To buy or not to buy?
What is a guy to do? I ran out of coffee the other day and it was a good thing for me that we were going grocery shopping in a few hours. As I stood at the store looking in the coffee selection I could not find any beans that I wanted to get. There were many choices there, it is not like the store ran out. The problem was I could not find the fair trade coffee I was looking for. You see I have made a commitment to buy fair trade coffee. At first it was kind of the trending thing to do. I was able to say that I only bought fare trade, organic coffee. It was the pinnacle of coffee snobbery for me. What has happened now is that I look at the life and priorities of Jesus I have convictions. I believe that if anyone should be concerned about the fair treatment of individuals it should be followers of Jesus. Back to my coffee story, needless to say I never bought coffee that day. I chose to wait till I could find what helped me live out this conviction of mine. For those who might be interested in learning more about fair trade here is the link for you to go to the Fair Trade Federation to get some information about this topic.
www.fairtradefederation.com/
Buying fair trade can make more of a difference then people realize. If you want to look at alot of the problems in the world, the globalization of businesses and corporations and the cheap labor found in other parts of the world is one of them. The more American companies get by with this cheap labor and excessive profits, it just increases the gap between the American economy and the rest of the world. And what does that do? It causes us to feel like we are somehow better than the rest of the world because we are so "evolved" and the rest of the world becomes jealous and greedy, wanting what we have.
Imagine if instead of just trying to make a quick buck, companies actually valued other human life as much as their own? It would be a sight. And us for us, the consumer, we have more power than we think. We can influence so many things within (and outside) of the market. And if it means spending a couple extra dollars so that someone else in the world can make a decent wage to provide food and education for their family, well that just seems like something Jesus would be proud of.
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