A few months ago we started thinking about the “greater mission” of Ebenezers, our coffeehouse on Capitol Hill. We want to serve great coffee. But we also want profits to go toward a great cause. Because of our missionary connections with Ethiopia and Colombia and because of their connection with coffee, they’d make for great causes.

Why not use some of the profits to build mud huts? Habitat for Humanity Ethiopia style! Why not use some of the profits to build a school in Colombia and give kids a scholarship. Why not use some of the profits to fund the mercy center in Addis Ababa where they feed and teach hundreds of children?

We really want to establish connections with the countries where we’re getting our coffee. Our coffeehouse managers, Dairo and Christina Borja, even visited a coffee farm while they were in Colombia on a missions trip a few weeks ago. Fair Trade coffee is a given, but I’d like to take it even further than that. I’d love to know and bless the people we get our coffee from. I’m not sure exactly how we get from here to there, but we can start by using some of our profits to bless the countries where the coffee comes from.

What’s cool about that is this. Then the coffee doesn’t just taste good. It feels good because you know:

a cup of coffee = a home
a cup of coffee = an education
a cup of coffee = food on someone else’s plate

The end result? Great Coffee. Great Cause.

It’s a win/win.