The Amazing 2019 Coffee Harvest!

The first coffee harvest of the season is in full force right now. From the sounds of things, Russell will need to partake of quite a bit of the product in order to survive his grueling schedule.

Coffee fruit - the "beans" are the seeds inside

Between 75-85 people are working on the Sowers4Pastors coffee farm right now. That number includes a few teens and children, as well as the regular farm crew. Russell says they are “harvesting hand over fist”. Each day, they are bringing in 3-4 pickup loads full of coffee. It’s important to clarify that these are 3-4 Honduran pickup loads, which means the trucks beds are packed to capacity and beyond! After some sacks of beans rolled off during one trip, the crew began ratcheting the loads down. By U.S. standards, they are probably bringing in more like 8-10 loads per day!

The first harvesters show up as early as 4:00am. There are no set work hours. Workers are paid by the number of 5 gallon buckets they fill. There is no quota, so they don’t have to worry about getting fired if they don’t fill enough. Some of the teenagers are still in school for the year. They finish school at 1:00 and harvest coffee for a couple of hours in the afternoon. The regular farm crew works in the fields from 6:00am-6:00pm.

Harvesters turn in their coffee at about 4:00 each afternoon. Their sacks are dumped out and put into 5 gallon buckets to count their day’s harvest. The coffee is then put into another sack and loaded onto a truck. By 6:00 each evening, the coffee has been measured and it is hauled to the depulper. The farm guys help unload. At that point, some of the men stay to help Russell work at the depulper until 10:00-midnight. The depulped coffee is held in the rinse basin until the following morning.

Helder is in charge of rinsing the coffee to rid it of any slimy “honey”. Then he puts it on the concrete slabs to dry. It takes all day for the coffee to dry thoroughly. This is a great time to pray for sunshine in Gracias because they need the coffee to dry.

Once the fruit is removed and the beans have been washed,
 the coffee beans are laid out to dry on our new "patios"

Russell is working from 6:00am until midnight. One special night, he and Helder worked until 3:00 because the depulper broke and needed repairs. Three hours later, Russell was back in the fields and ready to start a new day! If only he knew where to get a cup of coffee… Oh, wait!

Russell’s best guestimate is that they will probably bring in 50-60 thousand pounds of coffee. They won’t know for sure until all is said and done.



On a side note, Russell, Iris, RJ, and Abby have moved into their new home. With everything out of their old house, the finishing touches are happening on what will be Allen and Trish’s new house. In his “spare” time, Russell is overseeing that project. A wall has been added and a window was put in to give Trish a beautiful view and extra light. Currently, some of the crew members are working to put a wash on the wall to finish it. After that, they will clean up and start painting. Allen and Trish should be arriving home in a couple of weeks and they will be wanting a place to lay their weary heads.

Russell’s weary head will rest when the coffee is harvested. We hope!

 - posted by Christi