Christ+Coffee: Changing the World Twice as Fast

A couple of churches about 1,500 miles apart are helping poor farmers in countries about a thousand miles apart, and it's all for Christ and coffee.

When the devastating earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, many groups sent relief teams to the area. One such group was the Woodlands Church, located outside Houston.

Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, received much of that relief and most of the news coverage. But the Woodlands missionaries found that villages in the mountains were also in need of help.

Coffee Missions

"We were there and saw that there was coffee actually lying on the ground, coffee beans lying on the ground, just scattered. And we asked, 'Tell us about that? What's going on?,'" Chris Shook, co-pastor and director of missions at Woodlands Church, said. "And they said, 'Well, no one will buy our coffee. We have no one to sell it to.'"

The problem was the remoteness of the village.

"These are people who were starving and didn't have enough food or clothing or education for their kids. But yet, they had a means there but no one to buy it," Shook explained.

"And so we said, 'Well, it turns out that you're good at growing coffee; we're good at drinking coffee," she said.

Now, these green coffee beans are shipped to Miami then trucked to Houston.

"And then volunteers here will roast and package the coffee, and then our congregation buys it like crazy and drinks it," Shook said.

With an 18,000-plus church attendance each week, their coffee -- formally called Summit but now branded as WC Trading Company coffee -- has a built-in market.

"It's an easy buy," Shook told CBN News. "We tell people in our congregation, 'Hey, you're going to buy coffee anyway, so why not make a choice here, make a difference in this place."

The church estimates the joint-coffee business is probably helping close to 8,000 Haitian family members.
 
"We basically give them a fair trade price," Shook's husband, Woodlands Senior Pastor Kerry Shook, told CBN News.

"It's three times more than any other coffee dealers would give them," he continued. "But then when we sell it here, we take the profits and we go back and do clinics and feeding programs and teaching programs."

Redeeming Grounds Coffee

About 1,500 miles to the northwest, in Washington, D.C., the National Community Church, or NCC, is doing in Colombia what Woodlands is doing in Haiti, but with a twist.

Their brand of coffee is grown in a guerrilla conflict zone notorious for kidnappings, car bombings, and assignations.

Church members Santiago Moncada and Steve Thaler were recently on a mission trip working with local children.

"The pastor we had invited to share at the event later told us the testimony of these farmers that lived in a mountain region that was controlled by the guerrilla rebels," Moncada said. "And he explained how after they came to faith, they eradicated their cocaine fields and planted coffee in its place."

When Moncada and Thaler arrived on the scene the coffee was ready to harvest. They suggested a partnership.

"Originally we started with just a little bit of coffee, bringing in and sharing it with the congregation," Moncada recalled. "But that quickly expanded into thousands of pounds of coffee that we now import."

Redeeming Grounds Coffee is not only sold in D.C. but also on online at Redeeming Grounds Coffee's website.

"The response in the U.S. for this coffee has been great, so things are growing," Moncada said.

"And with just a few farmers we started with, already eradicated over 55 acres of cocaine fields, that translates to about 1,700 kilos worth of cocaine off of the street, with a street value of over $80 million," he added.

The Colombian farmers decide how the profits are spent.

"This year they want to buy presents for the guerrilla rebels during Christmas and encourage them to go home and be with their families, hug their children," Moncada told CBN News.

In the past, money has been used to build irrigation systems and fund education programs. Redeeming Grounds is sold at Ebenezers, NCC's coffee shop on Capitol Hill, and other specialty shops around the country.

Introducing Customers to Christ

Moncada said new customers get introduced to the power of Christ's love.

"They are always curious to understand why it is that these farmers are planting coffee instead of cocaine because of the reasonable assumption that cocaine farming is certainly much more lucrative. And that's when we get a chance to share the heart behind it," Moncada explained.

"We get a chance to share the testimony of these farmers and how coming to faith convicted them to make this change," he said.

Pastor Shook explained, "People see us coming back as a church, time after time, and doing things, not just to make us feel good, but in things they actually need in their community."

"And so what we always say is 'Christ plus caffeine really works because we can change the world twice as fast because we drink so much coffee,'" he said.