I wasn't planning on following the last post on coffee and Sampedrana with more on Sampedrana, but here we are.  

Last summer, someone blessed us with quite a few Samsung tablets, which we put on the container that FAME shipped.  Then the Milk Project staff charged and tested them all, worked out a list of where they could go to be use taking into account the other areas of the mission, and then finally earlier this year they went into service.  Here is one being use in Sunday School in Sampedrana.  They are already proving to be very handy/useful.

We have been waiting quite a while for groups to be back and be able to help up in Sampedrana on the road, and the prep work that it takes to be ready for that takes many days of labor by many people to prepare for a few days of fast advancement.  Getting wood here in Sampedrana for the borders on the pavers to be put down and then the concrete border poured takes a bit, among other things of all Fords available to move pavers to be into position, and then other trips to move sand, gravel and cement.  

Ah, this is in Las Botijas...burying the water lines from the new well.  The well was up, then had a major wind issue, going to have to build some walls around it, the way the wind whips through there some times of the year could damage panels again.  But with harvest and other tasks, and some equipment issues, there just hasn't been time to get the lines buried until now.  We also have donations to do some work on the road there, the worst area when it is raining, but we are waiting on the contractor who is going to do the work to have an opening in his schedule.

A nice little treat of splitting a watermelon in Sampedrana.  I love the conversation in this picture, but the knife's resting place here does look a little menacing.  Planting seeds to see a harvest in this community tomorrow...and/or 5, 10 or many more years down the road, one day at a time. 

Again, I didn't set out to share all this, but this last picture as much as any of the others, just shows that sometimes there are things in life that you are ready for and don't come or aren't finished as fast as you would like (even when the day to day impact isn't something I am personally going to see, feel, or be impacted by) but also remind me of our limitations, and the valuable commodity of time.  

Praying for the projects soon to be underway, those underway for months or years, and those to come that seemingly seem ready to move forward but...just don't as we would want (thinking specifically of the clinic ambulatory surgery expansion plans, finding different quotes on construction, coffee, finding Milk Project sponsors and mission support, and so much more.)  

It used to frustrate me, but now I find it a lot easier (not easy...just a lot easier than it used to be!) to focus on doing what God sets before us, what we can do, and not focus on what I can't control or make happen, since even a tiny glimpse in the rear view mirror shows only God got the mission here in the first place, not by anything we tried to force through.

I had an unusual email exchange recently, someone asking me for some words of wisdom for another person in their church who handles the Hill Climber coffee they get for Sundays and other needs at the church.  

​Words of wisdom are bandied about, but such a request, whether in jest or not, I took seriously.  So I shared a Bible verse:  So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (I Corinthians 10:31)

Harvest is at its highest point right now, with lower altitudes done, and we might be done at the two farms by the end of the month.  We have invested time, effort, money, and more staff, to make the farms better, more productive, and higher quality.  Every year a little bit more, steps as they were, and as we can afford them.  The third "cut" of coffee this year in Las Botijas even getting an 88 when we had it tested.  We have started employing women as well to more carefully select out the "defects" that affect cup quality.  
​
Providing employment, harvesting more fruit to give away, and doing things better has improved for sure, and continues to do so.  We might be close enough to being financial self sustainable with coffee that good, with some legwork to find places to sell it of course.  

So, the pictures and the statistics look good.  

But I was struck by another set of words I stumbled upon: 
"Coffee is good for talent, but genius wants prayer."

Those come from the journal of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who is also rather commonly misquoted as having said "Coffee is God's gift to mankind."  

The second quote is pithy, but the first just hit me different.  

We are using coffee to accomplish goals:  
-help provide employment
-be a bigger part of our community
-help others
-share Christ through all the above
-and finally figure out how to use all that to create something that can be sold and have more funds to do more of all that. 

The quote just reminds me that while part of all this you can write down, work out, and plan.  But ultimately, for it to be a success, requires prayer, and dependence on God. 

So join us in prayer that our primary goals stay primary, all the while also praying God works out connections to make good, God honoring ways to get this coffee out into many hands, and thus help this do all of the above, and so much more through His Eyes.