South Fork, Colorado is pretty...it's a town built on tourism with very little industry and small opportunity between the months of October and April. As you enter the town from the east, cruising along Highway 160, you'll see a building on the left. This building is really non-remarkable...a log facade, weathered by intense summer sun and brutal winter cold, with the characteristics of cobwebbed neglect spotting it's fading exterior. A tall steeple rises high into the wispy blue Colorado sky, pointing upward towards God in unrelenting appeal to Him that for too long this building has sat vacant. You see, one of the first places that I was taken in my initial visits to the San Luis Valley was to this building; a place meant for worship but instead sitting sadly dormant with a "Sorry, We're Closed" sign on a cracked outer window. This shelter had been intended to be a spiritual hospital, caring for the needy, the broken, and the sick; it had become a walled fortress attempting to keep out the "bad things" of society. People had hijacked this refuge from its intended use and turned it into a condemning watchtower of isolation, lacking a mote, but just as impenetrable as a stone castle. God had removed His church and all that was left was a shell reminding every passerby of the failure of people and the arrogance of man. And as I sat in front of the doors of that abandoned building, I knew that one day God would once again impute light and life into its comatose interior. This was in June of 2011.By October of 2012, something began to happen...a flicker of light began to penetrate the darkness. As I had begun to feel driven towards an ambiguous future, a vision unseen yet oddly peaceful in its uncertainty, I knew that Calvary Baptist Church was meant for more than what it was, even though I was content to see people beginning to fill once empty seats. I knew that ultimately what Calvary needed was long-range purpose...a vision of what could be and of all that God could accomplish. With hushed voices, news began to reach me: "the building in South Fork had changed hands. The one who had once held onto it out of some unknown spite had released it to an outside group...a distant partner." Confirmation of this fact soon followed and what began was a dialogue...an ongoing discussion of future possibilities. All of this culminating in one conversation, one interaction releasing this building and all of the troubled past that had strangled any possibility of future use for the purposes of God. One verbal agreement of transfer and it seemed as if every burden and fear from the past slipped away into irrelevance. All was right in the world!
But as it so often happens, the best laid plans of men are often restricted by the unseen and unexpected. And fairly quickly, new situations began to impede the expected progress of this new vision. Isaiah 55 describes the situation well: "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord". He goes on to say, "As the rain and snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." This truth would be a passage to cling to...a promise allowing us to persevere with strength and confidence in what the Lord had given us to accomplish. This vision to reach out to the San Luis Valley did not come from me...it couldn't! It was in fact given by God and therefore would need to be propelled by God and upheld by God. This was not the brainchild of men...it was an illuminated passion passed on for the purposes of God and He alone would provide the success and the return on His investment. With that perspective in mind, we knew we would be okay...we would continue forward. The first steps of Project 160 had begun and there would be no turning back.
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