The Los Angeles - Mexico Connection

Highlights of the Last Month

Mexico We had a great time in Mexico visiting Fabiola’s home church and family – we came home with renewed energy and refreshed vision. We were there during a week of prayer and fasting and were able to minister in various other settings the second week. We spent as much time as possible with Fabiola’s parents and sister and were able to see some other aunts, uncles and cousins as well. It is interesting the connections between Mexico and Los Angeles. There is a lady that recently started visiting our church in Los Angeles that has family in Puebla so while we were there we visited her mother and daughter (pictured below) and prayed for them and got to know the family better. After giving updates and/or preaching at the different churches and services various people would come up to us as well and share that they had family in Los Angeles and gave us their contact information so that we could give them a call and a visit. Los Angeles is the second largest “Mexican” city in the world (second only to Mexico City). Amazing to think there are less Mexicans living in Puebla, Mexico (a fairly large city) than Los Angeles! Below: Fabiola and a group head to prayer in the back of a cargo van at 5:30 am.
Below: Every morning the church nearly filled up for the 2 ½ hour morning prayer meeting.
Above & Below: Chad was invited to minister in the juvenile jail in Puebla (pictured here with the team that went in with him). This is where youth go for serious crimes and they are housed there until they end their sentence (so there are many 14 year olds with 25 year olds).
One prisoner knew our neighborhood here in L.A. very well as well as the gangs around us – in fact he was convicted of murdering four people in Los Angeles. He is currently locked up for killing another person in Puebla. We had a strong, but sobering conversation. He is having a hard time believing he could ever be a changed person as all he has ever known his whole life is gangs and violence, but God is moving on his heart.

Below: The prayer meeting at night filled up an even larger auditorium. The worship was powerful and really inspired us to continue to pray and work towards raising-up more worshippers here in Los Angeles.

While We Were Gone
As we mentioned last month, while we were gone in Mexico things in Los Angeles continued as normal. We have been working hard to encourage and equip the congregation to minister to one another. Merced (pictured on the left in the picture below) did a great job teaching and leading the Wednesday night group. We hope that in the next month or two he and his wife will begin to lead a small group on their own in a different part of town. Please pray for wisdom in the timing and manner in which we go about starting that new group. Abraham (pictured with the guitar) also did a great job leading worship. This last Sunday we had one of the most powerful times of worship we’ve had as a congregation as Abraham lead worship and I just accompanied him with the guitar and voice.
This last Sunday we just shared testimonies from Mexico and a short message and had Adelso (pictured in bottom picture) share a message from Romans 8.

This seems to be a bit of a pruning season – while our core group is getting stronger some of those that are more on the outskirts have seemed to have grown more distant. Please pray for those that have distanced themselves from us, the church and God.


Upcoming Events (please pray):

·Marriage Conference (February 26; 9am – 4pm)
Pray for a large turnout of people from our church and the community.
Pray for the time with the children to go smoothly (6 hours of activities for a wide range of ages is a long time!).

·Leaders Meeting (February 26; 7pm)
We will have Pastors Felipe & Judy Jaquith from Puebla, Mexico with us to share a special message.
We hope to begin to implement a regular planning, prayer and leadership development time that can pull those showing leadership skills or potential together and allow us to grow beyond what Fabiola and I can do for the church. This will be the first one.

·Special Sunday Service with Pastor Felipe. The message will be on FAMILIES (February 27; 10am)
Pray for a large turnout of people from our church and the community.
Pray that the message Pastor Felipe brings will go deep into our hearts and become something we really live out.

·VBS: Bible Club (First week of March)
Pray that we will make a lot of new contacts and people will be hungry to know more about God and get connected to the church.
Pray that the church will begin to take more and more ownership on these outreaches.

Thank you for praying with us and believing with us for a “healed land”

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

Chad & Fabiola