is Quechuan for “Water That Brings Life”. This cafe is the first business venture of 5&2 Investment LLC, a ministry-focused company headquartered in Virginia. Their business model is to start up small for-profit businesses in foreign countries that hire locals, give 10% of the profits back to ministries in the area, and eventually ownership is handed over to the people living there.

Kawaq Yaku Café is the first such project, and it opened for business in March, 2014, which I was privileged to attend. Located in the heart of the Andes Mountains in central Peru, the cafe is run by a couple from my church who moved there to be full time missionaries, and it employs several young men who grew up in a local home for abandoned boys that is part of the Girasoles Program, a ministry of Scripture Union. I’ve been attending and leading mission trips that partner with them for almost a decade, so this project has a large amount of personal significance to me.

I was asked to develop a brand for the cafe that reflected the the essence of the native Peruvian culture, Quechuan, while also inspiring a sense of quality and well thought design. The logo includes the mountain Huascaran, which towers 22,000 feet above the city of Yungay where the cafe is located. As happens every morning, the sun is rising through the double peak, melting the snow caps which brings water down to the rural community below. Hence the name “water that brings life” is reflective of the literal water that nourishes the people of the valley, as well as a connection to the spiritual water that brings life, which is representative of the faith of the owners and employees of the cafe.

I have expanded this branding system to everything from menus and trifolds, to shirts, mugs, signs, billboards, and much more. The plan is to continue expanding this brand to include variations that can be used for product packaging and additional marketing materials.