Leap of Faith

In the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Jones must get to the other side of a great chasm in order to save his dying father. But there is no apparent way to cross the divide. Heart hammering, Jones closes his eyes and steps out into what appears to be thin air, but amazingly his feet land on solid rock. What he hadn't seen before was a narrow bridge that was present but camouflaged. He safely crosses to the other side.

We can identify with Jones. A little over a month and a half ago we came to an apparent end of hope. In one last effort Jeff met with yet another banker. After looking over the business plan the banker informed Jeff that he could not provide the remaining money we need for the coffee shop start up. But then he spoke some profound words. He informed us that the gap between what we still needed and what we had on hand was almost the exact amount we needed to pay for salary. He suggested that if we could bypass the salary, then we'd be able to swing the coffee shop until it started turning producing cash flow. This also helped us to make the decision to run the coffee shop as a non-profit through Living Hope Covenant Church.

It's funny how God uses the most insignificant people to convey messages to His people. The path we were to take was suddenly quite clear. He wanted us to open the coffee shop on blind faith, switch from a charitable business model to a non-profit and secure volunteers to make up the workforce and to help with the up-fit.

Making this shift has opened the door to all kinds of possibilities and it has rounded up interested workers who care about our mission. Yes, it feels very much like stepping out into thin air, but our footsteps feel amazingly firm and we believe God is blessing this "leap of faith."