what is fair trade and why should I care

Please check out the new Trade As One blog, which happens to feature some extraordinarily cool people from my church. Colleen, whose face graces the start of the video (you are so famous, Colleen), is my team leader to Rwanda. This past weekend, Dave, Julia and I trekked down to Boston to check out the Fair Trade exhibit, and see up close what fair trade vendors are up to. We are aware of fair trade mainly because Manchester Christian Church partners with Trade As One, and so we have a little mini boutique of products made available through them at church. All of the products they represent are fair trade, which means that crafters and growers get paid fairly for their work. Not just that: frequently fair trade items are making life possible for people who are escaping sextrade networks, and making an income for families with HIV positive members who have few income opportunities. And can I just say, the fair trade items I own are really high quality as well! The basket in the above pic was made in Rwanda, and it most often holds one of the major protein sources our family lives on: Peanut M&M's. There are lots of fair trade products available in the general market now, so we can look for the Fair Trade Federation seal on things like Honest Tea (great stuff) and many coffees too. Naturally I got a great new bag from Marigold - being the queen of bags and bowls, I have a title to uphold.

Seriously, I've never been very aware of spending with a social conscience. Its really not that complicated: let my consumerism make a difference whenever possible. For instance, if I buy fair trade coffee brewed for us at church on Sunday instead of at Dunks, I am letting the real coffee growers who made it get paid fairly (and the coffee is also yummy). Win-win.

It is amazing and embarassing how much bigger my world is now than it once was. Recently, I was fb'd (facebooked) by a California nurse who has worked in Rwanda and wants to answer my questions. She was responding to a blog post I wrote on Morgan in Africa. Dave shakes his head when I tell him these things because he knows my tight little world is breaking open. On one hand, I have forty-plus years of ignorance to make up for and it's humbling to say the least. On the other hand, this God of ours is so much bigger than my envelope of ideas of him. Is that not GOOD news?