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