Coffee & Prayer

The first days of New Hope Girls were filled with coffee and prayer. 

In the early days it was just me and Vidal and Greici. 

We had no money, no office or house to work from or serve from.  We had just been fired for not submitting our vision to the authorities because we were determined God was calling us in a different direction. We knew that if He was calling us, He would make a way.  We were hungry to hear from Him.  We knew we had to stick together, stay united, move as one.  

So we invested all our time and money in Coffee and Prayer.

Each day we would brew a few pots of coffee.  Honestly, most days that was all we ate or drank.  We lived in a constant state of fasting and prayer. 

Vidal and I would drive to La Vega each day to sit in Greici’s kitchen and we would visit and wait with our coffee cups in hand, for the sound of the greca top to begin to pop up and down signaling it was time to cut the flame. 

Then from the first cup until the last we prayed.  We prayed prayers of gratitude and provision and unity and healing.  We prayed for safety and spiritual strength.  We prayed for partners and the girls God was calling us to serve.  

Every day for months this was our routine.  God united us in powerful ways and revealed Himself in supernatural ways making himself known in the tangible and concrete so we could touch Him, soak and rest in Him. 

I wish I had been more faithful to write during that time, because every day was a story as God revealed Himself and His plan to us.  

Our first ever meeting as New Hope Girls was March 8, 2011. 

We sat in Greici’s living room, being interviewed by Jacqueline from the Jubilee Project. Even though I had worked closely with Greici for seven years, Jacqueline asked poignant questions that I didn’t know the answers to. I learned so much about Greici that day including she had lost her sister to trafficking after she was seduced by her lover boy. I had no idea.  

Then almost mid sentence, Jacquline stopped and asked if someone had a Bible. We grabbed one and she asked us to open to Isaiah 43.

Greici read the words aloud and we sat with the truth God was speaking over us, over New Hope Girls…

Isaiah 43

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through the waters,
    I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
    they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
    you will not be burned;
    the flames will not set you ablaze.

For I am the Lord your God,

“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.

Every good thing.

Every great idea. 

Every worthwhile project - was birthed and bathed in prayer. 

And it still is.