We are safe, blessed and amazed at how God has responded to your prayers. Thank you for praying.
Our Sunday church service and BBQ was a huge success. We never saw Stranger or any of the Playboys. (Part of me has to admit I did really want him to come and sit down and eat a taco with me as we talked about him getting right with God, but maybe that time will come later.) Several people had recommended we call the police and gang unit and so we heeded that wisdom and the LAPD ended up sending some extra patrols during our event and even some plain clothes officers walking around. LAPD knows Stranger and said they would give him a visit. South Park is actually under 24/7 video surveillance. The night prior to the event I was able to talk to the officer on duty in the monitor room and as I walked out my front door she said, “Oh, is that you?” She went on to tell us how she always sees our kids in the park and knows when we do our outreach events on Sundays and our longer outreaches during the summer. She also knows that we minister to the homeless. She even knew what color car we have parked in our driveway. Guess we’re being watched. We’ve never met, but she knows us by watching our actions – our coming and going. Later, talking to the girlfriend of one of the Playboys we found out how much they have been watching us as well.
Our Sunday church service and BBQ was a huge success. We never saw Stranger or any of the Playboys. (Part of me has to admit I did really want him to come and sit down and eat a taco with me as we talked about him getting right with God, but maybe that time will come later.) Several people had recommended we call the police and gang unit and so we heeded that wisdom and the LAPD ended up sending some extra patrols during our event and even some plain clothes officers walking around. LAPD knows Stranger and said they would give him a visit. South Park is actually under 24/7 video surveillance. The night prior to the event I was able to talk to the officer on duty in the monitor room and as I walked out my front door she said, “Oh, is that you?” She went on to tell us how she always sees our kids in the park and knows when we do our outreach events on Sundays and our longer outreaches during the summer. She also knows that we minister to the homeless. She even knew what color car we have parked in our driveway. Guess we’re being watched. We’ve never met, but she knows us by watching our actions – our coming and going. Later, talking to the girlfriend of one of the Playboys we found out how much they have been watching us as well.
To take the ‘you’re being watched’ a little further as we walked up and down the streets surrounding our house and the park inviting people out to our Sunday service we were surprised to hear of how many people knew about us, the church and what we’re doing in the community already. It seems that while we didn’t know them, they have been watching and know us. We know that God is always watching, but sometimes we forget that everyone else in the community is also watching. Sunday Service & Carne Asada
We had 80 people at our service (40 adults and 40 children). 20 of these people were invited first time guests. We did a lot of inviting, visiting and calling as a team, but all the new visitors that came were invited by people in the church. It is wonderful to see growth through these relationships – people taking ownership of their church. 15 more people from Fuente showed up late – so we ended up having 95 total – almost double what we had last month! We were able to invite other people that were at the park to join us and hear about what we’re all about and have their kid’s join us at the jumper and in other games. All in all we (with the generous help of a team of volunteers from Simi Valley Community Church) were able to serve over 150 people at our BBQ. Each family from our church brought out food in mass – it was a great day!
We are sorry there are no pictures in this update. We had some great ones ready to share, but our camera was stolen at the park on Sunday afternoon. Not only did we lose all the pictures from this great day Sunday, but a previous event and Rebecca’s birthday celebration shots. Bummer!
Other Updates
We had asked you to pray with us about using Main Street Elementary School as a meeting place, but found out it is way out of reach for our church at this time because the price to rent it for one Sunday service is $727.08. Some men in our church and I worked all day Saturday to put up a large tent structure in our driveway – so we had a ‘building’ for our service and will continue until doing this until we can find a better option.
Let’s Pray for these Upcoming Events
·Thanksgiving Dinner (with Fuente church family and guests)
Tuesday, November 23
·Thanksgiving Dinner 2 (at the park for children’s ministry outreach & homeless)
Sunday, November 28
·Christmas at The Oaks (all day family excursion to the camp – taking 85 of us)
Saturday, December 4
·Our 3rd Sunday Morning Church Service
Sunday, December 12
With the wave of prayer that went up due to our urgent prayer need we felt such an amazing love and protection – thank you for supporting us and playing a real vital part of this ministry!
From the fish bowl,
Chad & Fabiola
We had asked you to pray with us about using Main Street Elementary School as a meeting place, but found out it is way out of reach for our church at this time because the price to rent it for one Sunday service is $727.08. Some men in our church and I worked all day Saturday to put up a large tent structure in our driveway – so we had a ‘building’ for our service and will continue until doing this until we can find a better option.
Let’s Pray for these Upcoming Events
·Thanksgiving Dinner (with Fuente church family and guests)
Tuesday, November 23
·Thanksgiving Dinner 2 (at the park for children’s ministry outreach & homeless) Sunday, November 28
·Christmas at The Oaks (all day family excursion to the camp – taking 85 of us)
Saturday, December 4
·Our 3rd Sunday Morning Church Service
Sunday, December 12
With the wave of prayer that went up due to our urgent prayer need we felt such an amazing love and protection – thank you for supporting us and playing a real vital part of this ministry!
From the fish bowl,
Chad & Fabiola
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