“But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold. When He had said these things He cried, he who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Many of us have met Christ during a particularly lonely walk. Bart Farmer certainly did. Bart was a businessman who found just the right niche to create a specialized business from which he gained wealth and status. He lived an affluent part of Kansas City. In time, and to his surprise, he realized that in all he had achieved that the end wasn’t what he had dreamed and the choices he had made had put him on a path had that had separated him from the people that he loved.
As he pondered over his own personal failures he began to also notice the pain of others. He became aware of the extent of the decay and despair around him. As he pondered upon this path he had found himself on he now also thought about the loneliness and despair of the homeless persons living in his community. Bart realized his faith was leading him to turn onto a new path and to walk alongside others who needed friendship and hope. Bart decided he needed to meet the homeless persons that he now could only see too easily. He decided to get involved in their lives and to invite those he met into his life and with that choice Bart truly met Jesus and stepped into this new path of life.
Bart saw the need for an invitational ministry for the homeless in Johnson County. He partnered with Uplift Homeless Services and Redemption Church, a local church that has an open invitational heart. Bart later realized the need was greater than he could fix during his lifetime and so he created The Homeless Foundation; and was its first contributor.
The Homeless Foundation exists to provide ongoing funding to serve the needs of the homeless in Johnson County and to befriend the homeless persons of our community. While Bart was the first contributor, his hope was that he would not be the last. His dream was that the Homeless Foundation would provide an endowment for the homeless efforts being fostered out of Redemption Church until such time homelessness was eradicated in Johnson County. Sadly, Bart died in January 2018 after a battle with cancer. We personally miss Bart everyday but believe that he is with us each step of the way.
The seeds Bart planted are changing our community.