Does the coffee that you drink help change the world?

Mine does.

We’ve just recently started serving Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee (you can follow them on Twitter HERE)on Sunday morning at Grace.  Every pound of coffee we purchase from them helps to fuel their ministry.  I love what they’re doing to impact Rwanda. For starters, they’ve adopted a coffee farm, and guarantee the farmers a premium price on their coffee.  And it’s through creating these secure jobs that they’ve been able to promote reconciliation among the two tribes, the Tutsis and the Hutus.  It’s as these two tribes come together for a common goal (producing high-quality coffee) that they’ve been able to unite.  In 1994, this small country experienced the genocide of 100 million people lost their lives in a violent civil war sparked by governmental changes, which makes the fact that Land of a Thousand Hills is truly helping to unite the people an even more astonishing feat.

And it’s not just that Land of a Thousand Hills buys the coffee beans…they’ve also built an orphanage, created soccer programs to promote community, given microfinance loans, donated shoes, and built a sustenance farm for the region’s orphans…all with the goal of promoting reconciliation and forgiveness.

If you produce bad coffee, I may support you as an organization…but I’ll ask you to keep your coffee.  I absolutely hate bad coffee.  But Land of a Thousand Hills takes great pride in producing top-quality coffee as well.  I’m telling you…the stuff is really good.

We could buy cheaper coffee.  But we’d rather invest in (and partner with) a ministry that we believe in with every cup of coffee that we serve.

Is your coffee changing the world?

Check out this video from the team that visited Rwanda recently:

Visit Bukonya! (3m 30sec) from Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee on Vimeo.

**Disclaimer: this is not a solicited post.  I wrote this post of my own choosing, and because I love what Land of a Thousand Hills is doing to advance the Kingdom.