Faith Through the Storm

Pastor Kathryn Bausman
Director of Eastham Home for Women, Faith Farm Ministries

The popular song lyrics “we will praise you in the storm” took on a whole new depth of meaning as we braced ourselves for one of the largest storms in history, Irma, a category five hurricane.  Faith Farm’s students and staff had a chance to practice what we teach, and I am so proud to say we came through.  As the storm drew closer the praise and prayer grew louder.  Some staff stayed with the students through the entire storm and encouraged them to believe what we have been teaching; there is another way to deal with life and crises besides drugs and alcohol.  Faith Farm has been serving the communities of South Florida with a free residential recovery program for more than 65 years and we are not about to stop now!  We operate on a unique micro enterprise system, with the majority of our operating expenses being supplied through the Certified Work Training opportunities that we offer our students.  This model allows us to use the cash donations we receive to go to program related expenses.  The storm, not only knocked down trees and fences, but the power and water shortages shut down our micro enterprises for more than a week, crippling our cash flow.  There is another saying “faith isn’t faith until it is tested” well test away, we will stand.  Our staff and students immediately began the laborious task of cleaning up the mess, picking up trees, repairing broken fences and torn down awnings.  We started classes back up right away, and through it all we continued in prayer and praise.  Our kitchens never stopped feeding our more than 400 students, in fact in Fort Lauderdale we shared our blessings with the community and fed those who had no way to feed themselves.   You see, the truth of who we are is in our very name, FAITH Farm.  We believe what we are doing, must be done, that the men and women we are helping must be helped and so we continue to do what we do even through the storms.  We walk in Faith that God will raise up an army, if needed, that will see the importance of our work and come alongside us to continue the work of the ministry.  If you want to be a part of that army and join us in the fight against addiction visit our web site at www.faithfarm.org or donate directly to our Hurricane Relief Campaign at http://bit.ly/supportFaithFarm.