Coffee by any other name . . .

 Java.  A cup of joe. Varnish remover. There are many ways to talk about coffee, but no one did it better than Dolly Parton when she penned the lyrics to “9 to 5.” “Tumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen. Pour myself a cup of ambition and yawn and stretch and try to come to life.” Today, we’re going to talk about Sowers4Pastors’ ambitious adventure into the wonderful world of coffee farming.

The S4P coffee farm started in 2014. For the first five years, they planted ten new acres a year. They still refer to the sections based on the years they were planted. For instance, 2014 is producing a different quantity and quality than the other years. 2015 has surpassed 2014 in quantity. 2015 and 2016 are both producing better quality than 2014. But, as the years have passed, production increases over the entire fifty-acre farm. When it’s all said and done, this year’s harvest will bring in more than 70,000 pounds of coffee. That’s a lot of cups of ambition!

Harvesting coffee is not a once and done proposition, because the beans don't all ripen at the same time. There are multiple pickings, each lasting a week. The first harvest of the season was in October. It was a small one, not requiring as many people to pick. The November picking was larger and required more workers. The December picking just ended on the 12th. 

The picking lasted for seven workdays and there were as many as 150 people a day. Some of those were children who were along for the ride, but there were as many as 120 adults and teenagers harvesting. From that number, 90 people were being picked up in Guacutao and delivered back each evening. That meant the Sowers4Pastors vehicles (driven by S4P staff) were driving an hour there and an hour back, twice a day. The morning drives started at 5am. The evening drive returned at 6 - 7pm. The depulping of the day's harvest ends anywhere between 9pm and 1 in the morning! The rate of pay for harvesters went up last year because the price of coffee was up. Coffee prices are down a bit this year, but pickers are still in high demand. This is the second year it has been impossible to find enough workers who live within walking distance. A lot of that has to do with people moving out of the area. 

S4P threw a small “thank you” celebration for workers in honor of completing the December picking. They provided a lunch of Chinese rice, bread, and Coca-Cola. Trish sends her assurances that, for some reason, slices of white bread always accompany Chinese food in Honduras. Each worker was also given a package of food (like we use in our feeding centers) to take home with them. Happy workers are more likely to return for the January harvest!

The quality of the coffee is doing so well that S4P is considering offering coffee to people who might want to buy it in North America. Allen is hoping to find people who would like to have coffee sent to them on a regular basis. The ministry has had a good response to the flavor of their coffee and people like that it is low in acid. The ministry would offer their highest quality coffee for sale. The farm was originally started as a way to help sustain the ministry. At this stage, they are seeing benefits to the ministry. It also helps provide income to workers throughout the area. 

Please pray that the coffee farm will continue to increase output and that there will be enough manpower to sustain it. The shortage of manpower is impacting S4P’s regular farm crew. They are getting a huge influx of coffee that needs to be depulped, washed, laid out for drying, covered at night, and laid out again in the morning. Allen would love to find more regular workers to hire in order to ease their burden.

BONUS: Update on Shipping Containers

The Florida container arrived without a hitch. There was no hold up in port and it doesn’t appear that much was disrupted during its inspection. Everyone is delighted that it arrived well before Christmas. Lighthouse Church will be the first team arriving to pass out backpacks, and it's great to know that we already have their backpacks here! Oddly, even though Lighthouse Church is located in Maryland, their backpacks were shipped on the Florida container. The boxes containing their backpacks were driven to Florida in an effort to have both containers filled to capacity. After some of the difficulties they have encountered with the process of getting the containers in recent years, Trish said, “This feels miraculous. We are praising God for that. And thank you to everyone who has been praying for the containers.”

The Maryland container is currently at the port in Honduras. S4P has received word from their lawyer that the container may be released sometime this weekend. That means it will be going through inspection soon. Please pray that it goes through without issues, delays, and added expense. S4P is very careful about what goes into each shipment. However, when working with donations, there’s always the possibility that someone included something that wasn’t included on the list of items approved to be in the container - and that can cause major issues at the port! Trish sent the reminder, “Even though one container has gone through, please don’t stop praying now!”

 - posted by Christi