Good morning Grace Church, wow what a short journey it has already been. I am proud to announce that God is alive and strong in Honduras. Many many great things have happened this past year, two name a couple, Mercy International established our first church building in Agua Caliente, not only is it our first church in the mountains, it will be our staging area to send teams further into the mountains to reach the unreached. No one else has such an incredible in to the territory we call Opalaca Mountains. We want to take you on a journey with us to the Opalaca Mountains.
“When you sit back with a good cup of coffee you are engulfed in the aroma, the taste, the acidity, and body of the brew. You take in all the dimensions of the cup – yet this is only the surface. Swirling beneath are worlds within worlds of culture, custom, ecology, and politics. All of the major issues of the twenty-first century – globalization, immigration, women’s rights, pollution, indigenous rights, and self-determination – are being played out through this cup of coffee in villages and remote areas around the world. The coffee trade is immense, second only to that of oil in its value. It is also complex, with several levels of middlemen removing the 28 million growers in fifty distant countries far from the ultimate consumers, far from this cup.”
“Not all coffee growers look like Juan Valdez, a Latin male with a big moustache and a smile, dressed in clean white linen. Coffee farmers come in all shapes and sizes, colors, and genders. There are coffee growers from all Christian persuasions and from an abundance of indigenous religions, as well as Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. There is even a coffee-growing community of Black Jews in Uganda. Underlying the various coffee cultures are profoundly different understanding of the dance of good and evil, of communal responsibility and personal freedom –Yet what they all share are the common dreams of good health, love, food on their table an education for their kids and a great sense of humor.” – from The book JavaTrekker
That is where we come into play. In the Opalaca Mountains is a very unique simple minded group of people called the Lenca Indians. Mercy International was the first group to reach out and go to them, now we have three pastors living among them. And that is only the beginning. We have a dream that one day we will not have to hike 5 hours to get to the first village in the mountains. There is already a road being cut into the mountains, this road will help us get to our base camp faster and help assist in getting food and materials to the villagers we work with. We have a dream that we will never have to hike a near starved family out of the mountains to get them nutrition and medical care. We dream that one day we will have a church run by local pastors in every village in the mountains. We dream that one day the Lenca women will be educated and will not have to rely on a drunken man, and we dream that the boys will grow up to be Godly men, not cowards who abuse there women and children, and finial we have a dream that one day we will not be needed in the Opalaca Mountains, and we will be able to set our sights on the next location in need of God’s blessing and love. All of this can take place because of this one cup of coffee .
How are we going to achieve these goals? First off, I would like to invite you to our Friday night celebration, we will be celebrating Opalaca Gold Coffee in style. During this celebration we will be sharing with you more information about Opalaca Gold coffee and the people who grow this unique coffee. For this event we have partnered with World Garden a new restaurant opening this week in Bentonville. 20% of the evenings profits will go directly back to Mercy International for future investments with the Lenca Farmers of Opalaca Gold.
Secondly we understand what is laid out before us and we know that it is not a plan designed for one or two people to be involved in. We need you, we need your skills, your creativity, your willingness, your prayers and your financial support for the long haul.
To start with, we want you to know we take our biblical commandments seriously, we are commanded to tithe just like everyone else, so we take and budget out our first fruits and tithe regularly, we support a church in Honduras as well as here, we also are in the market and praying about supporting another missionary. Next we want to give you a breakdown of our financial donors, YTD we have had 52 people give donations directly to our ministry. Of that we have 6 people pledge to support us on a monthly basis. We are running short $700 a month. We are in need of additional monthly supporters. One additional note, most of the farmers that we work with in Honduras speak Spanish, my Spanish is very poor and I am in need of going to Language school for a very long time as Ellen our Spanish tutor can contest, which costs a lot of money, however, I am lucky my wife is learning Spanish much faster than me and will not require near the training that I need. All of that to say, Language School is not part of our monthly operating budget and will require additional capital for us to attend. If you would like to know more about Mercy International, our Friday night celebration or would like to discuss our budget in detail please contact me or Corbett.
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