She volunteers at our Mocha Club Nashville office.  She loves music and Africa, so going out on the road with some of our MC Sponsors is pretty much her dream.  While balancing some online classes, Lauren is currently out with MC artists Sanctus Real and Addison Road on their current tour.  She’ll be giving us an insider’s view of life on the road – from advice on how to live with 7 other people (including a baby!) in an RV to how things are going with Mocha Club signups to raise money for Clean Water projects. Stay tuned…

Mocha Club Interns (”Mochaterns”) here.  Just wanted to let you guys know that World Water Day is just around the corner, on March 22.  This is a day dedicated to bringing awareness to unsafe and inadequate water sources.  In honor of World Water Day, we have developed a new campaign for Mocha Club. You can join the Mochaterns as we investigate all things water by visiting mochaclub.org/ripple-effect.  Help us with our first task – solving this riddle:  What gives 15 Africans clean water, helps you reach your target weight, and has a silver lining? Reply with your answer on twitter with the hashtag #MCwater and keep an eye out for weekly water facts.

Start the Ripple Effect.

Country Throwdown is an exciting new music tour bringing some of the biggest country artists to a city near you this summer – Montgomery Gentry, Jamey Johnson, Little Big Town, and Eric Church, just to name a few.

If you plan to go to the show, you can give back to Mocha Club by entering promotional code [04] during online ticket check out. For every [04] promotional code entered, the Country Throwdown Tour will give $1 to Mocha Club.

And you know that just $1 can provide clean water to 1 African for 1 year!

>> See tour dates and buy tickets here <<

Remember to enter promo code [04] during checkout!
Pre-sale starts this Friday, March 12th.
General on-sale starts Friday, March 19th.

Thankfully, everyone is okay, but unfortunately they lost all their equipment, merchandise, personal clothes, as well as the clothes and toys for Anniston, Jenny and Ryan Simmons’ little girl.  God was watching over them though – the fire started where their little girl usually sleeps in the RV but the RV was empty at the time.

Last year, their trailer and equipment were stolen  and now their replacement equipment has been burned.  Let’s help them keep carrying on!

Please go to their website to read the full story and see how you can help.

MC representative Hannah Aschliman and MC volunteers Brady Daniels and Robin Lee wearing their "I Need Africa" tshirts at the Sanctus Real Mocha Club table (photo courtesy of Robin Lee)

photo courtesy of Robin Lee

photo courtesy of Robin Lee

Check our Events page for volunteer opportunities in your area!

A little girl was born in the southeast part of Ethiopia. But her mother died when she was still young. Eventually, her father re-married, but her new stepmother was cruel to her. When she became a teenager, she ran away from home. She was told that she could run to a bigger town and find work. But the only job she could find was to be a live-in house maid. Mostly, house maids have to work from sun-up to sun-down for little pay, a corner to sleep on, and leftover food. This little girl, who became a teenage runaway, eventually found work with a family with grown sons. After a while, she was repeatedly raped by one of the sons, and she had no one to run to, no place to go. She got pregnant, and she was kicked out of the house. What choice did she seem to have? She was encouraged and advised by other young girls like her that she could make more money if she worked in a bar, saved a lot of money and had her own business.

At Women At Risk, we continuously meet girls with similar stories who have been trapped in prostitution for 5…7…9…12 years, not having saved a penny, sick, hopeless, lonely.

This past year, we were privileged to be able to work with 97 women who were struggling to leave prostitution.

Thank you for your support so we can continue to help rehabilitate more women in Ethiopia.

COFFEE! Seattle loves their coffee, especially on the campus of Seattle Pacific University.  With the first ever Starbucks only a few miles away and plenty of coffee shops in arms reach of students, the amount of coffee bought in a day, let alone a week or month is, well… I dare not ask. But to Seattle, coffee seems to be more than just a drink in your hand.  Coffee brings people together.   With Africa on my heart and Mocha Club fueling my passion, I couldn’t help but jump on the chance to share my passion with Seattle.  I knew it was a passion that could bring people together, just like coffee.  Being a Campus Rep has enabled me to do this to the fullest as MC provides guidance to help point me the right direction, bounce ideas off of, and continue to be a huge encouragement as I set off to fulfill the calling of SPU’s mission statement: “Engage the culture, and change the world”.

It’s been awesome to see how a passion for Africa brings people together, as students have united to share the hope of Africa and how we can be a part of it.   Not only have I met a lot of people who have the same passion as I do for Africa, but I’ve also seen the excitement of giving up the cost of 2 mochas in a city where drinking coffee is like breathing oxygen.

Says Kimberly, “One afternoon, Kristina and two of her best friends found their way to chat with me under a mahogany tree. This is some of what came from that chat, and I knew it would bless you just like it did me!”

In Kristina’s words…

Kristina at her new home in Nyamlel

My name is Kristina. When the Arabs attacked my village in 1998, they raped and killed my mother. I was only about four years old, but I remember very well what they did to my mother.

My father was a doctor, and he tried to help our soldiers. But when the Arabs killed my mother, he took me and ran far away to Ethiopia. He was a good man and tried to keep me safe. But we traveled for many months by footing, and so many people died along the side of the road. I remember when my father would get tired and have to put me down, I was always tripping over the dead people because my legs were too small to lift them high over the piles of bodies.

We stayed in Ethiopia until the war reached there, too. So then my father ran with me trying to get back to our village. He hoped maybe it would be safe there by then. It took us many more months of footing, and I almost drowned as we crossed many of the rivers. They were so rough and my father was starting to go a little mad so he couldn’t hold onto me very well anymore. Finally, we made it back to Nyamlel, but shortly after that he died.

Some grown men helped me to bury him, but then they left me alone. I heard them say, “There are simply too many orphans to worry about this one.”

But, “this one” was me, and I was worried.

I laid alone on top of my father’s grave for many days just waiting for the hyenas to eat me, or to starve to death so that I would not be alone anymore, but with my mother and father. After some days, I grew tired of crying and began to go out into the bush looking for leaves to eat. I ate them, but they made me so sick that I just crawled back on top of my father’s grave.

Then one day a man came walking by. He found me sitting on my father’s grave. He told me his name was James Lual Atak; he asked me my name and where my parents were. I told him they were dead and I was alone. He said, “Come follow me. I will take you to New Life Orphanage, and if you will follow the way I teach you, you will grow strong and you will not be alone anymore.”

I did not know what was New Life Orphanage, but I wanted to grow strong and not be alone anymore, so I went with him.

At first, we didn’t have any proper food, but James Lual Atak taught us the right way. He taught us to pray. He taught us to read and to write, and then one day Mama Kimberly came to visit us.

All I remember about her the first time I met her is that she kept crying. I thought, “This woman will never be able to help us because she is always crying.”

But then after she left, Lual Atak told us she left us money for food. Since that day, the food has never stopped. Even now that we are so many—500 orphans—the food never stops. I read in the Bible about Manna; I think it is like that. Only now we get “pigeons,” too, because we have a weekly bull slaughter for meat.

Today, Mama Kimberly told me about how many people in America pray for me and all my friends here at New Life. She also told me that you are the ones who send the money so that we can eat every day, learn about God and His only Son Jesus, and have a safe home to live in.

Sometimes, I still go visit my father’s grave where I used to sleep, and I feel sad. I am glad I don’t live there anymore. I know that he doesn’t live there either, but He lives with Jesus, where I will one day, too.

Thank you for loving all of us orphans, and for raising us up properly!

–Kristina

Every single child matters.  Thank you for providing through Mocha Club so children like Kristina can now live in safety and love!

The Mocha Club Experience: Starting November 1, 2009, Seattle Pacific University recent graduates Daniel “Skiff” Skiffington and Charlie “Char” Beck visit all of Mocha Club’s current projects in 7 countries and take Mocha Club supporters and friends on a three-month virtual adventure to experience real life in Africa. Stay tuned for regular updates!