“Each pursuit led to more clarity,” she said, “and acted as
more preparation for a larger change . . . Even after we
moved to Burundi, we weren’t done changing. A year and a
half after our move, we began our business. We did not feel
that our destiny was something better or bigger than what
we had been doing. Instead, we felt a desire to do work in
the areas that we loved and craved a shift in those
directions.”
The Carlsons uprooted their family and moved to a
remote part of the world because it was an opportunity to
make a difference doing what they love. As it turns out, this
is a great formula for moving in the direction of any calling:
find what you love and what the world needs, then combine
them. As Frederick Buechner wrote, “Vocation is the place
where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.”^3
When we think of someone pursuing a calling, we often
picture a person who has it all together, someone who
knows from the beginning what they were born to do. They
have a plan. A person hears from God and becomes a priest.
A professional athlete who grew up kicking a ball around
the yard becomes a world-class soccer player. We picture
someone who just knew what they were supposed to do with
their lives and, at the right time, did it. But a calling doesn’t
always work like that. Sometimes, perhaps often, it is messy.
I asked Kristy how she and her husband knew this was
the right decision—moving their family to one of the
poorest countries in the world and starting a coffee company
—and she admitted they didn’t. “We were leaping,” she