For Over Two Decades, Our Love of Kenya Has Shaped Our Path
Hi, we’re Christina and Matt Berlin.
April 2027 will mark twenty years since we founded Other Paths, Inc. and our first trip to Kenya.
We didn’t know it at the time, but that single trip in 2007 was the start of something we’re still living out today: a relationship with a country, a community, and a calling that has shaped nearly half our lives.
This is the story of how that happened. And it’s an invitation to be part of what comes next.
How It Started
In 2007, we landed in Kenya for the first time to lead a group of Oakland CA high school students on a service project. Our hearts and minds were open, but we had no real idea what to expect.
What we found was a country full of warmth, resilience, and possibility — the kind of place that gets under your skin fast. What we didn’t expect was that one trip would turn into two decades of returning, again and again, to the same communities, the same friends, and eventually, the same quiet realization: this place had become part of who we are.
That first trip planted a question we’re still answering: what does it actually look like to show up for a place, not just visit it?
Twenty Years of Showing Up
Since 2007, we’ve led small groups back to Kenya to work alongside our local partners on community-led projects in healthcare, education, and economic empowerment — never projects we designed for people, but ones designed and driven by the people who live there, with us simply offering our hands and resources in support.
Over twenty years, “showing up” has looked like a lot of things:
- Sitting in homes for meals, not just visits.
- Celebrating weddings, graduations, and new businesses alongside Kenyan friends.
- Grieving losses together, the way family does.
- Worshiping in local churches and building real relationships with church leaders and congregations.
- Partnering with schools, conservation groups, businesses, and mentors who’ve become collaborators in the truest sense of the word.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, our language changed without us really noticing. Kenya stopped being a destination we traveled to and became a second home we returned to. The people we met stopped being contacts and hosts and became family — the kind you call when something wonderful happens, or something terrible does, because you know they’ll pick up the phone.
Our Sheldrick Connection
One relationship in particular has grown into its own calling. Christina volunteers with the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the Nairobi-based organization known for rescuing and rewilding orphaned elephants and protecting critical habitat across East Africa. Through SWT’s education program, she gives introductory presentations to schools across North America, bringing elephant conservation — and the story of Kenya’s wildlife — straight into classrooms full of kids who may never have thought about Kenya before.
It’s just one thread in a much bigger tapestry, but it captures something true about our whole journey: what starts as curiosity about a place has a way of becoming an investment in its future.
Where Coffee Comes In
Crafty Coffee Company is an extension of the relationships that first drew us back to Kenya again and again. What began with a love of good coffee and uplifting our entertainment industry community here at home has grown into a commitment to sourcing and roasting exceptional coffees with greater care, transparency, and connection.
We are continually working to build closer relationships with Kenyan coffee producers and partners—strengthening the path from farm to roast to cup. Our goal is not simply to source great coffee, but to better understand the people, places, and work behind every lot we bring in. The closer that network becomes, the more thoughtfully we can share those coffees and the stories they carry.
Why We’re Sharing This Now
Twenty years is a long time to fall in love with something. It’s long enough to watch kids we met as toddlers graduate from university and to see our own son grow into a young man with deep roots in Africa. Long enough to see a small community health initiative grow into something the community now sustains on its own. Long enough that we’ve stopped keeping count of our trips and started counting our relationships instead.
We’re not telling this story to look backward. We’re telling it because we believe everything we’ve gathered along the way — the relationships, the trust, the on-the-ground knowledge of how to do this well and respectfully — is something worth sharing with more people. Not as tourism, and not as a one-time service trip, but as a genuine chance to experience the Kenya we love, through the people and places that have shaped our lives there.
An Invitation, Not Just an Anniversary
So no, this isn’t our first trip to Kenya. It’s not our fifth, or our tenth. It’s one chapter in a relationship that’s nearly twenty years deep — and one we’d love for you to be part of, whether it’s your first trip to Kenya, or someday, far from your last.
Ready to travel with us or simply stay connected? Click below for upcoming opportunities, stories, and updates.