Can any of you remember the first three months of 2020? Neither can I. I had to go back to our YouTube Channel to remember what I was talking about. I did a series on Old Testament characters and our children’s ministry followed suit on their own level. Hints of COVID-19 were trickling in increasingly since before the New Year, and by mid-March, we stopped hosting worship services on campus. We’ve offered virtual services ever since, along with virtual noon and evening Wednesday Praxis groups, virtual Teeters’ dinner group, virtual Men’s Breakfast, and virtual FUEL Women’s Brunch. As far as our adult programming goes, we haven’t missed a beat, still offering virtually much of what we did on site, with no drop in participation. We’ve even gained some folks!
Pulling off virtual Sunday services takes significantly more time than “live”. Early on, our musicians recorded a bunch of songs to use, giving us a sense of “home” for our services – that required a lot of time from them and our sound and video team. Thank you! In order to have Sunday services recorded and produced has meant that I have to have everything done earlier in the week, record it, edit it, and upload it – which eats up the better part of a day or me each week. Once uploaded to our YouTube Channel, Ted Valencia would then download it and burn DVD’s of the service for our members who don’t have internet access. Then he and Dar deliver them to their homes. Thank you! I share this simply to make note of the fact that providing what we would normally do on site requires much more work than meets the eye – most churches are in the same boat.
Because of CrossWalk’s role as the primary evacuation shelter for Napa County, we have been deeply involved with Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD) for years. Whenever a crisis hits Napa, the Office of Emergency Services activates COAD, because the County cannot meet all the needs on their own. The COAD had to meet the unprecedented challenge, along with the County, to address food needs for about four times the regular number of people due to COVID’s impact on jobs. Mental and Spiritual needs were pronounced as the crisis hit and continued, including needed messaging on dealing with stress. Children! What do you do with children during a global pandemic? What about animals and their needs when money is tight? What emergency financial assistance is needed and how can it get safely get where it needs to go? What about volunteers? How do you safely deploy volunteers during COVID? And how do you communicate effectively with a multi-lingual community? Along with Executive Directors of roughly two dozen non-profits in Napa County, Dar and I were honored to help provide voluntary leadership throughout this activation. Dar is the Co-Chair of the Food Access Subcommittee, and I am the Co-Chair of the Faith Leaders Subcommittee as well as the Mental Health Leaders Subcommittee. In addition, I am on the Executive Committee for the COAD, serving as Treasurer. All told, for the first three months of COVID, Dar and I each logged over two days of work each week just to meet the need, all on top of our normal CrossWalk responsibilities. COAD shifted to a more sustainable pace in July, requiring roughly a day of work each week for me. CrossWalk’s campus and staff have been honored to serve in many capacities throughout the COVID response – we can take pride in that! So important!
Mother Nature didn’t care about the fact that Napans were already overly stressed with COVID, and delivered back-to-back record-breaking fires, consuming hundreds of homes, including that of our beloved CrossWalker, Karen Kenny (we stand with you!). CrossWalk was immediately opened for each fire to provide shelter and support in partnership with Napa County. All of this was made more complicated by COVID, of course, because it’s not safe to house people indoors during a global pandemic! The first fire did not require much in the way of sheltering. The second fire, however, with significantly populated areas being evacuated, flooded our campus with hundreds of evacuees. We did the best we could to offer safe, welcome space while people waited to be placed temporarily in hotel rooms until they could return home. But that is not a fast process, and we housed dozens before people were able to move on. Thank you to all who were able to help while the shelters were open! Yea CrossWalkers!
In April, our Food Pantry stopped distribution, as everybody was directed toward the Food Bank. Karie Nuccio and Linda Smetzer, however, have been working their tails off reorganizing after we expanded and tiled their space. They still receive donations from a couple of local grocery stores and are able to help a very limited number of clients. They put in many hours every week. They are awesome!
Furaha was also impacted by COVID. Kenya shut down the schools, forcing cramped living conditions in the slums. We immediately provided several thousand dollars to help them get food out to their most vulnerable families, which was of great help. In October we sent thousands more to help them buy some much needed COVID-related supplies which will help them reopen safely, and we hope to send them even more in December to help them with some renovations of both the primary and high schools.
This year has brought much grief, especially those who have lost their loved ones. We stand with the families of Bill Swanson, Dot Hoover, Roger Langley, Larry McCart, Kenn Vigoda, Max Proteau, and Lisa Haas’ dad, Lawrence Paul Scott, Sr. Say an extra prayer for these families as they were not able to honor their loved ones as we usually do. Some of us have lost employment and are anxiously waiting for this season to pass. This has been a year of strained emotions, to say the least. Breathe, please, and don’t try to go it alone.
COVID has meant that nearly all of the groups that meet at CrossWalk have had to meet online as well. We took advantage of the campus being empty and have completely remodeled three of our conference rooms that are used most heavily by recovery groups. In addition, we have repainted the main lobby and hallway, giving everything a fresh look. We intend to remodel the front office soon and repaint the Education Wing hallway as well. We ripped up the awful carpet in our Education Wing and have replaced it with beautiful tile. Our Gym kitchen was completely gutted, and we are working hard to bring it up to commercial grade. We are partnering with Feeding it Forward – a local non-profit organization that captures otherwise wasted food and repurposes it for those in need. Now that fire season is over, we will also be addressing much needed work in our locker rooms and Gym lobby bathrooms so that when we offer shelter, it will be truly hospitable. All of these renovations have been funded apart from our General Fund. For years we have been building designated funds from rental income, grants and directed gifts allocated for such improvements.
CrossWalk is still open, which requires funding. In some ways this has been an understandably difficult year financially. We usually receive a significant amount of income from groups who rent our facility – much of that is obviously gone. Because of the jolt COVID has done to our economy, some folks have not been able to support CrossWalk to the level that had hoped. By those two measures – rental income and regular support, it’s been a tough fiscal year. However, we were able to secure the Payroll Protection Program loan/grant which helped us tremendously, and a few extra, over-the-top surprise contributions and awards have also come our way which have really helped us survive. THANK YOU for your financial support! We cannot make it without your generosity!
As we journey through Advent toward Christmas Day, we especially want to support our young families who are sick and tired of looking at screens. We are supplying them with Advent kits to help them experience a more faith-filled, creative, meaningful, and interactive season in the weeks to come.
Our purpose as a church is to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, ushering in holistic wellbeing for all people and the planet through lifelong learning, kneeling in service, proclaiming grace while pursuing justice, cultivating deep spirituality, and inclusive loving community. All things considered, I think we did pretty well. This has been a grueling year for Dar and I – one of the most challenging and taxing in each of our respective 20+ years serving CrossWalk – much more work under much greater stress. Thank you for your love and prayers. We are doing our best to serve the church and the community well, hoping to make God smile and CrossWalkers proud. We are honored to serve you all – please let us know what more we can do.
With shalom toward shalom,
Pete