East Asia Trip

Over the past few weeks several of us have been on a trip to East Asia.  The trip was a great time, not only to connect with people about coffee, but also to catch up with old friends.  Having lived there for two years, most of the trip was spent out in villages catching up with local friends and introducing them to other missionaries.  When I left, a lot of Americans were in a state of transition so many of the village contacts that I had known had fallen through the cracks.  There are so many people there that need to hear and so few workers that can go out to share and disciple with them.  My old team, which at one point was about fifteen people on the field, is now down to a single couple and a handful of local believers.  The exciting thing is that the local believers are starting to take ownership of their faith, however there is a lot of work for so few people.  Over the next couple of months I’ll share some of the stories of our local friends and how they are doing.

East Asia Visit

In a few days some of us will set off to go to East Asia.  For me and my old roommate, it is a bit of a homecoming; for my wife it will be a new place to see.  We will spend the next seventeen days traveling around and helping local workers spread the Gospel there.  As with any international trip, everything could change once we get there, but we have a basic plan in place: -For the first eleven days of the trip we will be visiting a town where I used to live.  We will work with unreached peoples while we're there.  Some of what we will do is catching up with old contacts that I have in villages and helping them with some agricultural projects.  There was also a minor earthquake in the region last week and we might go and help with some repairs in villages to help start some new relationships with people.  I've also been brushing up on my local language so that I can share if there is an opportunity; however I'm INCREDIBLY rusty at it.

-The last four days of the trip will be spent working in a potential coffee growing region.  We will help some of the missionaries with their projects and also look at potential villages to work with for coffee.  Our hope for this portion of the trip is to determine if this is a good place to set up and place personnel.  If the trip goes well and things workout the way we think they will, we will have a missionary living there and working in those villages in the first part of 2013.

Please be in prayer for us as we travel and spend time out and about in villages.

Thanks,

Brian

Resources

One of our desires as an organization is to use our funds well.  We believe that budgets are, at their core, a theological document and therefore should be a working reflection of the beliefs of those who put them in place.  With that being said, Underground Coffee International strives to use the resources that it is given and raises to further the Kingdom in a financially responsible way. One of the ways that we try to be good stewards of our resources is focusing our funds on missionaries.  Currently there is no one on staff at Underground Coffee (as in everyone is a volunteer) and our first staffed positions will be missionaries that can go on the field and spread the Gospel to those who have never heard.  All of us, from the president, to the board, to everyone who helps, does it because they want to see the Gospel go forth and believes that coffee is a great vehicle to open doors and make that happen.