I went online this morning to order coffee. That’s not how I usually buy coffee, of course. It’s easier to grab it at one of four grocery stores just a few blocks from my house.
But if I’m going to keep drinking coffee, I figure it should have some benefit beyond jumpstarting the inner workings of my brain.
So I ordered my coffee from Dominion Trading Co., a business based in Liberty Lake, Wash. The company deals exclusively in marketing premium Ethiopian coffee in partnership with impoverished farmers in Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia, in the heart of the Rift Valley.
I met the company’s general manager, Mike Stemm, when he was visiting in Arizona recently. He was part of a group gathered at the home of Brian and Keri deGuzman, the Paradise Valley couple with whom I will soon be traveling to Ethiopa. The parents of two Ethiopian-born children, they are going back next month to welcome two more babies into their family.
Mike made his first trip to Ethiopia eight years ago. A successful businessman, he’d been invited by the leader of Ethiopia’s largest evangelical organization to make a presentation.
“Foreign aid was killing the community by creating a culture of dependence,” Mike says. “This leader was looking for a more sustainable model.”
The trip came at a time of interpersonal turmoil for Mike. “I was wrestling with the conflict between a life of personal success versus a life of meaning and significance. I was coming to the realization that my purpose in life was not to make as much money as possible but to impact as many people as possible.”
He was profoundly moved by his trip to Ethiopia — the people he met and the conditions he observed. Soon after he returned, he left his job and helped establish the New Covenant Foundation, whose purpose is to aid developing countries by helping them break the cycle of dependence on charity from other countries.
The organization revolves around seven distinct initiatives designed to guide people toward independence and self-direction. The Dominion Trading Co. came about because of initiatives to develop innovation, marketing skills and financial independence.
Other initiatives attack more basic needs like health care and education.
“Sometimes we’re in there digging pit latrines,” Mike says. “Sometimes we’re working to purify water or test for HIV.”
And always they are working to impact and support the spiritual lives of the people. Key to this Christian organization’s purpose is what it calls “church planting.”
“Changed lives come from changed hearts,” according to foundation’s website. “The focus of New Covenant Foundation is to reach people for Jesus Christ. The other six initiatives are in support of this singular focus while preparing the way to build a stable foundation for delivering the good news of Jesus Christ to a lost world.”
I have decidedly mixed feelings about this. When I lived on Guam and traveled throughout Micronesia early in my career, I saw how much the influence of more developed societies had eaten away at the cultural beliefs and spiritual lives of the native people. So I acknowledge my bias against the concept of helping people by implying that your own beliefs are somehow more authentic or powerful or relevant than theirs.
And yet how can you argue with the good work that is being done?
In the case of New Covenant Foundation, the commitment of its staff and supporters has meant a 50 percent reduction is malnutrition among populations it serves. The foundation’s work has enabled bright young Ethiopian students to become nurses and doctors “so that eventually they can administer the health care, not Americans,” Mike says. A farming co-op of more than 2,500 members cultivates, harvests and ships the coffee beans that are processed and marketed by Dominion Trading Co., which is a for-profit organization. (Sixty percent of the income it generates goes right back to support development in Ethiopia.)
So I ordered my coffee this morning, marveling at the momentous change one trip made in the life of an American businessman.
And wondering what kind of change a similar trip will effect in mine.