The City

My Farmer and I have been dreaming. Dreaming and dreaming. Hoping and asking. Planning and envisioning. We live in Laos and it is this land filled with promise. It’s land is fertile, and the area in which we we live is a special place with a special climate that is just right for coffee. While the rest of the country sweats year round, we get nice cool weather on a beautiful plateau. We want to plant coffee here. But not just plant coffee. We want to grow something that is amazing, something everyone wants to drink from the very unknown, mysterious jungle land of Laos.

And then we want to grow…people.

Most cash crops (such as coffee) are managed poorly – the result of this system is often injustice for the hard working farmer and low quality coffee. We live in a community where everyone has a coffee farm where they don’t get paid much for their crop, aren’t being educated in how to grow coffee well, thus basically forced into using chemicals on their farms in order to produce enough for a meager living. Most farmers never even drink their own coffee.

We want that to see that change. Excellent coffee is something I have always loved (because I had parents with excellent taste, I grew up on pretty good coffee). But the longer I am here, the more I see coffee as an art – and if it can be appreciated that way, we can help these farmers. We hope to grow pure Arabica Typica all organic, and hire farmers, training them and then using our land as a co-op, allowing other farmers to use our truck and wet mill. This is our vision and our dream. We have been contacting coffee companies, most of whom have shown a lot of interest in partnering with us… but one group decided they had to see this crazy jungle for themselves.

Meet Seeds Coffee.   This team sees coffee as one of the great connectors: I mean, the world goes crazy for coffee. They came to just love us, to learn about this land and encourage us. They wanted to hear our vision and now we are officially family. But they aren’t here to just hand us money and watch this from a distance. In fact, that isn’t what they will do at all. They want to connect, teach us, guide us, but most importantly, love us like family. They want the same for us.

I have never met anyone like them: a team of people passionate about justice for the oppressed, calling each other family as they run projects all over Birmingham, Knoxville, and now to many countries all over the world. And they use amazing coffee to do it.

While we expected an interview type trip, we instead got loved on. We laughed, cried and sat in My Farmer’s hut drinking coffee. Taylor and Joel from Seeds looked at My Farmer and said, “I love your house. I feel such a peace sitting here.” He truly meant it, and the people here felt honored instead of embarrassed. We talked for hours about how this kind of love, the kind that connects people across the world through stories, is what our Father had in mind when He talked about His kingdom. His New City. I can’t get this city out of my mind.

Confused?

Let me explain. The city isn’t a place, it cannot be built thus cannot be destroyed. It is in the hearts of people who have had their eyes open and can’t stop chasing the Father. It isn’t a Sunday morning pew, a great preaching, or a moral code. It’s a radical love that is radically changing people. It looks like my 21-year-old friend choosing to mother and raise young girls while full time going to school. It looks like a family giving everything they have to empower the poor and oppressed. It looks like a man giving up his job to serve single moms and abused women. It looks like doing something totally new and against the crowd or what we call a normal safe secure life. And it’s with these people, empowered by this love, that the City is built. You know when you walk into a person’s home if the City is there. It is so evident within the lives of its people that there isn’t a question or a doubt. You know.

It looks like a couple of guys from a successful coffee company hearing about a Florida girl, marrying a Lao jungle Farmer dreaming of change and hope and a month later flying out to empower them.

We are proud to say we are family with these people – those who make up Seeds Coffee and all they represent. And many others all over the world who cherishes this City within their hearts, and display it with their lives.

We are hopefully headed to Indonesia soon after our wedding to start learning more about how to make our dream a reality. And maybe the world will know that yes, Laos does have delicious, amazing coffee, but even more amazing people growing it. That the new city dwells in the hearts and through the lives of the Lao people, and that this City is everywhere. The city is here and is coming. We wait and work patiently– as does the farmer while he waits for the early and late rains – it is coming with great power, and we have great expectation. The City it is changing the world.

Lastly: WE GET MARRIED IN THIRTEEN DAYS! :)