HCLM BLOG

 

I don't know how well you know me, or if we've talked about it before, but I drive a "one of a kind" car. How I came to drive it is a story of the provision of the Lord. When Megan and I moved down here from previously living in Denver and St. Louis we thought we might be able to make it on one car. It didn't take long living down here to realize we underestimated the sprawl of suburban life, the heat/humidity of central florida, and the craziness of life with kid (now kids). Although one car wouldn't work, two would be tough since we were trying to let a family live on a first year pastor's salary. Enter the aforementioned provision of the Lord: Our gracious Father (earthly not heavenly) offered to let us drive one of his cars. He has been letting us drive it for over a year now.

I drove by the house of a friend of mine the other day who's having trouble with life right now. I looked at his house; it looked like most of the others around it. You wouldn't be able to tell by looking at it that life was hard inside there. That people were hurting and looking for answers. The yard was in order, the house panted, the roof looked good. It looked like every other house on the street. Then I realized that the same was true of all those houses. I was driving through a neighborhood and could probably see a fifty or a hundred houses as I moved down the road. All of them have families with people and issues. That's a lot of people and a lot of broken lives. As I drove I started to wonder about what each of those houses represented. Did they have families that ate dinner together, kids that were busy with life? Were marriages happy, were kids in trouble? What would evening bring as people came home looking for food? I guess it's good to remember I'm not the only person in the world.

Here's a prayer I am praying today:

So here's some stuff I've been thinking about.

I have been thinking lately that our capitalist culture teaches us that we are primarily consumers. That our job is to be shrewd customers, rewarding the companies that produce the products we want for the lowest cost. For most of my life, how these companies do that has not been my concern. Recently I am starting to change my mind on that. I want to try to avoid being complicit in exploitation, and be more intentional about the places where I put my money.

When I consider the life my King Jesus lived while he was here, he spent lots of his time improving the lives of the poor, I want to emulate that wherever I can. I can’t do it all at once, and can’t be sure about where all my money goes; but I’m realizing that each purchase has potential to help out. I’m trying to make changes a little bit at a time.  

It’s in this context that I’ve started to think about coffee. Where do those delicious little beans come from?

I like coffee. I didn’t always, but I learned with beauty of the bean 6 or eight years ago. It’s a treat that encourages me out of bed in the morning, and a special incentive in some slow or tough evenings. Recently I realized that people have to grow this stuff. I mean some one some where farms the beans you use to make that coffee. It’s a nice treat for you, but serious work for someone else. It tends to grow best in countries that are less developed than the united states. In fact there are people in the world growing great coffee, that are doing good to live in small shanty style homes with dirt floors.

Recently I got connected with a gentleman that imports that sort of coffee from several small farmers in Guatemala. He pays them a better rate than they could get even with fair trade. He just wants to bless them. I do too. I think others might as well. That’s why we’re going to find places to sell it. Maybe we’ll call it Credo Coffee...what do you believe?

This "walk on water" metaphor has really been sticking with me.