Coffee Experiment - Day 9

It's happening - I'm beginning to actually "need" a cup of coffee. Still don't really like the taste though.


I press on.

Coffee Experiment - Day 6 and 7

Well, the coffee experiment is going quite well (despite my wife's post yesterday). I wanted to say too that if your church regularly serves coffee on Sunday morning that maybe you could buy from one of the organizations that sells fair trade coffee and has the proceeds going to orphanage care. The other day I mentioned one of those: http://gobena.org/.

There are two others that I'd like to mention:

http://www.saintscoffee.com/

and

http://www.landof1000hills.com/

Thank you for continuing to help care for the over 140 million orphans in the world today.

Coffee is Disgusting

This is Dottie and I hate coffee. I loathe coffee. Even after spending months mentally preparing myself to drink the really small cup of coffee at the coffee ceremony, I still couldn't get it down. Totally disgusting!

This whole coffee experiment...I just can't do it.

But this.....

http://www.divinechocolateusa.com/

I can totally get behind!

Coffee Experiment - Day 5

Today I drank my largest cup of coffee yet. Not exactly the big mug from "Friends" but never the less it was a large coffee cup. I also made this cup stronger than my previous cups. Which brings to mind a question: how do you make your coffee? The coffee I have says two tablespoons per cup and I'm not quite there.

Everyone knows by now why I am doing this coffee experiment but I have had an unexpected bonus to this. With each cup I drink I notice that I am very conscious of why I am doing this. Each cup provides for me the opportunity to stop, to consider the orphans of the world, to pray for them and to ask myself in what other ways can I be an advocate for the children.

Coffee Experiment - Day 3 and 4

Well, yesterday I never got in my cup of coffee. I had planned on having it last night but I was out late and did not want to have a cup right before bed. So, today I'm going to drink 2 cups. I just finished my first and honestly it was not that bad. Perhaps, I'm actually getting used to this stuff.

I have been asked, why I don't just give money to an orphanage? Why drink the coffee? You must remember that the coffee that I'm buying is fair trade coffee. This means that when buying fair trade coffee in which the profits go toward an orphanage I am accomplishing two things at once. The orphanage gets the money but the farmers in Ethiopia are earning a living. This is one of those, give a man a fish and he can eat for a day, teach him to fish and he can eat for a lifetime deals. It is great to support the orphanage but if we can also support the economy of an impoverished nation then perhaps the day will come when there are less orphans.

So, drink coffee, support an economy, and provide for the orphans.

By the way, here is a link for some fair trade coffee that helps support orphans: http://gobena.org/

Coffee Experiment - Day 2

Well, here I am sipping another cup of coffee. I'll be honest day 1 did not go very well. I actually did not finish the whole cup. Every sip made me have a bit of a gag reflex and by the time I was half way through I was just nauseous. To make matters even more complicated, I had trouble preaching my Sunday night sermon because of the nasty taste the coffee had left in my mouth. So you can probably understand that I was not exactly thrilled about drinking today's cup. But here I sit drinking this cup and so far it has not been too bad. I did make it a little less strong this time and I did break down and add a little Splenda. I wouldn't say that I'm enjoying it. I'm far from actually desiring a cup of this stuff but I'm still trying. I just keep thinking - this is for the orphans.

Coffee Experiment - Day 1

Ok, I hate coffee. However, for years I have wanted to like it. Mostly I have wanted to like it because it is (unless you go to some fancy, over priced place) relatively cheap. Often, such as at every pastors' meeting I go to, it is there for free. So I have wanted to like coffee because I'm generally a cheap person. Unfortunately the taste of burnt water has always over-ridden my desire to drink this stuff.

Then we adopted these two boys from Ethiopia where drinking coffee is second nature. I thought as a good Father I should have coffee in the house because the boys would like it. I figured if I was ever going to buy and make the stuff I should at least be able to drink it. Unfortunately, even the desire to be a hero Daddy who makes coffee simply could not bring me to even tolerate the stuff.

Then the other day I saw a bag of fair trade coffee from Ethiopia. I thought about this for a while and began to consider that if I can help my fellow Ethiopians (yes, I consider myself part of the Ethiopian family) simply by drinking coffee, well, then that my just be worth it. To take it a step further there is a good chance that where our Compassion child (that is the child we sponsor through Compassion International - compassion.com) lives, her mother could possibly be employed by a coffee farm. Now, we are dealing with something on a much larger scale. This is no longer about being cheap, or even being a "cool" Dad, this is about helping out the widows, the orphans, those who without the ability to produce and sell their coffee would be in poverty. I have also found a fair trade coffee in which the proceeds go toward orphan projects.

So now here is my plan: I am going to drink at least 1 cup of coffee a day for 21 days (it is said that it takes 21 days to form a new habit). It is my hope that at the end of the experiment I will actually enjoy coffee. Coffee that I can drink and know that in doing so I am helping the people of Ethiopia and the orphans of the world.

Going now to make me a cup. Let's pray I can swallow the stuff.