Dear Friends,
Wind blows across the wide open landscape of Wyoming unimpeded, and there are many seasons at Harvest Farm, just South of Wyoming, where it feels like this wind is constant. It can be devastating also—in the winter, cold and cutting, and in the summer, blasting and dry. Oftentimes the wind is so constant, so unflagging, that it’s an unrelenting threat you cannot escape.
I know many people are feeling that way in quarantine these days. The only way to escape the coronavirus is to stay shut inside your homes, and then there is the news coverage! Throughout this storm, our teams at Fort Collins Rescue Mission and Harvest Farm have been using the past several months to increase our cleaning regiments, build relationships with the men and women we serve and partner in unprecedented ways with other agencies out of the Northside Aztlan Community Center to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness.
We’ve made the hard choice to cancel our Fall Festival this year, the first time in 17 years that we won’t be able to welcome you to the Farm in the same way. It was a tough decision. Yet when the wind blows hard enough, the wisest move is to anchor everything in place and keep as many people as you can safe. By taking these measures, we hope to weather this storm that everyone’s experiencing and come out the other end stronger and even more able to help those who come to our doors.
As believers, as the church, even in our homes, even in our homeless shelters, even in the farmlands close to the border of Wyoming, the Holy Spirit is empowering believers to change lives. We have seen God breathing life into us through you–your encouraging notes, meals from church families, incredibly generous donations, and steady, smiling volunteers. This has helped us then turn our faces to the wind blowing in the streets and shelters where we strive so that “it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Thank you, especially in this time of hardship, for your continued support!
Seth Forwood
Senior Director of Fort Collins Rescue Mission
This post is a part of July’s Changing Lives Newsletter. This month’s edition, Better Together, features many of the heroes on the front line of this pandemic.
