Brothers and Sisters

A few years back, I worked with a small people group that lived in the Himalayan Mountains.  There were only about 300,000 of them, and they were scattered across several valleys.  As I studied their language, I started to notice  that things they would say crept into my everyday vocabulary.  I would catch myself saying things like, “Oh, that’s very convenient,” which in America we will say occasionally, but when I lived there I said it ALL the time. Another piece of language that I’ve picked up is the way that I refer to people.  When I lived there, if people were close friends they always addressed each other as family.  If you were about the same age, you called each other Brother or Sister.  If the person you were talking to was older, it was Aunt or Uncle.  And if the person was much older than you, it was Grandma or Grandpa.  (Side note: don’t mix up the words for aunt and grandma.  They will notice.)

Because the people group is so small, you can travel out to villages where you’ve never been before, refer to someone as Uncle and be like family almost instantly.  Most likely you would be accepted into their home, given a place to sleep and given a bowl of whatever strange thing they were having for dinner.  It was the greatest hospitality I’ve ever seen.

Even now that I’m on the other side of the world from those people, I still catch myself referring to friends as family.  I’m always telling my two-month old “Here’s Aunt Molly” or “Smile for Uncle Ross,” even though we aren’t kin.  My poor kid will grow up so confused because he already has about two-dozen aunts and uncles.

I was thinking about this the other day and was reminded of the early Christians, who seemed to have this same kind of relationship with each other.  Everyone was a brother or a sister, an aunt or an uncle, or if they were much older, a grandma or grandpa.  This closeness actually caused persecution by the Romans, who saw “brothers and sisters” getting married and levied incestuous claims against them.

What I loved about those small Himalayan villages is the way they understood the concept of brothers and sisters, a concept that I often forget, even as a Christian.  My prayer for you today is that you remember our brothers and sisters in those Himalayan villages, the persecutions they face, and the opportunities that we have to help.

Connecting

My wife often jokes with me that I have the spiritual gift of networking (which is often followed by her telling me I also have spiritual gift of hanging-out).  And while there isn't necessarily anything spiritual about networking, God definitely uses connecting with others as a way to do ministry. Over the past couple years as we've set out to try something new and use coffee as a way to sustainably reach villagers, there have been countless connections with people that have made it possible.  Literally, I tried to count up the connections last night, many of which came completely out of the blue, and lost track somewhere around 83.  From knowledgeable and passionate guys on our board, to coffee roasters, to missionaries, to pastors and church leaders. . .  And when we had to make a move to a new country a few months ago, I wasn't sure if it would work because we had so many unique connections in the place where we were.  After we made the move, God has once again reminded me that He is in control of this by setting up more relationships in this new country.  I saw an example of this just a couple weeks ago:

A missionary in the country that we're now in is currently in my hometown on stateside.  He is a friend of a friend (a friend of several friends actually) that has gotten mixed up with us.  We go out every few weeks for lunch or coffee and talk about ways that we might be able to work together when he gets back overseas and how we can minister to the people there in better ways.  And even though the country that he serves in is small, they have a fairly large population in my neighborhood with several restaurants.  The past couple times we've gone out, we pick one of these restaurants for lunch.  About a week ago we went to a new place, and because my friend speaks the language, we quickly met all the waitresses and the owner.  As we were talking to the owner, she tells me that she is from the town that Luv-Luv is currently living in, and she has some things she would love for me to get to her parents who live there.  We talk for a while and eventually ask her about her faith, and she lights up and tells us that she is a Christian.  She then begins to ask us if we can take a Bible to her parents, because she has shared with them over the phone and they are new believers, but they don't have a full Bible to read.  I told her that my friends who live there would love to take them one, and she gives me their address in a village outside of the town.  As it turns out, the missionary who helps Luv-Luv has been wanting to start ministry in this village.

Half a world away, in a town with a population of about 80,000 and a Christian population of less than 2%, and their daughter owns a business about a mile from my house and needs someone to give them a Bible and share the Gospel.  What are the odds?  The only explanation I have is that God connects people together.

A New Direction

So after much prayer, phone calls, emails and talking to friends of friends, we have a new direction.  When Luv-Luv was denied his visa we have been searching for a new location.  Honestly, we saw some signs that his visa might become a problem a few months ago and began making some preparations for a new location (just incase this happened).  During most of the month of August, Luv was back home in the Philippines trying to track down some of his friends that are doing missionary work in a much smaller country to the south of where we previously were, and I was here trying to talk to friends of friends that are also in that country.  Several years ago, Luv-Luv worked in that country and still had a lot of friends there that were willing to help us. So by the middle of August, we had everything lined up, and what we think is a game plan put into place.  Luv-Luv is now living in a much smaller country to the south.  It is still a communist country (which means I won't post online where he is, but since there are only 5 of them left in the world, that will narrow it down some), there are still many unreached peoples there, and in many ways it is more impoverished than where we previously were.

Luv-Luv is back in a town where he used to live several years ago and ministering alongside a coffee farm that he once helped get started.  Over the next several months he'll help missionaries there and share with local farmers, work on his language, and improve his coffee growing knowledge.  The plan is that at the beginning of next year he'll move further north to a location where coffee isn't being grown and use that as a new product to go out and help villagers and share the gospel with them.

As I've very clearly learned over the past few months, plans can always fall through and directions change, but we feel this is a direction where God is opening a lot of doors for us.  Even over the past couple of weeks, Luv has told me about many opportunities that he's had to encourage local believers, both in the villages and in town.  He is currently living in a house with seven local young men and they have morning Bible studies, and up on the mountain he already knows a lot of the farmers have come to know Christ just in the past year.

Please be in prayer for Underground Coffee International's ministry in this new country.  There are still many details that we are working out, but there is also a lot of excitement about what God is going to do there.  Also, please be in prayer for us as we seek open doors in the north over the next few months.  We believe that God is going to do something amazing in that part of the world, and hopefully coffee will provide some avenues to reach people for Christ and create both spiritual and economic life change.