The Coffee Fields are (Almost) Ripe Unto Harvest

What’s happening in Honduras? Why, thanks for asking! While Allen and Trish have been packing backpacks and driving rental trucks all over the U.S., Russell has been working the coffee fields, building a bridge, and sundry other missionary-type things.

A sort of preliminary coffee harvest has been completed. Any beans which were burned by the sun, matured too early, or just didn’t look quite right were picked in a pre-harvest harvest. Getting rid of the wonky beans (Sorry for the technical term!) will allow the coffee beans left on the plants to mature better. In short, getting rid of the riff-raff beans will mean a better harvest in the future.

Don’t think the lesser quality beans will go to waste, though. Russell used his brand new de-pulper to take the pulp off the picked beans. He and the crew then cleaned up the beans and set them out to dry. Russell will be selling them off at a bargain basement price because of their lower quality.

Now, back to that fancy schmancy de-pulper… Last year, Russell rented a de-pulper at De-pulpers-R-Us, or wherever one goes to rent a coffee bean de-pulper in Western Honduras! Then Sowers4Pastors supporter, Dennis Michels made it his mission to help the Sowers purchase a de-pulper. Mr. Michels will be traveling to Honduras at the end of November to see the new machine in action.

In addition to working with the coffee, Russell has been running out to the site of the new bridge project in Las Crucitas each day. Work on the bridge is coming along nicely. At the time of this writing, Russell and his crew have been stringing the cable and putting up the suspenders for the bridge. They are hoping to get it all decked on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Disclaimer: I know as much about building bridges as I know about where to rent de-pulpers, but, in my opinion, that sounds like the bridge is nearing completion!

- posted by Christi