Manna and Coffee

“Whether you love or hate what you’re doing, whether you’re good at it or struggling, life is not a treadmill – it’s a moving walkway. There are no do-overs. We get a limited number of chances to do what we do, whatever we do, right.” – Howard G. Buffett

God created each one of us on purpose for a purpose. I have been in love with coffee for years. I started mannaandcoffee.com in 2010 as a place to share short writings that God has placed on my heart over the years. In 2015, I decided to take another step of faith in my coffee journey and I bought a one pound coffee roaster and started madscientistcoffee.com.

To me, coffee is about community, travel, adventure, art, science, and mission. In fact, I’m starting to think that coffee has something to do with God’s purpose for me.

Last year one of my best friends, Steve, called me to set up a meeting the following week. He simply said, “I have an opportunity for you Len.” That’s all he said. He left me to wonder all week what this “opportunity” was!

When we finally met, he gave me a book entitled The Poor Will Be Glad by Peter Greer and Phil Smith. During our meeting, Steve poured out his heart to me and told me that he wants to do something significant to help the people in Tanzania, Africa. Like many people around the world, the people in Tanzania struggle to live on less than $2 a day. He told me that Greer’s book had grabbed his heart and that he wanted me to read it too.

Steve is a very generous man, and he also gave me two books by Howard G. Buffett, the son of Warren E. Buffet, called Forty Chances and Fragile, The Human Condition. The Fragile book is the heaviest book that I have ever read, in more ways than one! It is full of pictures that Howard took during his travels around the world and it reveals a hurting world in a gut-wrenching way that is more powerful than words.

As I have been studying the books that Steve gave me, Ephesians 2:10 came to my mind which says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” I’ve been walking with the Lord long enough now to know that nothing happens to us by accident. The dreams and passions that God places in our hearts are there for a reason. God-given dreams are placed there to tell the world about Jesus, to help other people and to bring God glory. As we live into these dreams and passions, with faith, God begins to move mountains and our joy begins to overflow as we see God bringing us into our true purpose.

Another significant event happened to me this past week. My old friend Tom, who was a former colleague, left the corporate world after 20 years to become a missionary in Thailand with his family. Tom connected me with Ryan Stowell and simply said you guys have to meet and talk! Ryan is a coffee missionary who works in Thailand with his wife Rebecca and their two boys Tyler and Caleb.

The Stowell family went to Thailand in 2012 and ended up giving their hearts and lives to the people of Thailand and started the Seed of Hope project under the Family Connection Foundation in 2015, the same year that I was starting Mad Scientist Coffee. The hilltribe refugees that the Stowell’s work with can’t become Thai citizens nor have jobs that they are qualified for, so they have to farm rice and coffee to survive. When Ryan asked the farmers what they needed the most, the coffee farmers said that they wanted help getting their premium shade grown arabica coffee out into the world, so Ryan started a coffee company called Seed of Hope Coffee Co..

In another set of God events, Ryan has partnered with Don and Susan Thayer who started P-Rex Coffee Co. to bring Thai coffee to the United States to help make the farmer’s dream come true.

Most responsible roasters are careful to buy Fair Trade coffee. This coffee is called Fair Trade because the coffee farmers are paid a higher than market price for their coffee. Fair Trade coffee is picked by hand to make sure that only the ripe coffee cherries are harvested and it is a lot of back-breaking work. When you buy a bag of coffee from Mad Scientist Coffee, Good Sense Coffee or P-Rex Coffee you are paying more than you would pay for a cheap bag of coffee in the store, but you are making sure that the farmers that made your cup of coffee possible are being paid a fair wage for their work. Because the farmers are paid a premium price, you are are assured of getting the best beans that the farmers can produce.

As I have been thinking about the farmers, and the fact that even though they are getting paid a fair price for their coffee beans, I can’t help but wonder how much money the farmer gets every time we pay $6 for a quality latte or mocha espresso drink. Is buying Fair Trade coffee beans the best that we can do? The baristas work hard to prepare your drinks and the left over change that you drop into the tip jar is way more than the coffee farmers were paid for their back-breaking work. 

What if coffee shops around the world, who depend on premium coffee beans from the poor farmers decided to band together and give 10 cents from the sale of every cup of coffee back to the farmers as part of a profit charing initiative? Maybe we could call it the Coffee psi (profit sharing initiative) and list all of the coffee shops who decide to do the right thing and give back to the famers on a website, and also allow them to display a Coffee psi logo proudly? What if a fund was created with a board of directors to manage and oversee this fund to make sure that 100% of the money collected from the coffee shops made it back to the farmers? What if some of the money was made available to the farmers as low interest micro loans to help them buy equipment, land, and ensure that sustainable farming practices are utilized so that we will still have our coffee 20, 200 years from now? What if some of the money went to organizations like Seed of Hope who have invested their lives in helping and doing life with the people who grow our coffee? It is something to think about as we sip our coffee this morning isn’t it?

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ – Matthew 25:40-45