A Tale of Coffee, Gorillas, CDs
– and Two Inspiring Orphans
At a time in our world when so many stories seem to have unhappy endings, here’s a tale with a happy ending – and an invitation to be part of it.
Pacifique and Jeanette with their grandmother.
Back in 2015 my wife and I traveled to Rwanda for a project I was working on about stories of women who were learning to grow coffee, rebuilding their lives as successful entrepreneurs as they recovered from genocide.
(link: https://www.sustainablegrowers.org/who-we-are)
While there we traveled to Volcanoes National Park to see the amazing mountain gorillas. We stayed in a tiny village nearby, and it was there that we came to know two inspiring orphans, Pacifique and Jeanette and decided to support their education, as recounted in the video above.
Here’s where you come in – CDs for a Cause.
If you’re one of those people who still have a CD player – maybe in your car, or your computer – or if you know someone who does have a CD, you can send in a donation and you’ll receive a package with five of my six award winning CDs. (It will be a mix of five different titles, as one title is almost out of print…)
The normal cost for five CDs (including tax, shipping, and handling) is around $95. But you can make a donation of any amount you like, by clicking here or using the button below.
To receive your five free CDs, please email
to let him know where you would like your CDs mailed.
Thanks for supporting Pacifique and Jeanette!
If you don’t want to receive the CDs you can still make a donation. And, if you’d like to hear Joel’s stories, you’re welcome to download them from Audible.com.
All proceeds will go directly to support Pacifique and Jeanette’s education. If funds are available after that, we will work with the schools they attended to support to other Rwandan children, as the country continues to grow and recover from genocide.
While the stories I tell come from all over the world, my own life and my travels, I am especially drawn to those tales where the lines between “story” and “reality” blur. It happens when a character from an ancient Chinese folktale comes to life in a doctor’s office, or when the great Sufi trickster Mulla Nasrudin suddenly shows up in line at the grocery store, or when decisions made by the fools from Chelm turn out to be far wiser than those of our nation’s leaders...
As a kid I dreamed of becoming a writer, and as I grew older, that dream grew. By the time I got to college it had grown so large that I couldn't handle it, so I dropped out of Stanford and went to live in Paris, figuring that's what writers did. I wandered the streets Hemingway and Joyce had wandered, drank in the same cafes, and thought writerly thoughts. In fact, I did everything but actually write. To be honest, I might not have ever have written a book but for a bizarre twist of fate...
Over the past twenty-five years my work as a story coach has taken me to some fascinating people and places, from coaching CEOs in New York skyscrapers to training women entrepreneurs in the hills of Rwanda, from work with thought leaders at a Washington, D.C. think tank to high-tech cancer researchers in South San Francisco, and from Hollywood movie studios to coffee farmers in Chiapas. Varied as my clients are however, they all have one thing in common...
