It's Like Riding A Bike

To ride a bike you need balance. Sure, you can coast for a while without moving the pedals, but soon you’ll stop and have to pedal again or put your foot down. We intend to keep moving towards the prize which Christ has called us to. To move forward on a bicycle you need to move through the cycle of the extreme up and the extreme down on each side. Balancing between evangelism (reaching out) and discipleship (training up) or being outward focused and inward focused as a church can seem like going in two competing directions, but in reality they need to work together for true movement and growth. What a thrill for us to have a lot of the church out interacting with the new families at the VBS (see update below) and many also invited family or friends to the services. We as leaders cannot and should not do all the work. To move forward we know we need a healthy balance of all the seeming opposing factors in Christianity and Church life: Love and justice. Truth telling and the wisdom to speak in love. Growing fast while developing slowly. Work and rest. Just to mention a few.

Updates

V.B.S. - Vacation Bible School
What a wonderful time spending the week before Easter with our church and The King’s Academy High School out in South Park putting on a special Vacation Bible School for the community and the ladies that have their aerobics’ class every morning! We had a good turnout – over 120 kids and lots of parents. We connected with the parents as they smiled and watched the program. Between the Passion of Christ movie on Good Friday and Easter Service we had four new families come out.

Checking In Opening Session "This Little Light of Mine...I'm Going to let it Shine!" (Left)
Dress up time after the Bible Story (Right)

The Craft Zone (Making heart butterflies)

Lunch Time!

Work Projects
For us proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus is our priority. When we can do something simple to bless our community in Jesus’ name we do it. We are given a lot of favor in the community to run programs and use facilities. We love when we can give back. The King’s Academy High School group came and donated some things to this small weight area at South Park, just behind where we run our VBS programs. Blue and his buddies are ex-convicts and ex-gang members who share a desire for positive activities for the men in the community.

This bench where Bougard and Blue are working out at South Park was broken in several places.

Here is the new bench press bench that was built - better than ever.

The group also put in new cement to fix up our driveway where we hold our church service.
No more tripping on uneven cement or grass poking out in the front of our sanctuary.

Easter Sunday
I think our whole team would agree that Easter Sunday was one of our highlights of the entire year. There was such a great time of song and dance, a drama presentation and strong Gospel message, baptisms and then a family fun egg hunt and a delicious meal we all shared together.

Our worship team singing praises to our Lord.
The children joined in for a special dance.

Chad preached on the power of the resurrection.

There was a drama presentation called "The Story of the Soldier" put on completely by our church - without our help (from the concept and planning to the costumes and scenery).

The moving tomb (the rock moved on its own) and seeing Jesus emerge at the end was powerful and brought front and center what we were celebrating - the resurrection life in Jesus!

Baptisms!

We gathered everyone in our front yard - for many this was the first believer baptism they had ever seen.

Praying for the girls before their baptsim.

You are not seeing double. Twins Erika and Nancy both were baptized Easter Sunday.

There was a lot of good help in the kitchen after the baptsim.

Fellowship and Food - a great way to go deeper!

Mother’s Day Service & Baby/Child Dedication
Fabiola preached a special message for all the mothers and then had them all pass in front so we could pray for them and then present them with a rose.

We also had three families dedicate their children to the Lord. Since these families are all new to church it was a great opportunity to teach them and the congregation about consecrating our life to the Lord as followers of Christ and as parents. They were all charged with the powerful task of raising their children in a godly household – teaching them to love and fear God.

Please Pray With Us

·New Families
Please lift up these families that we have recently met through the VBS. We are praying that they will commit themselves to the Lord and come faithfully to worship, learn more and fellowship at Fuente para las Naciones.
[Maria: Xiomara, Gabriel and Christopher; Martin & Lourdes: Enid, Danny and Hector;
Claudia: Ruendy; Cecilia: Hector, Wendy and Bryan; Gabriela: Melissa, Eduardo and Luis]

·Beach Night - May 18th
A time for our church to fellowship and worship around the bonfire.

·Men’s Retreat – June 10th – 12th
Pray that men would commit and follow through. Pray for new men – husbands that we don’t typically see to come out. Pray for a powerful encounter with God and deeper relationships forged between all of us.

·Summer Interns
Three interns will be joining us this summer. Pray as they finish up school and prepare to immerse themselves in our community and church life. Their names are: Nate, Garnett and Misty.

·Sunday Service – Father’s Day – June 19th
Pray for a good turnout – especially of men who often do not accompany their families. Pray for a powerful message and worship time.

·Summer Camps
Summer camps are an amazing time for our children and youth to connect with God in an intense and real way that their home life does not generally allow. Pray that parents will be willing to send their children and that nothing will get in the way of these young people pressing deeper into their relationship and calling with God.

·Balance
Pray that our family and our church may live balanced lives – where we live and teach the whole Truth.

A Criminal Zip Code

“It's criminal when I can look at your zip code and tell what kind of education you're going to get,” said Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  We live in a part of Los Angeles known for its lack of many things from a lack of good medical care to a lack of prospering, quality businesses and even the lack of general cleanliness.  Yet one of the biggest lacks is that of a good education.  Of the 41 closest public schools only three are passing the state standard – none of which are in our zip code.  The average school ranks 2.7 (out of 10) in South Central LA and a pitiful 1.3 in our neighborhood.  (Source: L.A. Times)

Our desire as missionaries and as church planters is to provide the best education that we can for the children, youth and even the adults in our community.  Our team is too small for us to be able to offer any formal tutoring or training at this stage, but we are praying to see how God might want us to get involved or who He might bring alongside us to help us accomplish these lofty, yet urgent needs. 

One amazing thing that we have been able to do with the help of our two interns is provide a high quality, content rich and relationally deep Christian education for our children and youth.  Over the last nine months that they have been with us, both Jessica and Monica have helped us take ministry here to the next level.  Unfortunately, their internship ends at the end of this month.  Now, as they leave, we ask that you pray with us for direction and guidance for the leadership and Biblical education of the children and youth at our church, Fuente para las Naciones. 

Monica and Jessica met with all of our parents last month one-on-one to share with them the amazingly great things that they see in their children, to speak encouragement and life into them and share more deeply what they have been studying over these months in their classes. 

Many of our children and youth have given their life to Jesus!  The kid’s in Monica’s class love to sit and soak in God’s presence and hear from Him, worship through singing and simple rhythm instruments and pray for one another.  Many of these children are bringing their parent’s to church and not the other way around. 

Jessica has done an amazing job mentoring and discipling the junior high and high school youth.  One of them will be entering a Leadership In Training program through World Impact for the next three years where he will be mentored weekly by us and working on special ministry projects.  Pray with us that the next phase of Monica and Jessica’s lives will continue to be blessed and all the fruit that they have seen produced will be fruit that will remain; good fruit that will reproduce one hundred times over. 

We are excited about how God will continue to impart knowledge, wisdom and understanding to this community and provide for all our needs as we continue to grow as a church! 

Thank you for your prayers and support,

Chad & Fabiola