Why Burundi?

Twice in the last 24 hours I have had friends ask me “why Burundi?”  It wasn’t the sort of “why?” that we get from scared relatives or rural-Africa-phobic types.  It’s a deep question rooted in an intrinsic desire to understand this whole Long Miles Coffee Project thing.  This post is my way of facing fears of mine about our move, my job, our complete change of life, and our relational upheaval.  So in a sense, by answering the question “Why Burundi?” I’m going to try to understand this Long Miles Coffee Project myself.

Four years ago we knew a change was needed.  The result was a journey of discovery of who we are as individuals.  Kristy discovered “camera girl,” my discovery was coffee.  Duh.  I knew this, Kristy knew this, friends knew this, but there was way too much risk to say it out loud.  Then one day we took the risk.  We faced our fears and said “what if…”  What if we leave our safe Durban job, change our way of life, and just jump into coffee (figuratively, though it would be interesting) and Kristy into photography?  We said yes to a new way of life and had no idea what that would mean.

Kristy is meeting with a group of women every Friday to figure out how they can “feel the fear and do it anyway,” they call themselves The Awesome Pants Club.  The goal? To stop dreaming of the life you want to live, but rather live the life of your dreams. Justifying doing what we love has been a way of life for us for years. “We would like too BUT… “it doesn’t fit our job description,” “it costs too much money,” “what if people don’t ‘get it'”… and then we stopped. We’ve struck that out. No more “I can’t” “I should” “I hope”. We’ve replaced those words with more empowering ones like, “I won’t” “I could” and “I know.” It makes a difference. Trust us! It has allowed us to make a leap and say, We could follow a big dream to help coffee farmers, and live in Burundi.” It’s our choice, and we’ve made it. When we stood up and said, “This is our choice, we’re going, no matter who’s on board or what the outcome is” a whole new world of possibility opened before us.

Until the next chapter,

Coffee Guy