7/25/20
Let me tell you about one of the ministries we’ve gotten to work with here in Colorado: Crossfire Ministries.
Crossfire Ministries, primarily, is a food bank and thrift store providing everyday essentials that families need. And they are an amazing group that focuses so much on being faithful to God’s calling to love everyone.
You see, I actually got to work with them before this month and I’ve gotten to see how they really handle crisis and change and everything this world throws at them.
For those of you who don’t know, when we came back from Peru, I spent a lot of my time here in Monument, staying with our squad coaches who opened their home to any of us who wanted to come together to process and grieve the loss of our World Race experience.
In the peak of Covid, those of us who were here looked for a way to serve the Lord. My squad mate Ryan is excellent at researching opportunities and he found out about Crossfire. So, one Wednesday morning we left and drove to Colorado Springs to volunteer.
At that time, things looked a lot different than they do now. When Covid started and all of the states shut down, Crossfire and the other food banks in the area had to decide whether to even keep their doors open. Many other food banks chose to close. The people in charge of Crossfire prayed and felt God was calling them to the challenge of doing whatever they needed to do in order to stay open.
The need for food didn’t go away just because Covid happened.
In fact, quite clearly, the opposite happened and the need grew exponentially for families impacted by the reign of the virus.
So, Crossfire did their brainstorming about how to adjust in those times. And they came up with some brilliant solutions. They sought out donations of cloth face masks, magnified the focus on wearing gloves and sanitizing hands, and decided to bring the food to the public instead of the public to the food.
How they operate normally, which is how we get to help them operate now, is to spend the early morning hours sorting out the donated food and organizing it in a manner sort of like a grocery store and then open the store to the public to come in and go “shopping.” They get to choose their own apples or onions or whatever in the produce section, choose their meat item from the stock available for their size family, etc.
But they couldn’t have so many people inside during the time of Covid at its worst.
So, what they did was become a drive-thru food bank. Inside the building, masked and sanitized volunteers bagged up whatever food was available each day (which was more than before because there were less food banks open to receive donations of food) and then masked and sanitized volunteers outside put the bags in families’ cars as they drove through the parking lot. Families never had to get out and make contact with anyone.
And as times changed and Colorado began to open up, Crossfire adjusted. They started letting people back in the building and had the masked and sanitized volunteers help them shop so a ton of different people wouldn’t have to touch all the food. And then they shifted into where they are now, which is making sure to limit the number of people in the building at any one time and requiring everyone who comes in to wear masks and sanitize.
I’ve been at Crossfire probably around 10 times now. I watched the progression and changes. I’ve been amazed by the faithfulness of this ministry in their willingness to adjust and change and do whatever had to be done to keep bringing food to the people. And all of this has been happening while Crossfire is also in the process of finding a new, bigger building to move into because they’ve grown so much in their history.
The trust in God that the people of this organization show is incredible to me. They don’t fear Covid. They’ve trusted God to protect them and they’ll tell you that He has. They’ll tell you they haven’t had outbreaks of sickness. They haven’t had issues. They’ve always had enough supplies for gloves and sanitizer and food and everything that’s needed in this time. They’ll tell you how many hundred families they serve every day.
You’ll be amazed by them and by their stories.
I’m amazed every day that I get to be a part of something so small and yet so big.
As a squad, we served at Crossfire Ministries together on two Wednesdays, from 8am to around 3/3:30pm. I’ve loved being there. I’ve loved getting to share such a wonderful ministry with my squad. I’ve loved serving and building relationships with the families that come through every week and the volunteers that serve regularly.
And I’ve learned some gratitude and humility, because this ministry has also had the generosity to share food with me as a volunteer. And just because the top layer of the onion is bad or just because the carrot grew crooked doesn’t mean it can’t still be used.
Don’t let the food in your life go to waste just because it doesn’t look perfect. Use every part that can still be used.
And don’t let the people in your life go to waste either just because they don’t look perfect.
