Milk in your coffee?

The drive from Springfield to Chicago is a long one - made even longer with two small children in the back. The drive through Indiana was particularly painful because Indiana is particularly boring - to look at from the car I mean. I'm sure it's great when you get to know it.

Obviously we needed to take breaks to give little legs a run and big ears a rest from 'Ten Green Bottles'. But we didn't just want to make a McStop somewhere.

And then, 14 miles before we arrived at it, a huge sign on the side of the freeway advertised Fair Oak Farms. Also on the sign was the promise of gourmet coffee so we decided that was the place for us. Would you believe it? The gourmet coffee being served was Starbucks. But that's not the real reason why Fair Oak Farms gets a mention.

Before discovering the large and mostly empty cafe area and gift shop (I think they get more people in the summer) we went into the Adventure Centre. The lady at the reception desk, after pointing me in the direction of the toilets, told me a little about the experience. Fair Oak Farms is one of the largest dairy farms in the USA. You can go on a tour around the farm and see the cows, taste the milk, watch cheese being made, that sort of thing. But the highlight of the tour is a visit the the Birthing Barn where you can watch a cow being born. Now, not having much bovine knowledge, I enquired (slightly sarcastically) into the chances of seeing a real birth. If I'm paying $7 for the tour I want to see some action! I was stunned to hear that the farm has 30,000 cows. On average 80 are born every day! (I didn't ask how many died every day and what happened to them - 'cos of the kids, you understand).

Unfortunately we only had time for a gourmet coffee and a milkshake, but I can't wait to get back to Indiana one day.

One World Cafe

We stayed with my sister-in-law and her family for a few days. They live in Springfield. (I was excited the first time I heard they lived there until I discovered that there is a Springfield in pretty much every state. No funny, yellow families to be found.)

My wife's sister, H, is a teacher and her husband, J, has various roles in Christian ministry. I was interested to talk with J one night while the two sisters were out. We have a lot of similar feelings about 'church' - what it is, what it perhaps is meant to be, what to do about it, etc. Unfortunately we weren't drinking coffee at the time so, as this blog centres around views of life over a cup of coffee, I'll have to wait for another opportunity to go down that road.

However, on another occasion, J showed me around a new coffeehouse that just opened a few weeks ago. It's being run as a project between a number of Christian ministries in the Springfield area and is called Un Mundo Cafe. The cafe is located in a rougher part of the city and is hoped to bring together people from that neighbourhood with people who are into the coffee "thing" and may be passing through. The cafe is proud to use Fairtrade and organic products.

They are still getting the hang of running a coffeehouse. The service is a little slow (but friendly) and you may find that your latte is not quite as hot as you'd like. Apparently the owner wants them served "the way they should be" - just warm enough so you can taste it. She sees it as an opportunity to educate people about coffee. Hmmmm? I'm not sure how much the public want to be educated in the finer points of coffee, but I will make an effort to do some research myself about how a latte should be served. (I'll check online and talk to a few baristas.)

Anyway, I respect what they are doing at Un Mundo. Coffee is such a huge part of contemporary culture, that it might be a good avenue to go down in an attempt to relate a living Christ with society. The vision of Un Mundo is, 'To share God's love to all; from the coffee grower to the coffee drinker and beyond.'

Now, what if Church could be a little like...