An Amazing Year
By Peter Parkinson
…It has been a year in which we have seen much progress and development on almost all of our projects.
Horti has seen Jake make lots of improvements in using old railway sleepers to lay out beds for flowers, herbs and vegetables. The challenge ahead of us here is to produce the finest veg for use in the Granary as well as in our Refectory and also to produce lots of plants and shrubs 
for sale to the public at our plant sales day and through our farm shop.
Conservation saw us sadly have to lose Helen, the leader of this project. The project is now managed by Chris Cole, with Esther’s input in an advisory capacity, most of the work being done by a great team of volunteers. We are indebted to John from Coventry who came and provided training and inspiration for our team in ‘hedge laying!’ We at CFL will continue this ancient art and lay hedges which will be here for scores of years to come, outliving all of us for future generations.
Our Agri team have had the added responsibility of our new land this year, and they have responded wonderfully by erecting fences and gates, laying hedges and caring for increased numbers of cattle and sheep. Their contribution in producing the finest of beef and lamb is so important in enabling us to have the best to sell to the public through our farm shop. Having been given a new flock of hens by a most generous supporter, we are now able to be marketing our free-range eggs.
Our Equestrian project has had its joys and tears this year. The loss of both Henry and Lady (our shire gelding and Lady, one of our Dales Mares) was very sad, but seeing the progress of Midnight (the Dales pony bred here) and welcoming Tilly and Minnie (two bay Shire mares) and May (a black Shire mare), this project has become very busy, keeping Reuben fully occupied! The three new Shire horses were all in extremely poor condition, having been badly neglected, and needed a long period of building up and care under Reuben and Carla’s watchful eyes. It is lovely to see all three doing so well and looking so fine.
Our therapeutic Art project has seen Abi explore a wide variety of media in trying to enable those in our care to find means of self-expression. Thankfully Abi is extraordinarily creative and the project has been remarkably successful. A most valuable band of volunteers enables us to accept people on the project who need one on one care, which would be impossible for Abi to cope with without these wonderful helpers.
Our Numeracy and Literacy project traditionally run by our dear friends from the Headingly Rotary Club has seen some new volunteers being recruited and in the New Year we plan to expand the project with our own band of volunteers, which will be very exciting. As in previous years, the project has continued to transform lives, by enabling the basic skills so crucial for survival in today’s world to be gained by those in our care, including some of the most vulnerable of these people.
Joanna has continued to provide inspired leadership of our Drama therapy, and the excitement of project participants is always increased when we are able to do our special productions at Open Days and now at Christmas time. A new exploration into puppetry has proved a huge success.
With the arrival of a Marimba this month for our Music Therapy department, a new area of enjoyment has begun. Zoe hasbeen increasingly exploring the 
value and versatility of percussion, especially for ourclientele. Again, performance is always a highlight for project participants, and for all of us who are able to enjoy these memorable occasions.
Catering Academy was very busy in the early part of the year, and now we have three students, two doing their advanced training. One is assisting in the Granary, which is an excellent opportunity for work experience, the others assisting in the Refectory.
Our Housing Support Team, now renamed “Being There”, are facing some huge issues. Supported by a growing number of volunteers we are now caring for upward of 140 people in any given week. Those for whom we care include 22 children with single parent families, and others ranging from 16 years of age to over 90 years of age. The team have to fight for the rights of so many of these people, people often unable to adequately plead their own cause, people who are desperately vulnerable, isolated and with nowhere and no one to whom they can turn.
We were extraordinarily blessed this month when one of our volunteers, Steven Gurney, part of a Harrogate family business of builders, asked us if we needed any jobs doing. Having little work this month, the company had agreed to make their team available to Caring For Life for the month of December, an incredible and extraordinary answer to prayer!
In addition, a team arrived from Dunbia Meats in Northern Ireland, sent by Jim Dobson, to build our new meat processing and boning facility. This will revolutionise the quality and quantity of meat that we can produce. In the New Year we will be able to sell fresh as well as frozen beef and lamb, along with pork, lamb and beef sausages and burgers.
It would be impossible to register the depth of gratitude we feel to all of our supporters at this time.
Above all, how can we begin to register our gratitude to our Heavenly Father, for Christmas declares that God loves us, that God is with us, and that God loves us so much that He became one of us, one with us and one for us. So we shall certainly be singing, “Oh come let us adore Him! Christ the Lord!” 
