Nathan Olmstead is one of RMM’s board members. He and his wife Denise and their five children live in Croghan, New York, where Nathan is pastor of Iglesia Hispana Luz Y Vida (Light and Life Hispanic Church), a church plant of Naumburg Mennonite Church. We interviewed Nathan about his work with the Spanish-speaking community in New York.

There are a lot of Hispanics who work on dairy farms and other jobs in our area. We reach out to them where they’re at spiritually, and when we get to know them, we try to form Bible study groups. There are Bible study groups in a couple of different places. The way we’re reaching them is to bring them together, building networks and connections, and studying scripture with them and discipling them.

How do you connect with Hispanics in the first place?

Primarily through my job. I work as a salesman in the agricultural market so I’m on farms and I build a relationship with them at that point, whether it be through translation between the worker and a farmer or other contexts.

Where do you meet for Bible study?

Right now we’re meeting on Sunday mornings in a school gymnasium, and I have a Bible study at a very large dairy farm on Tuesday evenings.

About how many people are involved in these studies?

There's a big turnover. They are typically here for three or four years, but they're always coming and going. I started the ministry about five and a half years ago; since then I would say there have been 100 or so that we have taught and been in contact with, but currently I would say between 20 and 30.

How do you invite people? Is there a lot of interest?

With my past in missions, I typically approach it evangelistically from the start—do you read the Bible, do you understand the Bible, come join us, we'd love to teach you and share with you what we're experiencing as a group. There's typically a pretty good response to that. We do have some guys who come in and don't feel that connection and leave and never come back, but a lot of them stay.

We're seeing some good things happen. Being on a dairy farm, they are to some extent separated from other Hispanics and so when we build that network and relationship by bringing them together as a group, they feel part of something and I think that draws them in to what we're doing and that's a big part of reaching them. Once they are connected, typically they stay and really enjoy it.

What led you to this work?

I have a background in missions in the country of Ecuador as a missionary intern with RMM. I worked as a youth pastor at our church for about three years and then we distinctly felt God's call back to missions. At that point my wife and I were thinking it was foreign missions. Doors opened and closed numerous times, and it was a frustrating time. But then one Sunday morning a friend of mine approached me and said “There are two Guatemalans here and they don't speak any English, can you relate to them?” So I started relating to them that Sunday morning, and started doing Bible studies with them. Then I made a connection with a few others and it just developed from there. We realized at that point it wasn't us going overseas, it was reaching them here and then commissioning them when they go back, as missionaries to their own culture. We are now seeing that happen. In Central Mexico there are three guys that went back, all part of the same family, and they are now starting a home group out of their house. I was there about a year and a half ago and I am planning another trip back down to be with them and encourage them and help out however I can.

I call myself a church planter because I love church planting work, but this is very different. One of my frustrations was that I wanted to build a stable church, and really quickly realized that wasn't going to happen. Most of the Hispanics are transitional and they're going to go back. I realized that this is a lot bigger than what I originally thought. We really try to teach them that Christianity is a way of life, and that when they go back, they go changed and carry that light with them back into the household and into the community.

What are some of the challenges you’ve had?

Transportation is probably the biggest challenge, but there's also a lot of other service work that can be burdensome as far as time. I'm praising God for Larry Moser, a gentleman who came on board and is now helping with the ministry. His primary gifting is servanthood and he loves serving these guys, and that frees me up to focus more on the vision and teaching and evangelism and training and all that…if it wouldn't have been for that I think I would have been inundated with too much stuff to do a long time ago and burned out.

What are the highlights for you?

When Hispanics come to faith. We've been able to baptize a number of them, and when they go back carrying that same passion to go do it at home. When one of them makes a decision for Christ and decides to be baptized, those are highlights for the whole group.

Feliz Navidad from Beth, on behalf of Team Chile!

What a week! Feelings were a bit all over the place with our anticipation of Christmas. We were missing our families, familiar holiday traditions and foods, and a general joy that Christmastime brings, but we were all looking forward to celebrating together as a team, and Skyping with our families on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve Eve, our team had our celebration. Prior to this event, we had made a few batches of cookies together, and swapped names for a Secret Santa gift exchange. Right before our celebration began, Jean and Jeff and Clay “went for a walk,” and surprised us by decorating our house with some pine branches in the corner to represent a tree, and other festive bits as well. Kirsten and Jean helped make a fire, we put on some Christmas music, and we started to feel more merry and bright. To start our celebration, we took a moment to focus ourselves and thank Jesus for sharing His birthday with us, but more importantly for the sacrifice He made on our behalf. We read the story of His birth, and enjoyed remembering the true reason we celebrate Christmas.

After our gifts were opened Jeff suggested that we go look at the stars. It was a perfect night for that kind of adventure. We walked a few blocks to a large gravel pile. We hiked up the big pile, and marveled at the bigness of God’s creation, and at the fact that we were looking at the same stars as our families and friends that we miss so much. We also remembered the shepherds and wise men who followed a star to a witness a miracle. We took some time to pray for our community and God’s work in it, and prayers of thankfulness for what has already been done.

The next day, Christmas Eve, we all enjoyed the gift of talking with our families over the computer. It truly is crazy to think that we can be “seeing” each other, halfway around the world. That night we also enjoyed a large meal with our coordinator and his family.

On Christmas day, we packed up our things, and went with our church to Tenglo – an island where our coordinator and his wife used to live. We spent the day enjoying a beautiful picturesque view of crashing ocean waves and snow-tipped mountains, eating a large meal, playing soccer, and swimming in the waves. It was a great day, but a highly unusual way to spend a Christmas. Who ever thought of northern North Americans getting sunburns for Christmas?

We’re also looking forward to going back to Tenglo for four days this week to help with some cleaning and renovations on a building that serves children on the island. We will be sleeping and eating there, too, which will be an exciting change of pace. After doing a lot of visiting and language learning this month, we’re all eager to roll up our sleeves and utilize some different muscles.

Please continue to pray for our ministry here in Chile: that we would all find our service niche in our community, glorify God in the ways that we show love to each other as well as others, and remain “tercero” (our team motto meaning “third”) in our attitudes at all times.

New Team Members

We are excited that Joe and Lynn Troyer, with their son Brennan, recently joined the Thailand team in Bangkok for a two-year assignment as missionary apprentices. They will focus on learning the culture and language in their first year, then transition into more outreach and ministry in their second year. The Troyers are from Hartville, Ohio. A short introduction to each of them:

Brennan is currently five (his birthday is July 10). He will be starting kindergarten in May 2012. Joe and Lynn are hopeful that during their first six months in Bangkok, he'll do well with language acquisition and socializing with other children. His current interest is playing with toys, and Lynn says it will be wonderful if he's that passionate about beginning school in Thailand. In addition to dinosaurs and cars, Brennan likes snakes, fish, and spiders.

A Difficult Change of Plans

When Efraín Artola left Thailand for his home country of Nicaragua in September of 2011, it wasn’t because he was homesick or tired of his work there. Efraín, who works with RMM’s team in Bangkok, was partway through his second year at a university on the edge of Bangkok. He and fellow Nicaraguan Nixson Jarquín were sharing their faith on campus and had formed a small group for believers and people interested in learning more. Then the Thailand team was shocked by Efraín’s diagnosis with acute leukemia, a rapidly growing form of cancer.

Efraín had to leave almost immediately for Nicaragua for chemotherapy treatment, leaving Nixson suddenly in charge of the group at the university. The whole team was shaken by the sudden absence of a friend who was an important part of their lives and work.

Efraín had a lot of support. Fellow students and friends in Thailand gathered at the airport to say goodbye, and back home in Nicaragua a big group of more than 50 family members and friends met him at the airport. Nicaraguan churches gave money and prayed for him, and the team in Thailand organized fundraising to help pay for his medical bills.

He kept his usual good attitude as he dealt with his illness. Dan Byler, RMM’s regional director for Asia, accompanied Efraín back to Nicaragua and reported in an update, “His mind and attitude are quite good considering the situation he faces. In general he has quite a positive outlook on life which certainly helps in situations like this.”

By November, Efraín was responding well to the treatment. In an e-mail, he asked for prayer for an upcoming examination and expressed confidence in the outcome. “I have faith in the Lord that I have been healed and that the results of this exam will be negative,” he said. While it was not known at press time if the cancer was completely gone, the results of the exam were negative, just as Efraín predicted. He was continuing with less intensive treatment at home. Still thinking about missions, Efraín was excited that his improved condition gave him the chance to participate in a youth conference in early December and share his vision for missions.

For more up-to-date information about Efraín’s condition, visit “Support Efrain,” a Facebook page started by the Thailand team.

Repeated projections throughout the year of a looming financial crisis have become concrete reality at RMM, where upcoming spending cuts will include the elimination of several staff positions in the face of a projected shortfall that could have exceeded $300,000 in 2012.

The board and administrative staff made decisions on the cuts in November. RMM workers were sobered by the news of the elimination of three positions by the end of the year—Director of Church Relations (Tom Beachy), Donor Relations and Development Coordinator (Shawn Eicher), and RIC Maintenance Staff (Randy Nisly). Additional budget cuts came through a reduction in salaries and retirement benefits for all employees in the office and in the field, along with other miscellaneous reductions in spending.

President Joe Showalter made it clear the cuts were not based on job performance, or whether the positions were needed, but were simply driven by financial necessity. “In all three cases there’s going to be a very real loss,” he said. “There’s going to be a number of things that are not going to get done, either at all or as effectively.”

“It was very heavy and painful for all of us,” Scheffel said. He is part of the Executive Team, which together with the board had to make the decision on how to deal with the budget woes. “These people are our family,” he said, but “we felt like we couldn’t just go on and ignore the realities that were staring us in the face.”

These tough realities came from a combination of several factors, Scheffel said. One was an increase in costs in 2011, with contributions staying more or less at 2010 levels. In addition, the Branching Out Campaign, a fundraising effort for costs associated with the Rosedale International Center in Columbus, has not taken off. Currently, less than 40% of needed funds have come in and new giving has been very slow.

Administrators were cautious about whether these cuts would take care of the financial issues in the long term. “It stabilizes us for 2012 and hopefully for the future as well, but that remains to be seen,” Scheffel said.

RMM may be more stable financially now, but will the cuts stop RMM from “branching out?” The focus of the Branching Out Campaign, after all, was expansion through the new facility. Has that been sacrificed for stability? “Expanding our reach is going to look a little different maybe than what we had been doing, and maybe what we envisioned not very long ago,” Showalter said. It “is going to include developing some new programs and tools for equipping CMC in mission, and the RIC is going to be a key place where that can happen,” he said.

Growth, Showalter said, can happen without hiring additional staff. He acknowledged that process will certainly involve some bumps in the road and difficulties in the light of staff cuts, but is still possible. “We need to connect to the resources that are out there in CMC and engage them in some of this programming…helping to create connections, forge partnership, and that sort of thing.”

Making sure RMM continued to fulfill its key mission was a major factor in deciding where to make the cuts. Scheffel noted that over the years, office staffing had increased while the number of mission workers in the field had declined. The eliminated positions were important to RMM. But, Showalter said, “We wanted to protect our core business of sending workers, so it felt like a reduction needed to happen here [in the office] and not somewhere else.”

REACH Discipleship Training School (DTS) ended November 18, 2011 with a commissioning service for the 21 REACHers. The service was held at Mechanicsburg Christian Fellowship in Mechanicsburg, Ohio. The theme of the service was taken from the passage in John 21 where Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Peter says, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you,” and Jesus replies, “Feed my sheep.”

Click here to learn more about the REACH teams

“Dear Lord, I thank you for my friend Art. He has been a blessing to me and someone that has really become a good friend in my time here. Lord, he has no job, his money is almost out, and he has no place to stay. I ask that you bless my friend, your child Art, with a job, with a place to stay. I just ask that you help my brother out, provide for him, bless him. We know you can do all things and we put this all in your hands, Father. We love you Lord, Amen.”

Art has a real passion for people and for God. We would always talk when we saw each other, but this was the first time he ever opened up to me about his life and about God.

The next week I took a City Challenge group out with sack lunches to pass out to homeless people. Art knew I did this each week and found me. He hugged me and said, “The Lord is amazing and truly does answer prayers!” as he started to cry. I asked him if he had gotten a job, and he exclaimed that yes, a guy hired him to help remodel a big apartment building, which would provide work for close to a year if not more. We praised the Lord, and then he walked around with me and my group all evening, talking to people and praying for them.

My name is Brian Troyer. I’m from Hartville Ohio, and I am 23 years old. This past year I have been at the Rosedale International Center in Columbus as a SEND staff intern, serving as the Community Outreach Coordinator. As the Outreach Coordinator, my main responsibility was to find, contact, and organize outreaches for us staff, City Challengers, and REACHers. I spent a lot of time emailing, calling, or visiting outreaches in order to get our name out there and see if we could help them in any way.

With City Challenge, after the scheduling, it was also my responsibility to teach about reaching out to people, what the Bible says about it, and what it can look like to reach out to those around us and love on them. I would then usually take the group “brown bagging.” We would pack lunches, go to downtown Columbus, pass out the lunches and ask people if we could pray for them. Occasionally we would give a Bible to someone if we felt God putting it on our hearts.

These were awesome experiences and God was always faithful, always allowing us to pass out lots of lunches; I think one night we passed out forty-five. We got to pray for people, but the biggest thing was that we always met someone who actually blessed us more than we blessed them. Some shared about their faith or prayed for us as well, or just were friendly loving people with a genuine joy no matter what circumstance they were in, because they knew the same Lord we serve.

God showed up in so many incredible ways this year whether in City Challenge, REACH, or during the winter with just us staff being here. One of the greatest things about being the Outreach Coordinator was that quite often I got to keep up relationships with people that I met or worked with along the way. This was an incredible blessing and another way that I could help show God to those I met.

One evening a group of us asked a guy at a bus stop if we could pray for him and he said yes. It turned out he had worked a 15-hour day that day and his ride home left without him. He had no money on him and had a three-hour walk home, so we prayed that God would provide a way home for him. We left him and started walking away, but we had only taken a few steps when we heard a yell. “Praise the Lord, he truly does answer prayers!” We turned around and saw the man running toward us with a bus ticket in his hand. He was so joyful and in awe at how the Lord worked so quickly. He said thank you again, praised the Lord once more, and ran back and got on the bus.

The past year has been a growing experience in so many ways. There have been lots of ups and plenty of hard, tiring downs, but through it all God was good! I feel that in this past year I have grown so much that it’s hard to really explain. I have seen God’s faithfulness and provision so often. Especially in all those times that I felt like I couldn’t do anything and was completely helpless, he would work and move.

God has challenged me to live my life in constant accountability to John 17:15-17, where Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. Peter says he does, and Jesus replies by telling him to feed his sheep. These verses are a challenge to live life fully out of my love for Christ. If I truly love Him and live completely out of that love, then I will feed his sheep, help those in need, speak truth to everyone I meet, bring shalom to chaos, and love those who are hard to love. God has challenged me to give up my selfishness, to give up what I want and feel comfortable with, and to be so in love with Christ that I proclaim Him in every action and word.

The beautiful thing is that it doesn’t take a SEND internship to live this way; it can happen in Columbus, Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, Florida, Ohio, and anywhere that people love the Lord and are seeking to represent him in everything they do.

As new SEND Ministries director Kevin Mayer settles into his role overseeing Rosedale Mennonite Missions’ short-term programs, he has something on his heart. Actually, he has something connected to his heart—a defibrillator. It’s a memento from an unsettled last year and a half that is finally starting to make a little sense.

In 2009, Kevin, his wife Wendy and their two children were adapting to their lives in Spain after three years working with RMM’s team in Granada. Then, confusingly, Kevin and Wendy felt God calling them back to the States. God did not tell them why. But even without clear plans, in June 2010 they underwent the major transition of a move back to Central Ohio, where they tried to fit back in and figure out what to do next. Finding a long-term fit came slowly.

In the emergency room, the doctor came back from the tests and told him what was really going on—a heart attack. “Wendy and I both started crying,” he says. “She was crying because of being shaken up with what’s going on, and I was crying because I was mad. I was like ‘I cannot be having a heart attack.’” He was young, had been working out four to five days a week, and the family was trying to maintain a healthy diet. It simply made no sense.

He didn’t know it at the time, but this was no mild heart attack. It was a severe and often deadly form caused by a blood clot. And because of bad weather, they could not fly him to the Ohio State medical center; they had to take him by ambulance. By the time he was in surgery, the clot had completely blocked the left ventricle of his heart for three hours. During the whole ordeal, he maintained consciousness and never really felt like he was going to die. He only realized how close he had come later, when he was told that only a low percentage of people survive the kind of heart attack he had.

There had been no warning signs, either—had he taken a battery of tests the day before, he says, there would have been nothing to tip the doctors off. “I definitely feel like a walking miracle.”

As if that weren’t plenty to worry about, on the day of his heart attack his daughter Ellie collided with some other children on a trampoline and broke her arm. Two days later, something fell on the family cat in the garage and crushed it. The kids had been eagerly anticipating the imminent arrival of a litter of kittens and were devastated. “That was sort of the ‘Job’ week for us,” Kevin says.

Soon there was another strange twist. Kevin had for some time sensed a call to missions, a pastoral role, and work with youth, but didn’t know how all three would fit together. They began to fit together about a week after his heart attack, when Todd Miller, the director of RMM’s SEND Ministries Department, announced he was stepping down. The candidate who eventually stepped into that role—one that combined strong elements of missions, a pastoral role, and youth work—was Kevin. He took over the job in August 2011.

At least some of the fog has cleared since that confusing call to leave Spain. “It was a leap of faith, because we really didn’t have any clue what was going to be on the horizon,” he says. In a strange reverse of their original call, the Mayers gave up their lives in Spain to go overseas to the United States and serve in missions. “That was tough and to be honest it’s still tough,” he says. “We still miss living in Spain, and there are many times I sort of wish I could direct [SEND] from Spain instead of from Rosedale.”

He still doesn’t understand everything. He downs hazardous medication to prevent new blood clots and wears an implanted defibrillator. It’s designed to regulate his heart if it goes out of rhythm, with a shock they say feels like a kick from a horse. Like the move from Spain, it’s confusing. “I often wonder, why did it happen? What good does it serve?” Kevin says. All he knows is that for some reason, God still has a purpose for him to be here.

“I think for all of us, our goal is to be with Jesus, and I long for that day,” he says. “But when I think…of Wendy and the kids, I’m just so grateful to still be here.”

Even though God hasn’t answered all the questions, Kevin speaks gratefully about where he’s at. “I feel really blessed that I could be in a position like this. I thoroughly enjoy what I’m doing right now.”

I first met Carlos* about six or eight years ago. Carlos is a Mennonite pastor in Honduras. I don’t speak his language, but I understand some things about Carlos just from being around him a few times. Carlos is a prophet. He sees with eyes of faith. He sees what could be, if God were to act. He sees what will be, when God does act. And sometimes, Carlos acts, believing that God will act in response.

Carlos returned home to Honduras, deeply moved. He wanted to do more than hand out scripture and bury a Bible. In the Christian school connected with his church, he arranged for all the children sixth grade and higher to begin studying French so they would be prepared to go take Jesus to French-speaking North Africa. He also began training them to invite Muslims to worship Jesus. That’s where the story ended, as far as I knew.

Last month, I heard an update. The first batch of students who have been studying French for the past six years have now graduated. They’re quite fluent in French, and this fall 12-15 students are heading to North Africa where they will be studying in several universities, with their expenses paid by the government of that country! They’re carrying the Word with them, and so the Word will be made flesh and live among the millions of lost souls in that country! But that’s not all. The same Muslim North African government is sending exchange students to Honduras to study at Carlos’ Christian school!

I believe God is honoring Carlos’ prophetic acts and his simple faith. Where do you need to act prophetically? What will God do? Why not find out?

*Name changed to protect identity

Dear Friend of Rosedale Mennonite Missions,

Greetings from us here at RMM. This is the season when many of us think of giving to others in response to the blessings we have been given.

On behalf of RMM, I’d like to ask you to consider including us in your giving this year. But I don’t want you to give out of a wrong heart, with a sense of duty or even reluctance. I don’t want to simply ask you for money, but challenge you to be the generous person God wants you to be. I hope that’s true of you whether you choose to give to RMM or the many other worthy causes out there.

I believe most of us in North America are rich in the global economy and lack very little. Paul’s instructions are a good place for all of us to start as we ask whether we are generous.

When we give, we dig into our souls and wrestle with the question, “Do I trust God enough?” We find out where we have placed our hope. It’s a constant struggle for me not to choose the uncertainty of riches. And am I rich in good works? I know I find myself saying at times, “I gave so I do not have to do anything else,” or “I served in some way, and so I do not really have to give.” As I read this passage I realized how much I need to grow to become a generous giver by God’s standards.

So I would like to challenge you with this same question. Are you continuing to grow into the generous giver God wants you to be? Maybe it’s time to trust God more by giving more of your time and money to your congregation, your neighbor, or other areas of God’s kingdom. My prayer is that you will discover the faithfulness of God this year as you trust in him and not your resources!

You can obey God’s call to generosity in many ways, but I want to invite you to consider RMM specifically. I am excited about what is happening as we seek to carry out God’s commission to tell all people about the good news of Jesus. There are new believers in Thailand, new workers going out from Latin America, and young people experiencing transformation in City Challenge. I could go on, but I don’t have space to tell it all here. Click here for more information about how to give if you choose to do so.

May all your giving bring you closer to God in trust and love this year.

Sincerely,

Shawn Eicher
Donor Relations

Leadership gifts: $480,000
Sale of old training properties: $334,000
Gifts in kind/savings: $300,000
Church gifts: $66,000
Missions Day Offering: $33,000
Individual, estate and misc: $122,000

Total: $1,529,110
Percent of Goal: 36.41%

To simplify the campaign and give people a way to break it down, we took the last $2.7 million we needed for the campaign (as of June 2011) and divided it into 1000 “branches” of $2,700. We encouraged people to take on a “branch” or to find others to help.

Since June of this year, $29,110 has come into the campaign (10.81 branches).

Paul Kurtz is director of Rosedale Business Group, an RMM program promoting business as missions. With his wife Grace, he runs Hemisphere Coffee Roasters in Mechanicsburg, Ohio. This article is made up of excerpts from his new book, A House Blend, about his experiences with business as mission in the coffee trade. HCR is a direct-trade enterprise with the goal of fair business and building up coffee-growing communities.

God’s Story... The Why!
If God has had any part to play in my journey in coffee, it is because He desires to see His Kingdom (His rule and reign) come to the far reaches of the earth and in the region of Nicaragua, 40 kilometers outside Matagalpa specifically. He knows each farmer and picker by name and has heard their cries.

The Fall impacted relationships established at creation. We are all impoverished people due to lacking the fullness that God intended for us to experience with God, with ourselves, with others and with the creation. In the life, death, and resurrection of Christ we see that Jesus came to do more than save our souls. My favorite Christmas carol, Joy To The World, says it well, “He comes to make, His blessings known, far as the curse is found.” Jesus came to reconcile everything to God. All poverty, illness, and other effects of sin are yielded to Christ.

The second coming of Christ will bring healing to all relationships and all “wrongs are made right.” This is good news but what is our role until this second coming? I believe the Church is to be Christ’s hands and feet; doing what Christ was doing. Perhaps more accurately Christ is the hand, we are His glove. The glove is what people see but it is the life of Christ in us that motivates our actions to serve.

Who are the poor? We may forget that the poor are not an abstraction but rather a group of human beings who have names, who are made in the image of God, whose hairs are numbered, and for whom Jesus died. The poor are poor largely because they live in networks of relationships that do not work for their well-being. Poverty is a result of our sinful nature and broken relationships. Think about it: Sin is what distorts all relationships. Sin is the root cause of deception, distortion, and domination.

Poverty is often associated with the lack of things: water, food, job, etc. The economically poor are seen as passive recipients, incomplete human beings we make complete with our stuff. This attitude can have two negative consequences. First, this attitude demeans and devalues the poor. It assumes they are defective and inadequate. They can then internalize this and view themselves this way. Second, our attitude about ourselves can be that we are the ones who can save them. Such an attitude is not good for our souls.

My work among coffee farmers began out of a desire to see poor communities economically “lifted” by receiving fair wages for their labor and to put together the pieces for a better future. However, I want to be clear: It is not enough to see people’s lives improve economically. Jesus’ complete work on the cross (the story of the book of Romans) provides for our atonement, and we are reconciled to God. Harmony and peace with God restores our view of self, our relationships with others and restores us to our Father, the Lover of our Souls. This is true transformation.

Coffee’s Story... the What!
It is amazing to me to consider the scope of coffee’s impact on culture, society and the world; the “what” of this story. From busy upscale urban coffeehouses to the remote rugged mountainsides which grow the coffee, it is all connected. Someone’s fingers touched the beans that were used to pull that shot of espresso or brew that cup of coffee. The picker has no idea who you are and you will never know who they are. But the coffee connects you.

Much blood has been shed over the production of coffee over the last 200 years. Coffee is the number two traded commodity (the amount of money that changes hands) in the world, second only to oil. In 2009 four billion dollars of green coffee was imported into the USA alone. It is estimated that the coffee industry (roasting, coffeehouses, and grocery) accounts for 15 billion dollars annually in the USA. Coffee is big business and brokering green coffee has historically been dominated by a few large corporations. They set the price, the terms and the quality. Thankfully those days are changing with the specialty coffee movement and its focus on quality. The story of coffee is being told and coffee can now be sourced where you can meet the picker, trace the coffee to a particular hillside and understand exactly how the coffee farming community is benefiting because of your purchase. This is my passion!

I always say that “coffee is people.” Producing coffee is a labor of love that consumes whole communities and regions. It cannot be consumed for food by the farmer when times are lean. When prices are so low that it’s not worth picking, the farmer cannot decide to just feed it to his family, like he might corn or bananas. Coffee has no food value.

And this is the irony of the pricing issue. We, who cannot grow coffee and in fact, need others to do that for us, set the prices and determine what we will pay. In response, many communities are forced to grow other crops or sell off prime coffee growing land for development or resorts.

The people that grow coffee do so with hopes of a better life, just as any farmer does. They hope prices are good and that all costs are covered with money left over. They desire sustainability of their farms and improving the lives for their children.

I will share something here that I have seen firsthand. It motivates me to action and has kept me awake at night. Very few people know about or understand what I am sharing here or to what extent this hardship is. In the very 
places I buy coffee there is real scarcity of food three to four 
months out of the year. Recently, Rick Peyser, Director of Coffee Community Outreach for Green Mountain Roasters, systematically interviewed many small scale farmers and laborers in the very region I am working; El Tuma-La Dalia, Nicaragua. Over and over he asked this question: “Have there been any periods of extreme scarcity of food in your household over the past year?” The heads of the men and women would nod and their eyes begin to well up.

I have sat on the side porch at the farm house with Diego and Leslie Chavarria and heard it from them and seen it with my eyes. It is terrible. It rips at the Chavarria’s hearts to see and experience. As Diego and I sat dreaming of a different scenario it was clear what I needed to do. In my direct purchase I have begun advancing funds for the next year’s crop so these farmers can continue to employ their workers. If they went to a local bank for a short-term operating loan, interest rates can be as high as 30%, effectively stripping all profit from the crop. The exact amount Diego was paying to the bank each year to operate the previous year was the amount needed to keep the community working all year long.

But this is only one community. I ache for the 25 million families involved in coffee production around the world. Food scarcity throughout the coffee producing regions is real and while it is a complex issue and the result of a combination of mono-agriculture practices, low and unstable market price for coffee, decreasing yields, and lack of access to credit and financial options, the consumer has a moral obligation to address this problem. This, again, is my passion.

You may say, OK, Paul, how much good are you really doing? I would say, not much. But for those I am working with it is making all the difference. The injustice and corruption in existing models has motivated me to work at another way. A way that lets the farmer set his/her destiny through hard work and a reward for quality. It is a “hand up” not a “hand out.” It connects coffee farmers in the developing world directly with the buyers. Let me introduce one such farmer and his story to you.

A Farmer’s Story... the Who
The drive to Finca El Dorado could be a pleasant 30 minute ride out of Matagalpa, but it is more like a two-hour battle. The road is paved but in total disarray. Often you dodge one hole to hit two. The road is curvy as it winds up mountains, through passes, down steep grades and gives up glimpses of beautiful vistas. Cattle graze contentedly on the hills while forests and fields give way to wetlands and rivers. It is a lush, fertile landscape with increasing altitude as you make your way to El Tuma. This is coffee country.

Leslie & Diego Chavarria
Diego’s father had several small farms 17 kilometers out of El Tuma and bought and sold merchandise, cows, and grain. This is where he raised his family. In the 1980s there was civil war and there was a lot of fighting in that area. The Chavarria family scattered and Diego and his family moved to Miami and then on to British Columbia.

The family house was directly hit by a mortar and only a crater remains today. It was in that house that Dan Byler, Kirk Christophel, Andy Troyer, Linda Hershberger and other Rosedale Mennonite Missions Voluntary Service personnel lived and worked at literacy and agricultural projects. Diego’s father and mother became Christians and shortly after Diego and all his brothers as well. Dan Byler, RMM missionary, baptized some of the boys.

In 1986 Diego’s father sold his other properties and bought the farm known as El Dorado. This farm has over 600 acres of land and much of it very high and suitable for growing good coffee.

After the war Diego would visit from Canada and help his father with his cattle and small coffee harvest.

In the early spring of 1996, his father asked him to move back to stay. That fall Diego moved his family along with his brother Leslie to Matagalpa, Nicaragua. When Diego came to the farm, he met with the families that live on the farm, around 90 people. There are little huts along the road housing these families. Diego promised to redo these homes once the farm was producing adequately. They need fresh water and a place to shower and do laundry. A generous donor came to me and offered to provide the funds to put new roofs and cement floors in the homes so Diego can honor his promise to these families. That was completed shortly thereafter.

A new farm kitchen is needed as is the washroom for families to get out of the creeks for bathing and laundry. I would love to help him do it all. However, I see my role best as an advocate to accurately represent the fine coffees from El Dorado farm to the US roaster market. As Leslie and Diego’s coffee gains recognition, the value of the coffee can increase as well. These men are proven community leaders and will allow God to use them as conduits of blessing to the entire community.

As coffee farmers have disposable income they can build, replace, and improve the facilities and properties as they feel best. This method of operation is not a handout to the Chava-rria family but a hand up.

A Roaster’s Story... the How
I was directing the short-term missions department for RMM (SEND Ministries Department). In 2000 I left the SEND Department and at the request of RMM board worked at developing innovative and non-typical assignments for long-term workers. I began to work at discovering what business opportunities might best serve our workers who go to restricted countries.

I had been to Central America and Ecuador. In both places Christian leaders were asking for money to fund projects, education for pastors, etc. Yet all around me was great coffee. I asked them why don’t they raise coffee in profitable ways and self-fund their own projects. They laughed at me. They said coffee prices are so low they hardly have food to eat. I couldn’t believe it. Coffee was $10 per pound at the local Starbucks in Columbus, OH but only worth 50-70 cents per pound in these countries?

What was needed was a system whereby containers of green coffee are purchased at fair prices directly from farmers and distributed directly to roasters. This would cut out up to six middlemen who each one took some of the pie.

Rick and Deborah Cole and Grace and I started Hemisphere Coffee Roasters, LLC in 2002. In 2006 the Kurtz’s became the sole owners of HCR. Grace and I are deeply indebted to the Coles for their entrepreneurial vision and for stepping out in this with us. We bought the Roastery building at 22 South Main, Mechanicsburg, Ohio in August 2007.

I have received six containers directly from the El Dorado farm. This is quality coffee and has the lemony-chocolaty flavors that buyers of Nicaragua washed coffee look for. The farm is currently supporting seven pastors and all seven churches are ministering and blessing the communities they reside in. They are looking carefully at two other communities that need churches as possible locations to expand into. Diego envisions reaching out to other local small farmers in the area and serve their drying needs as well.

Buying direct from the farmer means that the coffee can be traced right to the finca (farm), the families and the locality it was grown in. This is powerful. The coffee has a story. I have 
tried to tell you the story of Diego, coffee, myself, and a little about God’s story. That is the power of buying directly from the farmer. You can have a part in the story. Diego’s story can be yours as well as you enjoy this high grown coffee.

On this journey I am meeting other organizations and missionary teams who desire to source green coffee locally where they work and live, using direct-trade methods granting the growers a sustainable living. Coffees from places like Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Costa Rica, Sumatra, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Laos will soon be available with their own story to tell.

If I would sum up what I am learning, it is that God is looking for people who will allow themselves to be a conduit of blessing to those around them. Water that flows down the mountainside is life-giving to everything along its banks. This is the Living Water (figuratively speaking) that brings life to all it touches. God’s invitation to all of us is to join Him. When the water source is dammed up it backs up and causes floods, ruin and stagnation. It is a challenge to live our life in a life-giving way allowing others to benefit and be blessed through us. I am blessed to be a blessing and you are blessed to be a blessing to someone. Grace and I enjoy meeting people in our Roastery and being a blessing in any way we can. Join us and be a blessing to others!

Visit www.hemispherecoffeeroasters.com to purchase A House Blend, or pick up a copy at the Roastery in Mechanicsburg. Paul Kurtz can be reached at paul@rmmoffice.org.

With the addition of Marlin Ebersole in July, and with Nate Olmstead of Naumburg Mennonite Church (New York) and Randy Sunderland of Allensville Mennonite Church (Pennsylvania) coming to their first meeting in November, the board currently has three new members. By next July, figuring in normal turnover with the resignations, six out of nine members will be new to the board.

Showalter asked for prayer for the board during this time of so much transition, that God would add the people he wants in place for the next phase of RMM’s journey.

So why LAMP? Why not sit back and let the conferences reach the conclusion on their own that they need to send missionaries, since they are independent? According to Dan Byler, RMM regional director in Asia and a former missionary to Nicaragua, encouraging missions outreach is a vital part of missions, so in a sense the work in Latin America is not finished for RMM even though it no longer oversees the churches there. “That’s really the culmination of a church planting mission, not just to see a conference of churches form in the country but to walk with them as they send out workers cross-culturally.”

For the August conference, Costa Ricans, Nicaraguans, and Ecuadorians convened with RMM administrators in El Crucero, a little town outside Managua, at a retreat center owned and operated by the Mennonite Church of Nicaragua. Dion Peachey, who with his wife Naty serves as LAMP coordinator, said the goal was to bring everyone together to develop a plan to select, train, support, and send missionaries from each of the three countries. Part of that involves identifying people from these countries who will serve as advocates to promote missions in the churches there, and to also identify candidates to go overseas.

Attendees from RMM included President Joe Showalter, Asia Regional Director Dan Byler, and Rosedale Business Group Director Paul Kurtz. Dion and Naty Peachey also made the trip, along with Maurice and Sara Miller, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Dave and Mayela Diller from El Paso, Texas, who are working with LAMP. The Millers are representatives to Nicaragua, and the Dillers are representatives to Costa Rica.

The weekend was structured like a seminar, with Dan and others sharing about their missions experiences, and the work two Nicaraguans, Efraín Artola and Nixson Jarquín, are doing alongside RMM’s team in Bangkok. At the end, attendees from the different countries worked together to come up with a plan for how they would go about promoting missions in their respective countries.

The plan right now is to help send out these cross-cultural workers by taking care of some of the logistical details from the RMM office, and plugging them into RMM teams in places like Thailand and Spain. “The way RMM is set up on the field with teams in Thailand, Spain, North Africa, is great to receive missionary candidates and interns,” Dion said.

They are hopeful about the progress made during the weekend. “I sense that [God] was showing us what he had already begun, and that he’s going to do something new with LAMP, so I’m encouraged,” Naty said.