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

He's Got You, Babe!

Most of us are probably pretty tired of talking about the economy. Some of us are even to the point of wanting to stick our fingers in our ears and loudly say, “La-la-la-la! I can’t hear you!” That is a perfectly understandable response. The good news is that this is printed so you can read the whole thing with your fingers in your ears if that makes you feel more comfortable. Also, this is not actually about the economy. Well, a little bit, but not mostly! This is about remembering that God is in the details. All of the details. Even $6 a gallon gas. To paraphrase Sonny and Cher–because when you get right down to it, the world would be a happier place if we paraphrased Sonny and Cher more often–He’s got you, Babe!

The recent dental brigade for the Manna program

Sowers4Pastors recognizes that times are getting tighter. And, yes, $6 a gallon of gas is a reality in Honduras. When you consider that the ministry travels hither and yon to remote villages in 4-wheel drive trucks, that’s a big ol’ ouchie to the budget. Trish sort of keep informal tabs on the comings and goings of other missionaries in the area. She is a member of a couple of Facebook groups for missionaries in Honduras and she knows there are seasons when people leave the country in larger than usual numbers. Typically, that happens during times of financial hardships or political unrest. It is happening now. There is no judgment toward the people selling off belongings and leaving. People leave for a variety of reasons. Some are going back to the States. Others are heading off to work in other countries. It’s just a fact that the economy does influence the ability to stay and function on the field.

The Well team doing home visits

This would be downright depressing if not for the fact that… Everybody, sing! He's got you, Babe! Allen and Trish are both currently reading through the Old Testament. You remember the OT, right? Those Israelites wandered around and God provided for them time and time again. In fact, a lot of the OT is about God reminding the Israelites about everything He did for them in the past. The conversations could be very loosely paraphrased to say, “Hey, Israelites! What’s your problem? Have you forgotten that I brought you out of Egypt? Don’t you remember when I gave you food? Um, yeah, that was all Me and I’m still here!”

Allen and Trish are spending some time remembering the things God has done for them. “Hey, Sowers4Pastors! What’s your problem? Have you forgotten about the time I took care of you when your family vehicle full of your multitude of kids broke down on the side of a deserted Honduran road at night? Don’t you remember when Trish and Ben were kidnapped and I saw you through to a happy ending? Um, yeah, that was all Me and I’m still here!”

As Trish said, “We have a long history of God getting us out of difficult pinches.” Indeed!

The kids at Arenales during the recent LCC team

While Allen and Trish are not anticipating leaving Honduras in the foreseeable future, they do still take great comfort in knowing that their ministry has concentrated on building up Honduran pastors. They have used the ministry’s resources to build the Kingdom through Pastors Training School, the motorcycle ministry, getting Bibles and other study materials into the hands of pastors, and even helping to build physical church buildings. If, for any reason, they ever have to leave, those resources will remain. It’s a comforting thought.

“The pastors we work with have such a heart for reaching their communities, and the next community, and the next,” Trish laughed.

As you go on about your day, please remember that it was true for the Israelites. It’s true for Sowers4Pastors. And just in case you need to hear this, it’s true for you. He’s got you, Babe!

- posted by Christi

Motivation to Keep Truckin'

Regardless of the decade of your birth, you likely remember seeing some of the famous motivational posters of the 1960-70’s. Who could forget the posters of the “Hang in there” kitten clinging to a tree branch for dear life? Or the yellow smiley face posters urging you to “Have a nice day”? But do you remember the 1970’s “Keep Truckin’” posters? This post is all about Sowers4Pastors effort to keep truckin’, hang in there, and help thousands of Hondurans have a nice day.

A few months ago, Allen checked on rental trucks for the 2021 backpack trip, but he wasn’t ready to schedule anything yet. Last week, he called back and got actual quotes. Yowza! He was prepared for a price increase, but we’re talking about a PRICE INCREASE! The truck for the first leg of the trip, from Seattle to Frederick, MD has skyrocketed from last year’s price of $3200 to $7600! The second truck that is needed from Indiana to Frederick has increased from $800 to a whopping $2400. Um, yeah, that’s substantial. And that doesn’t even take into account the higher gas prices and increased shipping costs.

Shipping costs could easily be 3-5 times what they were last year. That means the price of shipping one container could go from $5000 to $15,000-$25,000. If shipping is astronomical, it won’t make sense to ship items from the U.S. Let that sink in for a moment. There is a container filled with donated food that should be ready to go in the not too distant future. Another food container is expected to ship in January. Higher shipping costs could make it cost prohibitive to accept gifts of FREE food. And much like the kitten clinging to the tree, the future of backpack trips is hanging in the balance.

Sowers4Pastors is struggling to keep truckin’ in another way, too. Honduras was hit with back-to-back hurricanes in 2020. The loss of life wasn’t as grave as it could have been, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t damage. Some areas along the Northern coast received 100 inches of rain. Roads were wiped out, bridges were destroyed, and a whole lot of people were left homeless. There are still some people living in tents as a result of the storms. The government of Honduras took all of its (admittedly) meager resources and diverted them to helping the North coast. That was the right thing to do, but now other areas are suffering.

The roads in Western Honduras have never resembled the autobahn, but now they don’t really resemble roads either. There are areas where the roads have completely disappeared and you’re left to drive on dirt. Those patches are preferable to the roads where there’s still asphalt riddled with potholes 8-10” deep. Allen said you might encounter hundreds of potholes per mile. Naturally, this is doing a lot of damage to the vehicles. Trish mentioned that on one particular outing, Allen heard something and knew that it was time to find a welder. Allen and Trish had to stop mid-trip to find a welder to repair the piece that holds the radiator in place.

There are nine people who regularly drive the ministry vehicles. The vehicles aren’t exactly straight off the showroom floor to begin with. Some are circa 1997, while others are from 2007 or 2008. The cream of the crop are the vehicles used for transporting teams. They are only 8-years-old. The best type of vehicle for this terrain is hands-down a kind of Toyota that isn’t sold in the U.S. or Canada. It is popular in places with rugged terrain and exceedingly bad roads. There is currently a 6-month waiting list to get a new Toyota Hilux. Sorry, but I didn’t catch the actual name. It’s not like Sowers4Pastors would be purchasing brand new vehicles, but this shortage means that used Hiluxs are going for the same price as the new ones would be if there were any new ones to be had.

Here’s where everything stands: Sowers4Pastors needs your prayers. They want to make wise decisions and be good stewards of the resources God has given them. They need to decide things like whether they should be doing full repairs to their existing vehicles or just enough patch jobs to keep them limping along. They need to decide the best way to go forward with the scheduled backpack trip.

2020 saw donors rise to the occasion. People were very generous and stepped up when Sowers4Pastors was trying to bring in food. Now that things seem more normalized, giving has dropped back to pre-COVID levels. But there are still rising financial needs on the ground. Please consider sacrificial giving so that Sowers4Pastors can continue to help send children to school, operate feeding centers, and have the vehicles needed to visit those feeding centers.

Thousands of good days are depending on you.

- posted by Christi.

What's up on the Coffee Farm?

Do you remember the days when your parents would leave you home alone for a bit, but you had a chore chart as long as your arm? Russell is heading to the States for the backpack collection trip, but the men on the coffee farm will not be bored.

What’s better than a chore chart to ensure that the workers will be able to keep working? Um, well, if you’re working on a coffee farm, the answer to that question is SIX TONS of fertilizer. Yes, Russell just purchased five heaping pickup truckloads of fertilizer to be spread on the farm. He also purchased a lot of liquid fertilizer, vitamins, and insecticides to be sprayed from backpack sprayers onto the coffee plants.

 The men mix up the exact combination of nutrients for our soil, before distributing the fertilizer

Russell was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to purchase everything. He had been concerned that COVID-19 would throw a monkey wrench into the buying process. Fortunately, his supplier was eager to get such a large amount together for him.

The work has already begun. Even if Russell were staying in Honduras, this would have been on the “chore chart” for September. They are expecting a booming coffee harvest, thanks to a shorter than normal dry season. The plants from (planted in) 2016 and 2017 are expected to yield a lot of fruit this year. Even the more mature plants from 2014 and 2015 are producing more than last year. More coffee means more money that can be put back into the ministry.

Check out all the beans on this one coffee plant!

This year, Russell will be making two trips to the States for the backpack collection trip. By the time the coffee harvest starts at the end of October or the beginning of November, he will be home. While he is gone, the coffee farm is in good hands. The crew knows what to do, but just in case, RJ is there to help the men keep an eye on things.

RJ gave me a little tutorial about harvesting coffee. FYI, you pick the red berries and there are no red ones yet. RJ was a man of few words for our phone call, but I was told he had just rolled out of bed and hadn’t had his coffee yet.

 - posted by Christi

A Very Informative Phone Call - Part 2

This post picks up where the last one left off. To recap Part 1, like an announcer trained in speed talking: Containers are in. Boxes were a mess. Backpacks, shoes, and tax paperwork are sorted. They’re getting ready to distribute backpacks and do some sponsorship program “housekeeping." There. Consider yourself up to speed. Better yet, read the previous post! Now, on to Part 2.

Before the teams start arriving at the end of January, the vehicles have also been getting some attention. The trucks that will transport teams are getting new tires and brake work. Nothing goes to waste, so the older tires are being put on the farm vehicles. It’s much easier to deal with a flat tire on the farm than on the roads to and from the airport or feeding centers. They do what they can to avoid having flat tires when transporting teams. Besides the tires and brakes, the vehicles are getting any other needed repairs. You’re welcome, teams!

The solar panels are also getting an update. With the additional people living and working on the property, the old system wasn’t able to keep up. The old system is still in working order, so it will now be used to power Allen and Trish’s new-to-them home, the bodega, and the multi-purpose building. The new system will be used for Russell and Iris’s home.

Click HERE to see a video of work on the solar power system!

While Russell and eight crew members worked to sort through backpacks and shoes for the children who will be receiving them, additional temporary workers were brought on to help maintain the farm. Since the second harvest was completed, there’s a lot to be done. The men worked to hoe between the trees and remove the weeds. Currently, they are fertilizing the coffee. There’s a big rush to get the fertilizer in before the last rains of the season. The rain activates the fertilizer so it will still be doing its fertilizer thing during the dry season.

Because there just wasn’t enough going on in this plot, Allen has also rented twenty-nine bee hives for the next month. The farm already had two hives of their own. The bees will, well, be as busy as bees while the coffee is flowering. Hopefully, this additional pollination will increase productivity and improve the coffee for next season’s harvest.

Click HERE to see a video about renting bees!

In case you’re wondering where one goes to rent bee hives, that’s a pretty cool story, too. One of the local pastors is known as the area bee master. The bees give him a source of income and helps out the farmers. He rents the bees to people who grow melons and other crops. This man really is an expert in the field. He is known as a queen maker because he has learned how to manipulate the colonies of bees so they produce a second queen - then he harvests the new queens and sells them to those wishing to start colonies. The bee pastor is currently spending about two hours each day on the Sowers' coffee farm.

Allen has also been working to get a number of school projects underway, thanks to a donor who wants his donations to be used for this purpose. Allen was able to find three schools that meet the donor’s criteria and he’s working on getting the paperwork together. These projects will involve building 6-8 classrooms. Eventually, there could be as many as 14 new classrooms built, in multiple schools. The projects will also include construction of multi-purpose buildings and a school cafeteria.

Russell recently made a day trip to Tegucigalpa. The generous group that helped Sowers4Pastors purchase food to provide children with two nutritious meals for a penny had one request. They asked that some of the food go to a location in Tegucigalpa. While there, Russell was able to see Rachel, since that is where she lives, and he dropped off the boxes which came in the shipping container for her family and ministry.

Speaking of the food to feed children two meals for a penny . . . Allen’s birthday fundraiser was a smashing success. Through donations on Facebook and the Sowers4Pastors website, enough money was raised to purchase three containers of food. That equates to 1.5 million meals! Thank you all so much!

 - posted by Christi

What's Happening? December Edition

What’s going on with Sowers4Pastors? Thanks for asking!

The Welcome Mat is Probably Still in a Box

As you probably know, Allen and Trish’s return to Gracias means they have moved into their new house. Kind of. It’s still a work in progress, but they are living there.

Allen and Trish's new house. Formerly Russell and Iris' house. Formerly bedrooms for the older
Sowers kids. Originally intended as a bunk house for teams - but never actually used for that!

Russell, being the stellar son that he is, did a ton of work on the house to make things nice for his parents. Awwwww! Everything was nicely painted and cleaned, although there are still some small construction projects to complete. Russell even gets bonus “good son” points for finding a large mirror, which he hung above the bathroom sink.

Even though Russell and Iris lived in Allen and Trish’s current house for several years, it was not built for the purpose of becoming anyone’s full-time residence. The house was constructed to be a bunkhouse for visiting teams, and the finish level was pretty rough. The fact that Russell took the time to make it prettier is not lost on Trish.

Coffee, Anyone?

The coffee harvest is still going strong. Russell is anticipating that they will get between fifty and sixty thousand pound of coffee this year. Russell has previously explained that it takes several years before coffee plants reach their top yield. The 2014-2015 plants are currently producing a lot. Weatherwise, 2019 was a dry time in Gracias. Even though this wasn’t an ideal year for coffee, the harvest is good.

People are working on the coffee harvest from sun up until well after sundown. There are about sixty people currently picking coffee. In the evenings, Russell and some of the regular crew work to clean off the fruit part from the coffee beans and start the all-important drying process.

I've Got Nothing Funny for this topic, so . . . Motorcycles!

Since that’s clearly not enough excitement, twenty-one motorcycles have recently been purchased for the use of pastors. Some of those have arrived and are in the process of getting distributed. The remainder of the motorcycles are still in the big city until someone can get there with a big truck to bring them back to Gracias.

Shipping (Containers) and Handling

Both of the shipping containers have made it to Honduras! The Florida container has made it through customs and should arrive in a couple of days. The inspector was very thorough, which means the carefully packing of the contents was pretty much torn apart. The Sowerses are hoping the workers at the port are as skilled at repacking as they are at inspecting. That is completely out of their control, but please pray for this. The container from Maryland just arrived at the port. Both containers are expected to make it to Gracias before Christmas.

Getting two full containers at the same time is a ton of work, and it’s a time for “all hands on deck”. Organizing 9000 backpacks, especially those designated for specific children, requires a system. For those of you who packed boxes or worked to load a container, that’s part of the reason the packing boxes are labeled with colors. The guys can make a red pile, a blue pile, etc…

On January 22, the first team scheduled to distribute backpacks will arrive. There’s a lot to accomplish before then. Meanwhile, the coffee harvest, unpacking in the new home, and end of year paperwork continues.

H2O--Oh, My!

Honduras is coming into the dry season. That means that Allen is working to make sure their water tanks are topped off at all times. A lot of water is going out, due to the coffee harvest. Since it’s the time of year when they never know when the next rain will be the last rain, it’s crucial to keep the tanks full. When the dry season hits, they will go four months without getting any water.

 - posted by Christi

Come Rain or Come Shine

Don't expect to see THIS in Honduras!

This is the time of year when everyone at Sowers4Pastors starts spending a lot of time and energy keeping an eye on the weather. And it isn’t because they’re dreaming of a white Christmas!

This is the dry season in Honduras, however there are frequent cold and cloudy days at this time of year - which is a big, he-honkin’ deal when your home runs on solar power! A sunny day means you can do something really special--like laundry! Not only does it mean you can run the washing machine, it also means you’ll be able to hang the clothes out to dry. But laundry isn’t the only reason the Sowerses are paying super close attention to the 10-day weather forecast.

As you know, it’s time for the coffee harvest. At the end of each day of harvest, Russell and members of the regular crew work at the depulping station to remove the fruit. Then they wash the coffee beans. The next essential step is to get the beans completely dry in a timely fashion. They lay it out in the sun on giant tarps. When there’s no sun, there is a big dilemma! It takes days to thoroughly dry the coffee and they are racing against the clock because the drying process must be completed before the beans start to grow mold.

Here's our VERY newly constructed de-pulping station!

Larger coffee farms have huge concrete pads to spread the beans on while drying. Each hour, a “coffee raker” turns the beans to allow complete drying. The Sowers’ coffee farm is at the stage of the game where they have a coffee pulping station set up. They even employ an expert coffee raker! But they don’t yet have the concrete pads. The goal is to have concrete poured for next year’s harvest. This year’s final picking is almost complete.

Coffee beans, on tarps, being raked to dry evenly

This season has been relatively cold and overcast. As Trish said, “If it’s not sunny, we’d rather it rain because it’s good for the coffee plants!” Plus, it takes a lot of water to wash coffee! While Allen, Trish, and Russell are pleased that an extra water tank was built this year, they are definitely using more water than ever before! They are hoping to build up their water supply in their tanks before the rivers dry up.

As an interesting side note: Coffee farms at higher elevations, which experience colder weather, have not finished harvesting. Certain schools at higher elevations delay the start of their school year because they aren’t finished picking until the end of February. That means Sowers4Pastors has a little extra time to get the backpacks out to the children in those areas.

In addition to harvesting and drying, it’s the time of year when pastors plan to build churches. The making of adobe bricks and rain don’t mix! As soon as the walls are up, churches need a roof by the middle of May. That means it’s a time when Sowers4Pastors receives a lot of requests for new church roofs!

The dry season is also the time for bridge building because the lower rivers allow for easier crossing. Currently, there are two bridges in the planning stages. Teams will be coming to Honduras in March and April to build them. Missionary life is busy, come rain or come shine.

 - posted by Christi

Russell's Life Cycle of Coffee

There’s almost something poetic about one of the busiest, most high-energy people I know growing coffee. Thinking about Russell’s life is sort of like imagining the life cycle of caffeine. Drink coffee. → Accomplish a bunch of stuff. → Harvest the coffee. → Drink more coffee. → Accomplish more stuff. You get the idea. It’s also a little like thinking about the age old question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Except this would be, “Which came first, the coffee or the crazy-busy Russell we all know and love?”

Russell and his crew just finished harvesting the first precocious fruits of the 2018 coffee harvest season. That early harvest is sort of like nature’s trial run for things to come. It's so small the harvesters are paid by the day, rather than by the bucket of picked fruit. Russell said that this year, the baby harvest yielded around 2000 lbs. He said it wasn’t much, but, I think it sounds like a ton! (Hehehe. Get it? 2000 lbs. A ton. Hehehe. It’s punny.) With that preliminary harvest done, they now have less than three weeks until the first REAL harvest for the year.

Depulping station under construction

Building the tanks at the depulping station

The upcoming REAL harvest will hopefully yield about twice as much as last year. He was hesitant to give a prediction in pounds, but it should be big. It’s big enough to make completing a new depulping station a necessity. The depulping machine was donated last year. The station will increase efficiency. Russell described the depulping station as a place that will have big holding basins for the coffee that comes in. It will be up in the air and the fruit will be poured in through the depulper. The fruit will come out one side. There will be concrete slabs where the pulp will be dried for use as fertilizer. The beans will come out the other side. They will remain there for eighteen hours, before being heated up and washed to remove the sticky residue. Then the beans will be dried and stored, for use as, well, coffee.

Interior door being stained

Simultaneously, the work on the house is continuing. Iris’s father just brought the interior doors for the house, and the work crew started installing and staining them. And, because he didn’t have enough going on… Russell is assisting another missionary who is opening a coffee shop. Russell is helping with the construction for a couple of hours each afternoon.

Pastors at the evangelism event

It’s also the final week of Pastors Training School. Unrelated to the upcoming graduation, an event was held in the central park on the evening of Oct. 23. The pastors wanted the opportunity to see what a planned, urban evangelism event might look like. The 23rd was also the day Kelsea’s family returned home from their visit. Kelsea and Russell were busy from 4:00 AM until 11:00 PM. When I suggested that maybe his day wouldn’t be so busy on the 24th (the morning we spoke), Russell sounded slightly appalled. He politely reminded me that’s what coffee is for! Drink coffee. → Accomplish a bunch of stuff. → Etc…

 - posted by Christi

Transition! Transition!

Please do me a favor and sing the title of this post to the song “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof. Really. It’s way more clever that way. Now, that we’ve established there was some measure of wit required to pen this post, let’s move on to the meat of it. The summer teams are gone and it is time for the Sowers family to switch gears. Transition! Transition!

For months, everyone at Sowers4Pastors has been going at full throttle, running teams around every day. They would often meet teams as early as 5:00 or 6:00 AM and stay with them at their hotel until 10:00 PM. Visiting teams are not abandoned! The end of “team season” means that there is now time to focus on other things.

Russell is jumping immediately into planting baby coffee trees on 10 acres of the coffee farm. He and the crew are also fertilizing the other 40 acres. Whew! Russell is also hoping to set up the depulping machine in a more permanent situation. This involves pouring concrete to create a facility with three or four levels, including a wash basin for washing the depulped coffee.

The men are also working on completing the new building on the property. This building will be a multi-purpose area. It will serve as living quarters for interns, coffee storage, food (for the feeding centers) storage, tool storage, office space, and Bible bookstore.

The teams have gone, but the letters they wrote to their sponsored children remain. Those letters need to be translated. After that, the kids will write their reply letters to their sponsors. Those will have to be translated, too. This process needs to be completed by the time a team arrives in the fall. The letters from the kids will be sent back to the U.S. with the team members, to be delivered to the appropriate sponsors.

The guys - Quito, Memo, and Melvin - who drive out to oversee the sponsorship centers will start making their rounds again. When the teams were visiting, a lot of that went on hold because they were busy working with the teams.

Russell is ordering $5000 worth of Sunday school material to be used at the feeding centers. The centers’ current quarterly material is ending and they need new material.

Allen and Trish have transitioned themselves into another busy trip to the U.S. They're already visiting churches and collecting backpacks! While they are away, Kelsea is taking over the task of getting sponsors set up on the new website system. This involves many telephone appointments!

It’s also time for Russell and the crew to work on some vehicle maintenance. Each truck was used to transport the visiting summer teams, and traveling the roads in Honduras takes a lot out of the vehicles! It’s time for oil changes, tire checks, alignments, etc…

And in FABULOUS NEWS! A generous donor is currently matching all funds donated for church roofs. That brings the cost down to $500 for each new roof. There are currently fifteen churches in need of new roofs. Funds have been raised to put on three of the fifteen. If people are willing to donate, twelve more congregations will be able to transition into worshiping in a safe and dry environment! Transition! Transition!

- posted by Christi

Teams, Coffee, and a Website - Oh My!

Russell shared information for a basic, “What’s Going On In Ministry” post. As usual, there’s a lot going on!

Allen made a sudden trip to the States, and while the family in Honduras can carry on in his absence, they did have to reorder some of the things on the schedule. Trish and Quito just completed two videos for Allen to use in his visits to the States.

Everyone's excited about
the upcoming teams!

Kim Hall and her family fly in on June 9th. They will hit the ground running and have a week to prepare for their team’s arrival on the following Saturday.

Russell is scurrying around to prepare for a summer of visiting teams (among other things). The first seven teams will all be VBS/kids’ ministry oriented. There’s a lot of preparation that goes into that. Melvin and others in the crew are riding around visiting feeding centers to make sure the program leaders know what they should be doing to prepare.

Carlos and Helder are fertilizing the coffee farm, while it’s the rainy season. Fertilizing now allows for good absorption, and there is less risk of burning the plants. In a moment on philosophical genius, Russell declared, “The weeds are growing like weeds.” Eight extra temporary workers have been hired, so there could be up to twenty men working the farm for the next couple of weeks. The weeds must be chopped with machetes. Then, they turn around and fertilize the coffee plants.

Coffee nursery

Helder has a nursery growing 20,000 coffee plants and 1500 shade trees, which will be added to the farm. The trees are a fast growing, tropical bean tree, which actually release nitrogen into the soil, rather than depleting nitrogen. That will help to fertilize the coffee plants. Since they are fast growing, they will soon offer shade to the coffee plants. This variety of tree is one of the few in the area that does not lose it's leaves in the dry season, and so it will shade the coffee during the hottest months. All of the plants in the nursery were recently fertilized. They will be allowed to grow there until late August or early September, when they will be planted.

Remember those first seven teams, that will be working with kids? Well, the eighth visiting team will be working on a construction project. Russell is having to plan ahead to gather all of the necessary supplies for that.

Speaking of construction… the Sowers are about to construct a new building on their property, which will contain ministry office space, storage for the food received for the feeding centers and for the coffee grown on the farm, and will also have bunkrooms for male interns. No, it will not slow down the construction of the new house. This building will be used as a temporary warehouse, which will be used to sort all of the materials that arrive on the end-of-2018 shipping containers. This will speed up the process of completing the house because they won’t have to store things there! Since the finishing touches on the house involve more detail-oriented work, they won’t be able to make much progress on that while they have visiting teams - but the crew can work on the construction of this new building.

A tantalizing glimpse of the new website!

Trish and Kelsea are working to enter all of the information about the kids in the sponsorship program on a yet-to-be-revealed new website. Kirstin (Allen and Trish's oldest daughter) is even lending a hand in Sarasota! Each child will have a profile of information, and a photo, on the website. Trish has taken on the task of entering the sponsors’ information into the system. Stay tuned for the big website unveiling!

 - posted by Christi

Nothing Major Does Not Equal Nothing

Whenever Russell says there’s “nothing major” to report, I know I’m about to be on the receiving end of enough information to more than fill a blog post. FYI, “nothing major” does not equal, “nothing”!

Moments before our phone call, Russell was up to his eyeballs organizing receipts from the first quarter with Kelsea-the-intern. Ask any Sowers and he or she will tell you that paperwork is a necessary evil of life on the mission field!

It has been a couple of weeks since Kelsea returned to Honduras. She brought two of her closest friends back with her, and they stayed on for a week. Together, with Russell, they went out and served as a “mini team”. One of the mini team members is a nurse, so they went to visit a medical clinic on what Russell referred to as “the frontier”. This friend will soon be moving to Guatemala, where she will participate in a medical Spanish immersion. She wants to go into full-time ministry and needs to be able to speak medical Spanish. Kelsea’s other friend will be getting married soon and the three young women enjoyed this time of serving together before they go down different life paths.

The mini team also spent time packing up extra shoes, since the school shoes have been handed out for the year. Russell pointed out that it’s necessary to invest in extra shoes in order to have the correct sizes for the children who receive them. Each extra pair of shoes has been cleaned, dried, and packed in individual Ziplock bags to be stored until next year.

With Allen and Trish talking about backpacks and sponsorship centers in the U.S., they have needed a lot of updates from programs, in recent days. As we mentioned in a previous post, three churches in Seattle were interested in the Sister Church Program. The three churches didn’t feel they could each set up a Sister Church themselves, but they have decided to join forces! One big program makes more sense than three small ones.

Kelsea, Melvin, and Russell will be heading out to find just the right location for this new sponsorship center. They are looking for a place with a great need that can also provide enough teachers to sustain the program. And, keeping it all in the family, Kelsea’s sister will be heading up the program from the Seattle side!

The coffee farm work is going strong. Fortunately, Russell’s crew knows what to do and it isn’t necessary for him to be on site all the time. If you recall, the seeds were first planted into a sand bank. When they sprouted, they were moved into small black nursery bags, and kept in a heavily shaded area. Now it's time for those young plants to be moved to the farm. More than 20,000 plants will be individually planted! The crew is also working with the more established coffee plants which were planted in previous years - the leaves are getting a good spraying with vitamins and minerals.

Allen and Trish will be flying home in under two weeks. They aren’t returning empty handed! A visiting team will return with them. When that team leaves after a week, a different team will arrive. Russell has a lot to do to prepare for the back-to-back teams.

In other news, Allen and Trish are famous! Well, that may be a stretch, but they did enjoy being on a radio program in Georgia on the morning of May 2! It’s a good thing they’ll be returning home soon. It would be a shame if they got caught up in “show biz”!

 - posted by Christi

Filling in the Blanks

Generally speaking, fill in the blank tests are easier than essay questions, but more difficult than true/false, multiple choice, and matching tests. As Russell said, “It’s another week of fill in the blank scheduling,” as the Sowers family tries to catch up on everything that didn't get done during the summer weeks of team visits. During our most recent phone call, he was able to fill in some of those blanks. I took notes so you don’t have to.

The new members of the team will be documenting the ministry work through
photos and videos, as well as helping with the work itself

Allen and Russell recently hired two more guys to help with the sponsorship program. Currently, Melvin and Russell are working with them to be sure they understand what they need to do.

Handmade doors arriving on site!

Russell and Iris’s new house is getting closer to completion. This week, workers are doing a final smoothing of the walls so they will be ready for paint soon. Russell’s father-in-law is finishing and installing the doors and windows he made in his carpentry shop. One can only hope RJ has his own tool belt and will be on hand to supervise.

The crew is preparing to plant the new coffee plants. Doesn’t it seem like they just did that? At any rate, it’s time to do it again.

This coming week is MK Camp, so right now is filled with prep work. They are gathering coolers, cooking supplies, and everything else needed to make sure things run smoothly and everyone is fed. Russell said between 75-80 kids are expected to attend this year’s camp.

The Sowers are prepping for a mission team, which will be arriving the second week in August. They will be doing VBS at three schools associated with their sister church. They will also be painting their sister church. Because the team wants to do something to help out the Sowers, they will even be helping to paint Russell and Iris’ house. The team will be staying from Sunday-Sunday.

Another great photo by Danny, our ministry photographer!

Shortly after that, Allen will be leaving for the U.S. That means he and Russell will have a few short days to be sure nothing falls through the cracks in Allen’s absence. That’s pretty much code for PAPERWORK!

Trish will be joining Allen in the States sometime in September. But first things first: she will be spending two weeks with a very pregnant Rachel. The hope is she will be there for the birth. If not, she’ll still enjoy time with Rachel. Still… She really, REALLY wants to spend time with the newest grandchild.

That sums up the notes for this week. One of these weeks, we’ll have to try a true/false test! - posted by Christi

The (Coffee) Fields are Ripe for Harvest

Whew! It has been a while since we’ve “talked” and much has happened. Allen and Trish are home from the U.S. now. Russell, Iris, and R.J. have moved onto the ol’ homestead. And R.J. has learned he’s close enough to yell for Nana and Gampa to get him from his front porch. This post, however, is about The Great Sowers’ Coffee Harvest of 2016!

Harvesting coffee!

For someone who doesn’t even drink coffee and has never seen it growing, I have to tell you, I am ridiculously excited about this! If you’ve been paying attention, you know this is the very first coffee harvest for Sowers4Pastors. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that growing coffee isn’t for people who must have immediate gratification. This harvest has been more than two years in the making.

Just under 9 acres of coffee plants, which went in the ground more than two years ago, are being harvested in three separate harvests. Harvest numero uno has been completed! (Don’t let my obvious mastery of Spanish intimidate you!) Harvest numero two will happen in a month. And, number tres will be one month after that.

The most spectacular news is that the first harvest has greatly exceeded Russell and Allen’s wildest expectations. And you know how wild their expectations can be! Having done his coffee homework, Russell was hoping they would be able to harvest 2000 lbs total, this year. Um, yeah. The first of three harvests has yielded about 3000 pounds of dried coffee. The second harvest will be BIGGER and the third will be about the same size as the first. Expectations have been adjusted and Russell now anticipates a total harvest of 10,000 pounds.

Harvesting coffee

Here’s what a coffee harvest looks like for Russell:

• The coffee cherries are picked.
• Russell has 36 hours to get the fruit to a machine that de-pulps it.
• The machine removes the cherry and leaves only the bean, losing about ⅔ of the total weight.
• The fruit de-pulper is about 3 miles away from the coffee farm and Russell has been hauling it in the evenings.
• Once it’s de-pulped, there is a gummy substance on the outside of the bean. The beans are soaked in a washbasin overnight. The next morning, they are washed and the gummy stuff falls off.
• This year, they are using tarps to dry the coffee in the sun. Eventually, Russell would like to have concrete slabs for this purpose.
• Once it’s dry, it’s ready to be sold to a middleman, who will possibly do more processing himself, add Russell’s harvest to that of other growers, and then sell the whole shebang to an exporter.

Since this year’s harvest has been so big, Russell is hoping to be able to reinvest some of the earnings to purchase a de-pulper. That will allow them to de-pulp on their own property. It will save time and money. Plus, it will mean they can keep the pulp to use as, what Russell assures me, is the world’s best organic fertilizer. He says if they put the coffee cherries back in the ground, it’s like Miracle Grow! This, of course, will save bookoodles of money on fertilizer.

Removing the fruit, to get to the seed (coffee bean) inside

In his modest way, Russell said, “All of the hard work and investment is starting to pay off. We’ll be putting the money back in the farm. It’s becoming self-sustaining faster than anticipated.”

This link takes you to a video of the de-pulping process, narrated by Russell: https://www.facebook.com/russell.sowers.1/videos/688880694614980/

 - posted by Christi