A speed bump or is it a ramp?

— by Jeremy Wiley

So business is growing, even faster than you thought it would over the last twelve months.  You’ve started a new year and the future seems bright with new customers, new products, and new highs for the company.

Then along comes another new thing.  A new virus. A new global threat that halts your progress right in its tracks.  It threatens to decimate your sales.  Customers are forced to take steps that mean they don’t use your product as much, or at all. 

And all of a sudden—almost overnight—optimism gives way to uncertainty, trepidation, even fear.

That’s exactly where HOPE Coffee found itself at the end of the first quarter of this year. And we were surely not alone. The economic and societal shutdown that COVID19 caused in this country—and around the world—brought many businesses to a screeching halt. It felt like a sucker punch that took even healthy companies to their knees, and sent fledgling or struggling companies down for the count.

With that halt came the inevitable question; “what happens to all the kingdom work this business is fueling?” That is, after all, why we’re doing this, right?

You see, HOPE Coffee is a coffee company with a heart for missions.  With roots as a ministry to coffee farmers and families who live in their communities, HOPE Coffee is devoted to meeting needs while sharing the hope of Jesus.  

We do this by purchasing coffee from farmers who have small plots of land and paying them higher than the market wages through a Direct Trade Relationship. We then sell our high-quality coffee to individuals, churches, nonprofits and businesses, and use those profits to invest in servant-evangelism projects in the countries where the coffee is grown. We’ve found it to be a great model.

Unfortunately, HOPE Coffee’s business model made us particularly vulnerable to the sudden change brought on by COVID.

Our largest customer base is churches who buy HOPE Coffee to serve their congregations each week.  So when people have to stay at home—and churches go virtual—then coffee service stops. And when those sales dry up we are faced with a major worry.  

What happens to the servant-evangelism projects that our coffee sales fund? Without that outreach in communities in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and parts of Africa, what happens to the efforts to share the Gospel that motivate our entire business? 

This felt like a significant speed bump on our road, just as we were building up speed.  

Once we regrouped, caught our breath, and took a step back, we saw a different picture.  What we saw reminded us that God works in all times, through all circumstances, for good. We saw a sharp increase in reports of professions of faith from the field! More than 150 people had turned to the Lord over a three-month period, as a direct result of the projects that our HOPE Coffee and Compassion Tea operations fund. 

Could it be that God was working through a time of great global stress and fear, bringing people to an understanding of their need for Jesus? We think so. And in these turbulent times, HOPE Coffee is able to come alongside the local church to continue meeting physical and spiritual needs in communities. 

We began to see this time not as a speed bump, but as a ramp that propelled ministry to greater heights. As it did, it encouraged us and acted as a reminder that it’s for this purpose that HOPE Coffee exists!

Are times still tight? Sure! Is there still uncertainty about the future? Without question! 

Yet even as we wait patiently and trust the Lord to provide, we can see His hand at work.  

In the midst of all of this, we have also been blessed by partners that want to see the work of HOPE Coffee continue. Churches and individuals who believe that God is at work through this business have given to help continue to fund the outreach on the field, and to pay workers in Honduras and Mexico as we weather the financial storm created by COVID.

It’s another reminder that faith driven companies like HOPE Coffee are important, and that others share more with us than just a passion for great coffee. We share a vision for reaching the lost. It’s in times like this, when so much seems uncertain and unstable, that the world needs to be pointed to Jesus.

HOPE Coffee is now seeing partners return, as more places open back up and churches can meet in person again. We are optimistic about the future, even though there will certainly be other bumps in the road. 

Still, there is one thing that never was in doubt. It’s for times like this that HOPE Coffee, and businesses like yours that have a Kingdom purpose, exist.

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[ Photo by Makarios Tang on Unsplash ]