud to announce that thanks to the willingness and collaborative efforts of SEVERAL people, (Zak White, Scott Fillmer, Outreach Films, jLog by Unity Media, Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee, and Catalyst) we will be hosting a Twitter Meetup, Blogger Meetup, and Pre-screening reception for Outreach Films new movie "How To Save a Life" on Thursday night, May 23rd at Catalyst West Coast in Irvine, CA!  Details are below:

Food /Coffee by:

Location:  Mariners Community Center     
Time:  Immediately following final session
Hashtag:  #catwest
RSVP link: RSVP For Catalyst West Tweetup

GREAT DOOR PRIZES including…

a FREE CATALYST ATLANTA TICKET
TOMS Shoes
Books from Jud Wilhite, Anne Jackson
T-Shirts, Coffee, and more!

Immediately following our prize drawings, Outreach Films will be screening their new film, "How To Save a Life", which releases this fall!  Please stay  and provide your important feedback on this new film, then support them with your blog, twitter, or other online feeds!

Watch the Trailer Here

We just finished the design for the new shirts we will be printing for Catalyst last night. (see image)  These will be printed in small quantities this week for a test run to see how people respond to them before we print a larger quantity for the tour with Wavorly in November. (see my post on The Difference a Year Makes)

So… the flights are booked, rental car reserved, and its off to see what God has in store for us this year.  We appreciate your prayers this next week as we continue discussions with those we will be meeting there.  Please also be praying for either a renter or buyer for our house, as we’d love to get the house situation put to bed by early October.  We have been packing and moving things into storage at my mom’s, as we will only have basically 3 weeks after returning from Catalyst before heading to Arizona to kick off the Wavorly tour.  That makes for a lot of loose ends to still tie up in a relatively short time!