There are a number of people out there who would consider your cup of ‘Joe’ as one of the essentials for daily living. It’s amazing what a cup of coffee, or the lack thereof, can do to a person. It warms one from the chill of the bitter cold, it helps to wake up the creative juices of the brain, it makes some people more likeable, yet for others it can serve to calm their nerves, and some would adamantly say that they MUST have their cup of ‘brain juice’ in order to sustain life. We’ll not get into what happens if people don’t have it…that can be downright dangerous.
Though many people would jokingly say that their ‘caffeine infusion’ is what sustains them, for many of the people in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea that is no joke at all. For many, the coffee they grow is their means to paying their children’s school fees, putting clothes on their children, and buying the basics (soap, oil, and salt). Now that there is a shortage of kunai grass which they have used for so many years to roof their grass huts, their coffee is often their means to literally putting a roof over their family’s heads.
Over this last year friends of ours, Stephen and his wife Jenit, have been facing obvious resistance from Satan as they’ve been growing in their walk with the Lord. To add insult to injury, their coffee which was ripe for the picking was recently stolen one Sunday as we were all meeting for church.
Stephen is at the point of ‘tapping out’. No, he’s not tapping out on is walk with the Lord. He’s tapping out and asking the Lord to allow him to have a break from the oppression he and his family are facing. As I write this, he is facing the possibility of being kicked off his own land.
So, next time you wrap your hands around a mug of hot java and touch it to your lips please pray that God would grant Stephen’s request for a reprieve from the various hardships he and his family are facing. And that he would feel God’s love and strength that would encourage and build him up.
[nggallery id=8]