In my last post I told you that as a family, we needed some change. But of all the places in the whole of the world, why Burundi?
Well, because we needed to face our fears and do it anyway! Because it would be easy to stay in Durban, grow old in Durban doing the same thing the rest of our lives (we’re good at it and it is oh, so comfortable for us here!). We knew that if we did that we would never experience the best life out there waiting for our family. The kind of life where you put your foot forward in the morning and don’t know what’s about to happen.
Burundi fit that description for us and when we came face to face with the needs of the coffee farmers, we knew we had the skills to help… if we could just risk normality. We never would have chosen Burundi if we had been given a choice of a random three countries (it’s the 2nd poorest country in the world, fresh out of civil war and rebel conflict and still in shock over decades of genocide and ethnic conflict). When I first told Kristy that Burundi might be the right place for us, she replied with, “Is that a city?”
But Burundi did have exactly what we needed. Coffee, people and potential. I live for potential. It’s one of my driving motivators. This place has more potential then any other african country to produce the best quality coffee on the continent. It’s a country that derives 96% of its foreign income through coffee. It’s population has the lowest GDP of any country in the world and my eyes were opened to an amazing opportunity. Long Miles Coffee Project is not just about me being a coffee guy, but its a chance to help an entire country through cupping coffee and showing it to the world. For our whole family to step out together into adventure, risk, faith, and turn our world view on it’s head. It’s revealing hidden treasure and rewarding the farmers who precariously grew this treasure never knowing if they would live to see the fruits of their labor. It’s about transforming whole communities. We are starting with their coffee but our hope is to change their lives holistically.
I want to see these farmers live a better life. Get a fair price for their coffee. Give them a hope that trying harder will pay dividends. Walk with them as communities as they become self sufficient, caring, grace filled places of hope. Connect farmers to agronomists whom I have invested in and mentored to share a greater hope then just more money and better crops. To show my boys that they can do anything they set their mind to. To live facing our fears. To be adventurers. Never hold back, especially when you want to. Stop living a life of “I should.”
Long Miles Coffee Project is my way to change our lives while attempting to change a nation. It has the potential to be “too hard”, to break us, to burn us out…. but I think it will do just the opposite.
Coffee Guy
It’s really early. So early that my kids are still asleep and the sun is barely in the sky. As a general rule I make it my prerogative not to get out of bed before my kids do. They are such early risers that I can’t bear the thought! But on this beautiful Saturday morning in South Africa, with the early rays of light finding there way onto my walls, I can’t help but be awake. We are supposed to Burundi in just three months. The end of February signals the beginning of “crunch time” in my head. Time to plan, pack, decide what the leave and what to take, get the house SOLD, say goodbye to a decade of life in Durban… but instead I am struggling to wrap my head around any of it. I want to go outside and stare at the sunrise forever, and forget about all the goodbyes, the new beginnings, and the FRENCH that is in my future.