This month we are partnering with you as well as Messiah to raise the funds to help bring clean water to a village in Rwanda.  Since October 2005, the Rwanda Clean Water Project has been impacting families and communities with clean water.

Join us this summer as we journey to give away 1000 drinks.  Why?  We have not lost our minds but we just want to bless the community through what we have been given.  Each week this summer (starting May 26th) we will be running a special promotion on giving away free drinks.  We hope that over the course of the summer we can reach 1000 free drinks, so help us out and tell all of your friends and bring them by.  One of the big ones that you will want to mark down in July 1^st (one day only) we are going to doing free 12 oz fruit smoothies… that is right stop in and bring the neighborhood.

Be sure to sign up for our one or more of the following to stay up to date on the specials:

• txt messaging, txt: join Messiah journeys to 260-797-3187
• The Buzz email list
• Follow us on twitter @journeyscoffee
• journeys on Facebook
• @journeyscoffee on Twitter

God Bless,
the journeys crew

• Week of May 24: Free Gourmet Coffee
• Week of May 31: Buy One, Get One Free Specialty Drinks
• Week of June 7: Buy any 16 oz or 20 oz specialty drink, get a coupon for any 12 oz drink free specialty drink
• Week of June 14:Buy any pastry product and get a free 12 oz specialty drink
• Week of June 21: Free Iced Tea
• Week of June 28: Free Gourmet Coffee
• July 1st (one day only): Free 12 oz fruit smoothies
• More to come…

Last month we joined hands with L.I.F.T. to help raise funds and collect blankets to send to an orphanage in Baja California, Mexico (Baja Bound).  So why the heck are we sending blankets to Mexico, plain and simple there are children dieing everynight because they simply don’t have a blanket to keep them warm at night.  As warm as it may be during the day the nights get very cold.  I want to thank everyone of our patron who contributed blankets or donations to help pay for the shipment of them.  L.I.F.T. has sent along the first shipment of eight large boxes totalling over 149 pounds of blankets of life.

For our techno customers / friend / patrons out there following along we have a couple of new methods to keep up to date on more day to day happenings at journeys.  Being social media nuts ourselves we have been using Twitter for some time now and have a journeys twitter feed, daily happenings of the shop and ministry as well as special.  And for the txt crowd, we do txt out special, if you are interested in receiving them then please txt: join Messiah journeys to 260-797-3187 (std txt messaging rates apply… legal statement).  For those on Facebook you can also find us there.

We absolutely love all of our customers and ministry team members and just want to keep everyone connected.

Are you looking for a place to serve @ Messiah? journeys is a ministry that come together to help connect people, develop leaders and fund amazing causes around the world. If you are interested in serving contact one of your local baristas.

Please take a moment to watch this promo video.

I am stoked to share that the senior pastor here @ Messiah where journeys is located has started to share his thoughts with the world.  The internet has created a vast space for those that have something to say to make it known.  There are a lot sites that have nothng to say but say it anyways but this man has a lot to say and will share it with the world.

The sleeves are in so let the conversation continue on.  As I mentioned previously we am stoked to be a part of using a simple coffee cup sleeve to create conversations will bring awareness to great amazing causes around the world.  The first cause to launch is for Compassion through Junky Car Club.  Today  Sean man took some mad pic @ journeys of the sleeves and a couple of us with our jcc pride.

We are pumped to be hosting our first heavy metal night for live music thursdays.  Come out and check out Pig Children this thursday (2008.10.09) @ 6:00 pm.

A young boy in a small Brazilian village.  A local homeless man making a fresh start on life. An elderly Biloxi woman devastated by the hurricane.  These are just three individuals who share an unlikely bond – their lives have been touched by the love of Christ through a coffeehouse tip jar.  For the staff and patrons of journeys coffeehouse in Midland, Michigan, the missions jar is just one aspect of what an intentional third place can do to fund causes locally and globally.

Located inside Messiah Lutheran Church, journeys is uniquely positioned to service the faith family as well as to reach out into the community – even if that outreach happens on the go via the drive-through window.  journeys is a third place for people to gather, connect, share, relate and let life happen.  The joy of being an independent third place is that we are free to impact the world for Christ in all we do in our business and mission… that is right, there is more to journeys at the end of the day then slinging coffee.  We have the great privilege of being able to fund causes with every dollar that journeys as a small business generates.  From the moment of of conception we knew that revenue from the sales would go to fund the mission of Jesus in this world through the faith family of Messiah Lutheran Church but we get to go beyond that.  It was not until opening weekend, when several customers asked whether we had a tip jar, that God presented the idea of funding outreach in that way.

Each month a mission organization is selected and signage is hung to promote the cause.  As time goes on we have patrons asking questions about each mission as well as asking what the next one will be.  It is not uncommon for a customer to ask about the mission, receive back their change but then offer back a five dollar bill to be placed in the missions jar.  How great is that?  The compassion of our customers has now transformed what the world sees as a “tip” jar to an offering to Christ and His Kingdom.

Now that is a bit about the background, but where does the coffee hit the cup?  Shortly after journeys opened, our faith family was sending hurricane relief teams down to Biloxi, MS to help clean up the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.  That mission trip was the first beneficiary of the monthly mission offering.  So every dollar that came in was sent along with the relief team to fund aid in Biloxi.  We also have used the funds to send a group of youth to West Virginia on a construction mission trip, aid in the relief effort in Darfur, and support mission teams working in an orphanage and medical mission in Haiti.  On a local level, we have had the honor of using the offerings to support a men’s crisis center, donate funds to a Christian radio station, and provide holiday blessings to families at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

One of the greatest months for me personally was the month that we collected the necessary funds to sponsor a child from Compassion International.  We wanted to be very intentional about this and the impact this would have so we did a little research through our coffee supplier.  Then we went to Compassion and asked them to find us a child in the very spot in the world where the beans we use each day are being grown and harvested.  Now we have an even more compelling story to share with every guest at journeys:  “Did you know that we are financially and prayerfully supporting a child in the very place where these beans are coming from?”  This child’s father, mother, grandfather…could be the very people growing the beans that we use.  Wow – to me, being able to share a connection with a child and touch his life with the love of Christ is very cool.

I’ll close with one other story of how we have seen our customers fully embrace a mission. Recently, we funded the purchasing of tooth brushes for a medical mission trip to Guatemala. We not only had customers giving through the missions jar but also bringing in toothbrushes to have sent down.  By the time the month was over there were nearly 300 toothbrushes donated and enough funds to purchase 1000 more.  What makes the story even better is that a large toothbrush manufacturer matched our funds, thereby doubling the toothbrushes purchased to 2000!  We even had a dentist in our faith family offer to cover the shipping charges.

When God moves through His people, awesome things happen.  Around the world and in our backyard, the staff and patrons of journeys are showing God’s unfailing love – one cup of coffee at a time.

Note: The above is the full length version of an article posted as “end notes” in Sept – October 2008 issue of Worship Facilities Magazine.

I am stoked to tell you all about a great initiative that Third Place Consulting is launching.  This goes to the bottom line of one portion of what we created journeys for to fund causes.  We can change the world one cup of coffee at at time.

Message In Hand

Ever heard the phrase that ‘for the price of a cup of coffee you can change the world?’ Well, it might actually be true, but you don’t have to give up your cup of coffee to do it. Just USE your cup of coffee to change the world!

Message in Hand is an initiative to create conversational coffee sleeves that will share the message and bring awareness to great causes. Through the exposure to these messages, people will become aware of ways to be active in supporting or becoming involved in efforts, causes, and plans to bring support to children in underdeveloped countries, provide mosquito nets for families in Africa, help aid homeless families, etc. The average person spends 45 minutes with their coffee drink, and this is a way for a cafe community to reach beyond itself and make a difference in the world.

Our current Message In Hand is in collaboration with the Junky Car Club and Compassion International. This year Junky Car Club set an ambitious goal of supporting 500 children through its network, and we thought this would be a great way to launch Message In Hand.

How can you and your café become involved in this initiative? It will involve simply ordering Message in Hand sleeves for your café. These sleeves are similar in price to the sleeves that cafés are already purchasing and are made by a reputable company in the coffee industry. Why not leverage your purchasing power to get the message in the hands of your customers?