March 2022 Newsletter

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A Place of Community

Steve worked in a fish canning plant for two seasons, before returning to his nonseasonal career. Others from here have traveled as far as Alaska for high paying adventure on commercial fishing boats during the season.

Our country’s economy is dependent on migrant and seasonal workers. Without them, many necessary functions would go unmet and employment lost. Our productivity, safety, and quality of life are at stake. Some seasonal work requires specialized training and for experienced people to return every year. Temporary work is an important part of the homeless condition; however, most of the workers are not homeless. For some, it is a way of life, moving from job to job, or one season to the next season of the year. For others, such work is just a means to find more stable employment. Illegal immigrants have stayed away from our local shelter. Some migration to seasonal work is a natural occurrence, and a need exists for the laborers to have food, clothing, and shelter. The Mission supports them, managing around their schedules, encouraging their opportunities. The seed was planted, now is the season of harvest.

Seasonal work is a part of many different industries. The Christmas holiday is dependent on temporary help with package sorting and delivery, unloading freight, stocking shelves, cutting Christmas trees. We even had a Santa Claus! Farms and ranches need seasonal workers to pick and process fruits and vegetables, help during haying and lambing times. Wineries and breweries use seasonal help for harvesting grapes and hops, planting, pruning, and making their products. Some risk safety and life to work in forests, planting trees, maintaining land, fighting wildfires. They work natural disaster relief. Some homeless people move directly from the Mission dormitory into a national park dormitory to work in restaurants, housekeeping, grounds care. They work state and county fairs, traveling carnivals. Some work seasonal call centers, tourist and camping areas. Day labor is a part of temporary work that includes packing and unloading moving trucks, digging ditches, roofing, landscaping, painting, cutting firewood, cleaning gutters.

The search for purpose through finding work and meaning to life intersect at the Mission. Here is a getaway of careers and evangelism. Our lives have seasons of planting (hearing God’s Word), watering (being discipled), and harvesting (accepting Jesus). At the Mission, we plant, water, and harvest. If we plant and a local church harvests, we rejoice together. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” I Corinthians 3:7. Many of our homeless clients had a youthful season of church attendance, followed by adult liberality. The seed was planted, now is the season of harvest.