We started roasting coffee in 2018 to see if we could produce something here in Norikura Kogen that would benefit our community, the community it was grown in, and the end-user/customer. The results have been good so far, and 4 years into this project, we still see plenty of room to grow.
That growth has been making us feel some growing pains. We have been working from a tiny room next to the entrance of our home since we started and it’s been feeling pretty cramped.
Last year we started praying, “Lord, if you want us to keep growing and serving more people with this project, would you please provide us with space to grow?”
So we began praying and looking for space to rent in Norikura Kogen, ideally close to our home. We soon found out that there are not a lot of options for suitable rental spaces.
There is this small cotage next to our house that would be perfect but when we asked the owner about it some years back, they said they were not ready to part with it. I contacted the owner again this year in April to ask one more time if we could possibly rent the building or part of the land to setup a tiny-house or something to make space for the roasting operation. I explained that we want to create a space where we can serve people and help people enjoy God’s beautiful creation. They said they would think about it and we ended our phone call.
About a week later I got a call from the owner and they said they would be willing to sell it to us. The owner of the land and building is in their 80’s and built the cottage over 50 years ago and used it as a second home while working as a teacher in Kyoto and later lived in it for over 10 years after retirement. They told us that the reason she was willing to sell it to us was that she trusted us to continue loving this area and make something new with it.
Eventually, when we got to see inside the building we found a small hand written note taped to the back of the door that read 「よくいらしゃしました。来たときよりも美しくおすごしください。」”You made it. Please leave this place more beautiful than when you came.”
This note reminds me of the command give to us by God in the book of Genesis.
[28] And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” [29] And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. [30] And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. [31] And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:28–31 ESV)
God put us in charge of all the living things on the earth and commanded/commissioned us to steward them well. Hannah and I have often wondered how long The Lord would allow us to stay in Japan. Every three years we have to renew or visas to stay here. And so we are slowly walking the path set before us and trusting God to provide what we need, three years at a time. When we are asked how long we plan to stay in Japan we can only say, “we don’t know how long God would have us stay but while we are here we want to leave this place better than we found it.”
That small hand written note sure felt like an answer to our prayer. We agreed to purchase the land and building and finalized a contract in April and closed on May 10th. Everything moved so fast, we haven’t had time to process everything yet. So for now we are just taking one step at a time, thinking, praying and slowly planning how to create a space that can serve people.
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