of coffee farms and army generals

I just got back from a day and a half in Jinotega, Nicaragua's largest exporter of coffee. I was there about 4 months ago to see an orphinage, but this trip was different. This time instead of hanging out with the have nots--those having not a even a family to speak of--I hung out with the haves. A friend of mine from the apartments where I currently live owns a coffee farm in this area and has been telling me I need to go with him to his farm. So we headed out on Saturday morning. The roads are good for part of the way, but about an hour and half into the trip, they get very very bad. Nobody can understand why the government lets such a highly used and important road get so degraded. I heard that the road carries 600 million pounds of coffee a year...but I can't remember if that's the right number (maybe it's $600 million of coffee). The potholes are never more than 50 feet apart--and that's infrequent. They are sometimes more than 6 inches deep. The majority of accidents on this road occur due to broken steering components. I think there were 15 deaths this last year. About 4 hours into the trip we arrived in Jinotega where I got a tour of the farm and of the great big machine that classifies and sorts coffee beans. Quite the organization. The coffee on this farm was shade grown but not organic. The owner explained that to do organic on a large scale is too difficult. After the tour of the farm, I joined him to a fiesta that the farmer owners were throwing for the army. They have a good relationship with the army because they help each other out a lot. When the army needs a place to train, they use the farmers' land, and when the farmers need extra protection, the army is there to help. So I enjoyed the fiesta with the farmers and the generals of the army. The head honcho was there as well as probably 15 generals. They flew into a nearby base in a chopper and arrived in cars. Had I been able to speak Spanish a little better, I would have tried talking to more people, but as it was, I was left conversing only one of the other two Americans there, or with people who wanted to practice their English. After the party, we went back into Jinotega and spent an hour and a bit chatting with some friends of my friend who also own farms. One of them had been kidnapped and held for ransom six years earlier and was talking about that (unfortunately I couldn't understand much of it). When we left there, he took me to his house in the mountains overlooking Matagalpa, one of Nicaragua's largest cities outside of Managua. The next morning we got up and took the morning easy, reading, relaxing, and talking in the hammocks on the oversized porch overlooking the city before heading back to Managua.

One of the main reasons I think he wanted to take me to the farm was because he is looking for someone, or some people to start a school on his farm. He has about 35 regular year-round employees, and during the coffee picking season, he has around 1700 employees. There are about 15 kids there all year, and closer to 100 during picking season. He wants to someone to come and teach them and share with them the gospel. If you know of anyone that has some experience and a desire to be involved in something like this...he is 100% serious and wants to start the school as soon as possible. I see this as a very good opportunity to start something that could be very influential on many levels. While I was there I saw a huge need for an authentic Christian witness--which is something else that really stimulated my thinking while I was there.