She Came Back Different

My daughter Elona left for Kenya healthy, excited, and full of energy. She came back thinner, quieter, and more alive than I have ever seen her.

She spent weeks in a missionary village in the Pokot region -- one of the most remote and underserved corners of Kenya. She wasn't there on a program or a school trip. She went because something in her couldn't not go.

She worked with orphaned children. She sat with women carrying grief too heavy to name. She led small church gatherings in a place where faith isn't a Sunday habit -- it's the only thing holding people together. And then one day she walked into a men's prison and stood in front of strangers and told them the truth about her own life. The hard parts. The parts most people hide. She told them how Jesus showed up in those moments -- not as a concept, but as something real she could point to.

She got sick for almost two weeks out there. It wasn't easy. None of it was easy.

But she never once talked about coming home early.

What she talked about were the kids. The way they ran toward her. The way a little girl grabbed her hand and just held it. The women who cried not out of sadness but because someone had finally shown up. These are the things that don't make it into brochures. They don't photograph well. But they change you.

Our family has spent years traveling to the places where the world's best coffee grows. Somewhere along the way we stopped seeing those places as origins on a bag and started seeing them as home -- other people's homes, full of real lives and real struggles. That shift changes how you move through the world.

Elona's trip was part of that. Not a campaign. Not a gesture. Just a family trying to show up for people they love, in a place that deserves to be shown up for.

We're grateful she went. We're grateful she's home. And we're already thinking about going back.

One Quiet Way to Keep It Going

Our Kenya Murang'a x Riakiberu Station coffee comes from a cooperative of 700 small farmers in the highlands of central Kenya -- grown in rich volcanic soil at nearly 7,000 feet, wet processed, and sun dried on raised beds. It's a medium roast with notes of pomegranate, strawberry, and lime. One of the most vibrant and alive cups we carry.

What makes it matter beyond the cup: the Riakiberu cooperative uses earnings from each harvest to help farmers cover school fees, emergency needs, and farm supplies. Buying this coffee doesn't fund a charity -- it pays real farmers a premium price for exceptional work, and that money stays in the community long after any trip ends.

Elona came home. But the connection doesn't have to.

Thanks for your support,
Angel

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