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