After an uneventful flight, we landed in Guatemala City to begin the three-hour drive to San Felipe. Our fifteen passenger van was bursting at the seams, filled with thirteen members of Mission Presbytery (Toby Brown, Bibba Wilde, Michele Donelly, Dave Wilson, Dan Mudgett, Bob Yarbrough, Edward Esparza, Arlene Esparza, Doerte Seale, Kristin Hubley, Cheryl Moore, and trip leaders Scott and Gabby Dannemiller) and two Guatemalans (driver Mario Perez and CESSMAQ Director Noe Sam). We found the close quarters to be a good recipe for group bonding. You can’t really call someone a true friend unless your sweaty arm has been stuck to his for a couple of hours.

Our final destination was a place called Finca Santa Elena. The finca (Spanish for "plantation") is situated just outside a tiny town called San Felipe. Here at the base of the mountains range is where pine forest meets dense jungle. It is a diverse environment in both culture and climate. It is also perfect for growing coffee, which is the staple product of Finca Santa Elena. The finca would be our home base for the week. Our stay there provided the opportunity to see the "coffee crisis" up close and personal.

Our hosts were Mark Shomer, and his wife, Ana Maria. Mark has been involved in the areas of peace, justice and hunger for decades, and now finds himself running a coffee plantation once owned by his Guatemalan wife's family. They explained to us the world coffee market and their role in it. Because of a glut of cheap coffee from countries such as Vietnam and Brazil, where coffee pickers don't make enough money to feed their families, world producers have been hard-pressed to stay afloat. In fact, even though the coffee farms in Guatemala pay workers at rates BELOW minimum wage, they still barely break even. While it would be easy to hate the "greedy finca owners" in this situation, we can see that our hosts don't fit that description. They live in one, non-air-conditioned room of their old plantation house, and rent the other rooms to curious guests like ourselves as a way to generate a little more revenue. It's a complex situation with no easy answers.

We awake on our second morning and make our way to Monte Carmelo, our worksite for the week. Monte Carmelo is a hot, steamy jungle village that sits atop a hill. Here we see the other side of the coffee crisis. This village was settled by displaced coffee workers. Their families had worked for generations on a large coffee farm called Finca San Jose. They lived there in houses provided by the plantation owner. However, when the coffee market tanked and the owner was forced to sell out, the families had nowhere to go. The Presbyterian Church of Guatemala heard about the problem and purchased a large tract of land on a hilltop, and sold it to the families plot-by-plot for a very low price. It was unwanted land - nearly useless. Now the residents of Monte Carmelo have planted some small crops, and say prayers that they will one day get back on their feet. Many here earn just two or three dollars per day when they can find work, but they thank God for every penny.