In 2006, eight members of the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco went on a mission exploration trip to Thailand knowing that ABC has historical mission work there. What they saw has changed their lives!
They have heard about the terrible problem of human trafficking based in Bangkok but they didn’t know that they can make a life-changing difference about it until they began to connect the dots. If village farmers can grow coffee as a profitable cash crop, fewer girls would need to work as domestics in large tourist hotels running the risk of being recruited as prostitutes. Just the fact of selling coffee produced by Hill Tribe farmers can save human lives.
We visited the New Life Center where girls and women rescued from human trafficking are learning new skills of using computers and traditional handcrafts would allow them to support themselves. We visited the House of Love where children with AIDS/HIV infected can attend school and live in a healthy and loving community.
For the past 5 years our Lanna Coffee Project has imported hundreds of pound of Lanna Coffee from Chiang Mai, a project directed by ABC Missionary Mike Mann and donated over $10,000 to each New Life Center and House of Love. As American Baptists who probably drink a cup of coffee every day, we can drink Lanna Coffee and save precious lives in Thailand! If you would like to start a Lanna Coffee Project at your church, visit our church website: fcbc-sf.org and download our business plan to get started.
(Rev. Don Ng, Senior Pastor)