The Hero of the Season

 

Updates

 

The Move

We are now living in our new house.  We’re working at setting up our home again and for the first time since we moved to Los Angeles we have to drive to church.  It feels quite different than just walking out of your bedroom into the family room.  Our church members are having a good time reorganizing the spaces for each classroom and figuring out how to maximize our corporate meeting space.

 

During this transition we have had a couple setbacks.  On the day of our move two big wheel type bikes and a scooter were stolen, along with some really nice potted plants and a jacket.  We have always known that we are being watched by people, sometimes it is just amazing at how much we are being watched.  As we drove off with the majority of our stuff they moved in…when we returned an hour and a half later it was gone.  All these things were just out of plain sight on our porch.  There has also been some new graffiti…we feel that these things just confirm why we are here…people are in need.  Yes, it feels horrible when things are stolen or vandalized, but more reason to keep sharing the Good News.

 

Then our first shower at the new house caused a rainstorm downstairs….meaning our first shower was our last for a while.  Things are now fixed, but even as walls were being ripped out and fixed we found tons of black mold and other issues that had to be dealt with.  The crazy thing is all these setbacks, in a roundabout way, have been answers to prayers.  Not the way we would do it, but all that matters is that God is control.

 

While we are living in the city amongst the people that God has burdened our hearts to spend 24/7 serving we know that our experience, while similar in some ways, is not anything as difficult as what is ‘normal’.  Knowing that our ‘normal’ sized bedroom might be a ‘house’ for a family of 6 or that the black mold and a leaking bathroom may never get fixed helps put things in perspective and appreciate the grace and favor we have – as well as the financial support to be able to focus on ministry and not on survival.  It is also crazy to think how Jesus came into our filthy world and really did experience all the pain and temptations, shame and heartache that we feel.  Jesus is our hero.  He saved us.  He continues to save us!  He is the One we desire to follow every day.  We are so blessed to have Him in our lives!  We are also blessed to be celebrating this Christmas with the many individuals Jesus has allowed us to know and love here in Los Angeles.  We are also blessed to have you in our lives and want to wish you a very merry Christmas. 

 

Thanksgiving: Giving thanks to God as a church

Food boxes were delivered to 20 families…

Our church then went out and fed the homeless and community a delicious feast.  We did this the Sunday before Thanksgiving and nearly everyone from our church came back a few hours after our morning worship service to serve.  It was great how they served as entire families and how they spent time sharing the Good News along with sharing the good food. 

 

 

We then had a special Thanksgiving service and meal the day before Thanksgiving.

A homeless couple came an enjoyed the evening with us as did other friends and family.  We all shared testimonies and gave thanks to God.  We sang songs – English and Spanish, men and women, young and old.  The youth were in charge of creating and running some games and crafts for the younger kids.  We see so much growth from the previous year – we will be able to do more and more as the church continues to catch the vision and take responsibility for this ministry. 

 

Christmas at the OAKS

 

Over 50 of us boarded the bus and headed to the OAKS camp for a day of Christmas fun.  Most of the men and boys took off to play soccer, while the women and girls worked on making special Christmas crafts to decorate their homes or give as gifts.  We all came together again for a full Christmas dinner, some games, a hay ride and family pictures.  

 

 

Journey to Bethlehem

What a great way to see, smell, hear, taste and touch your way through that special night that Jesus was born. 

 We were able to see Mary on the donkey looking for a room, but there was no space at the inn. 

We had to pay taxes to the Roman soldiers and then with the coin money we had left over were able to buy wares from the various shops and even taste yummy foods.

During the night, we looked up and saw the angels giving glory to God and proclaiming the arrival of Jesus.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got to go to the stable along with the shepherds and hear everyone’s experience and excitement.

 We almost forgot we were in Los Angeles for a moment…the kids loved it as did the parents and youth.

We continually are looking for opportunities to bring families together around Christ honoring and Christ-focused events.This is one we will be talking about and remembering for a long time.

 

 Please Pray with Us…

ü  Youth - San Diego Missions Trip

 

ü  Christmas Program: “The Gift” an original drama our children and some adults will be putting on for friends and family.  Some of the ladies from the church have been going door to door around our neighborhood inviting people to participate with us.

 

ü  Christmas Service: We will be celebrating Christmas on Sunday, December 23 with another special service and a Christmas dinner.

 

ü  Our new space:  After meeting in the rain and cold weather last week (under our canopies), we have all agreed to come together this week and do some work to prepare the recently emptied house and make meeting indoors possible.  Our Christmas service will be our first service in the ‘new’ space.

 

ü  New Year’s Outreach: (Saturday, January 5)  We will be having a large fair at the park in front of the church with food, prizes and most importantly our church members sharing the gospel to the many still without direction or purpose.

 

Christmas Gifts

We were blessed to receive new student Bibles for all our youth, a new microwave and we have some Sunday school curriculum on the way…thank you so much for your gifts!

 

If you didn’t have a chance to give a special Christmas gift to this ministry there still is time!  Here are some more ways you can help this ministry (used items in good condition, or money donated towards these items would also be greatly appreciated):

·         DVDs (appropriate for children or toddlers)

·         Video games (for XBOX 360 or Wii; appropriate family or kid games)

·         DVD player

·         Craft Supplies for our children’s ministry

·         Coffee Maker

·         Toilet Seat

·         Patio Bench

·         Large Screen (for projector)

 

We pray that you holiday season is bright with the light of our Hero, Lord and Savior, Jesus.

 

Merry Christmas from all of us!

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca and Justice

Her Time to be Saved

“Please explain to me what I must do to be saved,” Liliana asked Fabiola with wide-eyes after the Sunday morning message.  We met Liliana through our park outreach.  She started coming to our church after our summer sport’s outreach and has since invited several other people.  This was her Sunday…a time to get right with God and begin new life.  We praise God for your prayers and sacrificial financial support that is enabling us to keep evangelizing, raising up disciples and planting churches here in the inner city.

We have some other big news to share (though not as big as Liliana’s salvation).  This month we will be moving to a new house.  As you know we have been asking for prayer for a building space for our growing church for almost two years.  We have not been able to find a space that would be big enough in our community for our church that we can afford, so we decided to move out of our current home so the church can use that space more freely and effectively. 

We will miss living in this home, but are excited to see how this ushers in the next phase of our church planting.  Already in the planning phases we have seen how the church has been able to take more ownership in something that is ‘theirs’ and not ‘ours.’  Our new home is not too far and will allow us some healthy separation from the intensity of the growing ministry to be a family, while continually investing in the emerging leadership and those coming to faith like Liliana.    

This month we will also be celebrating Christ’s birth and life with our church and community.  We have our annual daylong celebration – Christmas at THE OAKS, which is a time for our families to leave the city for a day to make hand crafted gifts, bond as families and as a church and learn more about the Christmas story.  Later on this month we will also have our church Christmas party and meal together. 

Fabiola has also been working hard over the last two months with the children to put on a mini-drama musical called “The Gift” for our Christmas service (the Sunday before Christmas).  It has been powerful watching the kid’s grasp a deeper understanding of the meaning of Christmas and be so motivated to bring their families to church so they can keep rehearsing and learning more.  Just last week one of the mom’s shared at our Bible study how amazing it was that her daughter knew so much about the Bible.  She was surprised to find her sitting and teaching her younger sister about the things she was learning at church – things the mom had not yet learned!

What a privilege it is to be here in Los Angeles serving Jesus and preaching about His love and the amazing gift of eternal life.  Thank you for your gifts of prayers, financial support and encouraging words that make this all possible.

Merry Christmas,

Chad & Fabiola

Making Space

Updates

As the church that we have planted continues to need more space we have been praying and looking for a suitable location to meet during the week and for our Sunday service, but have not been able to find anything that is realistically within our reach as a church.  So, after much prayer, we have decided to move our family out of the house allowing for the church to use our current home more freely and completely.  This will allow the church to continue to grow and give the emerging leaders the opportunity to take on more responsibility and ownership while the church continues to prepare for that next level of growth. 

We are in the middle of painting and cleaning and packing and hopefully by the end of this month we will be moved – and maybe by the next time we write we’ll even be somewhat settled in…we won’t be too far away from the “new” church building and all of our contact information (phones, addresses) remain the same. 

Thanksgiving

This coming Sunday our church will be serving a large meal to the homeless and other people in need who live in our community at the park in front of our house. 

Next week we will gather our church together for a huge Hispanic flavored Thanksgiving meal. 

We are always looking for ways to make more space – in our stomachs – for this wonderful food as everyone brings the most unique and special flavors.  Have you ever had a turkey prepared in a Guatemalan mole sauce? (pictured above)…We’re becoming famous for that one…!

We will also be distributing food boxes and groceries for those families that are the most in need.  Thank you for the many gifts and donations that have help make these special events possible.

Praise Reports & Answered Prayers

We thank God that through some generous help we were able to replace both of the canopies that we use for our worship service on Sundays (see the nice new canopies in the pictures below).  This happened just in time as the weather changes.  Next week we will be using the outdoor space for our annual Thanksgiving service.  We also had a great one year anniversary service where we looked back and reflected on how far we’ve come since starting to meet every Sunday just one year ago.  Looking at the picture montage we put together and talking about where we have come from stirred the church up to look ahead and launch into a deeper commitment to connect with God and to reach the hurt and broken for Jesus.  

We were blessed by the testimony and music of Lasana (pictured above top) – an African drummer and singer with a great story of how God used an evangelist in his predominately Muslim home country of Liberia to share the Gospel to him while he had been abandoned by his parents because he was blind and “useless”.  Our people resonated with the core message – while they are from different countries and have their sight, they understood the pain of rejection and deep need for the hope of Christ in our lives.  His music really allowed us to rejoice in the Lord. 

Our children had a special birthday party with their friends.  Of the numerous parties we have attended very few of them have any focus – and at times no focus – on the birthday boy or girl.  We went against the cultural grain this time and had a party where the children and children’s activities were the focus.  Parents and kids alike enjoyed themselves and commented on the differences.  

Christmas Giving Opportunities    

-English Bibles for our youth 

-Craft Supplies for our children’s ministry

-Sunday school curriculum

-Instruments (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboard)

-Microwave

Let us know if you would like to give a special gift or send any of the items listed above to help in a practical way as we continue to reach out to the lost and hurting, train-up leaders and plant churches.  We so thank you for making this a team effort – it wouldn’t be possible otherwise

Please Pray with Us…..

üEvangelism & Outreach (Monthly)

The youth group from our church has been going out to share their faith and pray with people in the community.  We are trying to encourage the parents to come along and help more too.

üChristmas at the OAKS  (December 1)

This is our yearly trip up to the OAKS camp for a special day of bonding, activities, crafts and food. 

üSan Diego Missions Trip (December 14-17)

Kevin, one of our youth, had an idea to have us take a missions trip to San Diego.  He is one of the youth that has really caught the vision to reach other people…and even other cities for Jesus. 

üChristmas celebrations

We will be having several church-wide events during the month of December to help us promote the Reason of the Season – Jesus— to our community. 

üFor our move

Moving can be stressful, yet doesn’t have to be.  We are praying for a lot of details to fall into place and the transition of our old house to become a more useful space for the church activities. 

Thank you again for being with us.  We might at times feel alone, but know that there is a mighty cloud of witnesses cheering us on, praying for us and making sure all our needs are being met.  Our life focus on bringing people to Christ is not wasted, nor are we alone.  Thank you for your friendship and loving support.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Chad & Fabiola

Our Children Know The Great Physician

We are continually amazed at what God is doing here in South Central Los Angeles as we train-up leaders and plant churches. The Good News is getting into people’s hearts and drastically changing them.  We have seen an increase in decisions to follow Jesus, baptisms, new visits and more stepping up into leadership and service these last couple months.  We would like to highlight some of what is happening in the children’s ministry this month.

Sara, one of our youth that we are training in the children’s ministry, was recently teaching about Paul on the island of Malta.  She taught them that at first the natives of the island thought Paul had done something wrong and the snake bite was a deadly punishment.  Later the children heard that the natives began to worship him as a god because he did not die.  The children reacted infuriated that these people were worshipping someone that was not truly God.   The passion they have for the truth was evident.  A strong and ever deepening root in the Word of God has been planted in them over the last two to three years and given them this courage to want to defend their faith and belief in the living God. 

The children also noticed how this passage demonstrates God’s power to do miracles and heal.  Unfortunately, in the period of two weeks, one child’s grandmother died and then her uncle who lived with the family was run over and killed.  Then a friend of another child just died.  The children are being confronted with death at a whole new level.  Yet amidst sharing about these experiences of loosing loved ones came from within the children this desire to ask God for more faith to believe and see miracles. So our class began to pray for a man (an uncle of one of the children) who has an unknown disease in his leg that has caused him to be hospitalized. What an emotional and faith filled time as these children spoke to the great Physician and Healer!

Children are amazing!  They have a seemingly limitless capacity to hear God and call for a touch from their Maker in their lives.  This is our goal…introduce people to Jesus, not just talk about Him and tell stories.  Children and adults alike need to personally know and experience God.  These children’s hearts are full of compassion for their parents and their classmates. While the children are going through hard times – real and bigger-than-life battles – they still come to church and encourage one another.  They also are ‘bringing’ their parents out to church and spurring them on to greater levels of faith and faithfulness.  One of our youth has been going home after Bible studies and opening the Bible and sharing with his non-Christian extended family the amazing truth he is learning and experiencing.

This month we will gather our church together for a huge Hispanic flavored Thanksgiving meal and then go out and share with our community. Our church will be giving hot meals to the homeless and food boxes for those families that are the most in need.  Thank you for partnering with us with your love and encouragement, financial support and prayers!

With thankfulness in our hearts for who you are and what God is doing together through us,

Chad & Fabiola

Stray Dogs

Like many third world countries, stray dogs abound in our neighborhood. It’s not unheard of for a gang of twelve dogs to be tromping around the streets and meandering through the park. Sometimes they are aggressive, but generally they aren’t.  Many of them walk around pregnant and scrawny–scrounging for whatever food they can find.  

Sadly, there are even more stray people here wandering around without purpose. People that have been abandoned and are spiritually sick. They are roaming in and out, just looking to get what they can – to make it through another day.  This is a comparison we don’t particularly like to make, but it is very accurate.  It’s oppressive here.  There is a lot to do.

Pictured above are some stray dogs in our community.  

Top a group at South Park, below a dog makes a home amongst the trash on a street near our home.

Updates

Growth and Expansion

We are by no means done with the work God has given us in this community, but we are committing this next year to pray for further expansion into other neighborhoods – whether that be a growth of our current church plant or a completely new church plant. 

While We Were Away

It was so good to be back to church on Sunday.  We missed two Sundays – something we have never done since we started meeting every Sunday morning about a year ago.  The first week we were gone we were on a much needed vacation.  We came back refreshed and with new drive, passion and vision.  The following week we were on a World Impact missionary staff retreat.  This was also good for us to continue to get training and pour ourselves into the bigger picture of what God is doing amongst the urban poor throughout Los Angeles and the nation. 

While we were gone things continued without a hitch.  In fact, there were several visitors and some powerful testimonies that we got to hear.  We would like to share one testimony that was particularly amazing on several levels.

Camilla’s Testimony

Camilla is a young grandmother who after walking past our church time and time again finally decided to join us.  She has been coming out for a few months now and while we were away came to church with a heavy heart.  She ended up sitting next to Jasmin, a lady who just gave her life to Jesus, and they began talking.  Camilla shared her heartache that while at the doctor’s office with her pregnant daughter they received the horrible news that her baby had spina bifida and was given a 10% chance to live.  Jasmin encouraged Camilla to seek God in prayer.  Camilla shared with the whole church this week that she went home still weighed down in her heart, but hopeful and encouraged by the talk and words of Jasmin.  She opened her Bible and read and read and cried out to God in prayer.  They returned to the doctor this week and the doctor announced that the baby no longer has spina bifida and that the baby now has a 90% chance to live.  The whole church lit up with rejoicing!  (We need to leave more often!)

Please Pray with Us…..

üDogs eating at the table

    Fabiola had a dream this month where there were ravenous, vicious dogs coming to eat at a large banqueting table prepared for a feast.  She felt that the table represented all the amazing things that God is doing in and through our church.  The dogs are the presence of evil.  Later, Norma, one of the ladies who works with us, saw a vicious dog-like animal jump up on her during a team prayer time.  We would ask that you pray for our spiritual protection against the attacks of the enemy.  We are confident God wants to do great and amazing things – and rejoice in what He has already accomplished, but also know that there is evil lurking all around. 

ü  Music Training Workshop  Saturday, October 20

   We want more and more people to be excited about worshipping God and equipped to play instruments in our praise and worship time.  This will be our third time doing a half-day workshop like this.  Pray that students and teachers alike would be inspired, equipped and push deeper into God.

üGuest musician Lasana Kanneh  Sunday, October 21

     While our church worships primarily in Spanish we all have a lot of connections in the workplace, neighborhood and schools that are English-only speakers.  Our church is inviting some of these people to worship with us this coming weekend as we have African, reggae, gospel musician Lasana come from the Portland/Vancouver area to minister to our church.  We will then take him down to MacArthur Park – a large park near downtown LA to minister there at an outreach.

ü Birthday Party  Saturday, October 27

Justice just turned 5 (October 4) and Rebecca will be turning 7 (November 5), so we are inviting all the church and some other friends from school and the community to join in celebrating both of these birthdays.  This will be Justice’s first birthday party ever!

ü  Our “Building”

After almost two years of meeting on our driveway our canopy has given way to the sun, wind and rain. We started Fuente para las Naciones church almost three years ago now.  We started meeting in our living room as a Bible study.  After a year of meeting as a small group in various homes we added a once-a-month Sunday meeting and grew other areas such as our children and youth ministries.  Now we are almost at the end of a year of meeting continuously every Wednesday and Sunday.  We know the church is the people – not the building, but while we pray for more people to meet and grow in Jesus we need an adequate space to come together. 

Our current meeting place (walls come down on Sundays)
has a bit of a sun roof that we've been covering with
extra tarps after a recent storm.  

Please pray for a new building space and for funding to make needed repairs on what we are currently using.  If God prompts you to give financially towards this need please contact us through one of the ways listed at the end of this letter. 

God has given us the city!  It’s happening life by life.  First Jasmin came in strong giving everything to Jesus and now Camilla has seen God’s amazing power and demonstration of love.  There are many strays – spiritually bankrupt people – wandering and hurt, but thanks to your prayers and financial support we get to see the poor say “I am rich” and the weak say, “I am strong.”  Thank you for standing strong along side of us – together we can do a lot.

Full of Christ’s life-giving love,

Chad & Fabiola