(Not) Sleeping on the Job, & The Coffee Plantation

Happy Easter! We hope you have all had a great day, and are celebrating the greatest gift any of us could have ever received- Salvation!

So first of all, my apologies (sort of) for not posting last night. Let's just say there is currently a war of no sleep going on at Hotel Paris, and it's taking a lot of effort on our parts to keep sane. Ally was always a great sleeper from day one, but Will seems to dislike it more than fish dislike air. So last night we sat down with a few people after dinner, watched the Final Four (looks like it's football season for both green and white & maize and blue fans now!), and that was it. So for those that have been emailing, we very much appreciate the prayers (Beck was up from midnite til 4 am, and Ally and I were up for about 3 of those hours). When you're all in one room, there's no escape from everything else that happens in there, so it's been a bit difficult. But we know that eventually he'll get back on track!

Yesterday we went to the coffee plantation. We headed south out of Bogota, and proceeded to drive through some of the most destitute areas I've ever seen. The level of poverty that we saw yesterday makes any poverty we have in the US look like a joke. As one person said- poverty in the US means having a TV and running water but only one car. Here you're lucky if you have food to put on the table everyday- there is no comparison. These people would love to live in "poverty" in the US. Maria, who was the daughter of our taxi driver, came along and explained to us that many of these people are displaced from the guerilla war and have come to Bogota to find a better life. And this is where they live now:

I took this out the window while we were driving through, so the quality's not the best. You can see the apartment buildings at the bottom of the picture, but what isn't so easy to see is what's behind them- houses. The entire mountainside is covered with houses (really, they're shacks. They're nothing like the houses we have or think of as homes), and this is where so many people live. Beck and I were talking yesterday, and for all the "difficulties" we've had while we've been here, they're nothing compared to what these people live with, day in and day out. So when you're having a bad day or that things are hard, take a good look at this pic, close your eyes, and thank God for all the blessings you have.

So putting aside my soapbox, let's get back to the reason for the trip- the coffee plantation. Once we got outside of the city a bit, we started to descend the mountains (Bogota is up in the mountains, so generally once you get an hour or so outside of it, you're going down). It was an absolutely beautiful drive. The mountains were incredibly green, the foliage is incredible, and the views were awesome. You could see for miles:

It took about 1-1/2 hours to get there, but the plantation itself was really cool. The home is a 2nd residence for the owners (many of the wealthier people have a residence in Bogota, and another outside in one of the surrounding smaller cities in the mountains). This place was pretty cool:

The 4th picture is a little cathedral built on the property. I don't know this for sure, but I would assume this would be a place for the workers to pray and worship. And the 5th pic is of the coffee that is raised and then they sell there. Our taxi driver gave us the tour, and he explained the entire process of how the plants are raised all the way to how the coffee is roasted and ground. It was cool to learn the whole process, and so now we know how all those beans are made to give us all our morning jolt!

I'm intending to throw up another post tonight- Beck went on a tour through some churches this morning (I stayed back with Will), so tonight we'll have a special guest (OK, it's Beck) and she'll share a little bit about those churches. Enjoy your Easter!

Love-

Scott, Beck, Ally, and Will