The Moth youth kohvik is a coffee shop with a unique mission: to create an environment that nurtures the spirit of local community in Rapla by promoting social entrepreneurship among youth.

Our vision for The Moth emerged over the last few years as a possible answer to a range of perennial problems that we face in our efforts to disciple Rapla youth. As with many small towns, many young people growing up in Rapla leave us after High School to pursue education or a career in bigger cities. If they return to Rapla at all, it is not until they have established themselves financially and built a family. Missing this age group (20-30) means that our outreach to Rapla’s many unchurched youth is limited to a very small number of adult volunteers. On that basis, we can’t reach very far.

This has motivated us to find a sustainable youth ministry solution that is able to fund and staff itself apart from the ministry of the church while staying closely associated with our efforts at intentional ministry networking.

The Moth answers this challenge by creating a business-based, community oriented ministry platform – an environment in which connections are made and collaborations nurtured every day. The Moth provides a natural space in which faith can be demonstrated and articulated for youth who might not otherwise encounter the Gospel. To this end, The Moth is developing active partnerships with ministries and social enterprises in Rapla as well as working closely with local schools to invite youth to learn basic business skills through shadowing and shared development of the shop.

We are grateful to the Presbytery of the Inland Northwest for a ministry grant of 5,000 USD to help us get The Moth up and running! We are also looking forward to welcoming short-term youth missionaries in the summer of 2019 to help us leverage our new space. We hope to open the shop by January 1st, 2019.

Let me know what you think!

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