SPECIAL UPDATE
We have some new news…We are
going on Sabbatical.
We
have been ministering the love and hope of Jesus in the inner-city amongst the
hardened and hurting for 8 years now. We have only gone back ‘home’ to Portland
once in that time and have had limited down time as we have pushed hard to
break ground, start a church and train-up leaders that will train-up others. As
we continue to do the work of missionary church planters and pastors we have
also begun to mentor and work with other pastors. We love what God is doing
here…we love the people and still feel a strong call to ministry and the
mission.
Our Family in 2009 when we first arrived as missionaries to Los Angeles (Rebecca was 3 and Justice 1)
The Wolyn family today...8 years of ministry in LA (Rebecca 11, Justice 9
and Beniah 3)
Our missions organization, World Impact, recognizes that for
missionaries to have long-term effectiveness in ministry, they must
occasionally step back from ministry to rest, recover, reflect, and refocus. World
Impact has created a sabbatical process for that very purpose. With the support
of our leadership, we will begin a three-month sabbatical in June.
No, sabbatical is not a vacation! In fact, it’s a structured,
supervised time to intentionally replenish and regroup for future ministry.
- The first phase is resting and recovering—doing what puts energy back into our tired bodies and minds.
- The second phase is reflecting and refocusing—learning more about God and ourselves. For this phase, we will be going to a retreat center that World Impact has recommended where we will be able to debrief and process what we have been doing for the last 8 years with trained professionals outside of our organization.
- The final phase is realignment—seeking God’s best fit for us in life and ministry. During our sabbatical, we’ll meet regularly with an advisor as we work through our personalized sabbatical plan.
All of this is to prepare us to finish well the ministry to which God has called us.
We shared all of this with our church last Sunday and everyone is very
excited for us – they even put together an impromptu dinner for us that very
same evening (and we aren’t even starting the sabbatical for 2 more months!) ‘Our
people’ are our church body, our friends – while we pour out day and night
ministering to them they too have poured much into us. It will be hard to leave
them for even this short season, but we know it will be a time of great growth
where many of our new and emerging leaders will depend more on the Holy Spirit
and step into bigger roles of ministry. We have begun a strategic time of intentional
training and handing off-of responsibilities which is very exciting.
One of the added pressures as we being this time is that we have some
critical financial needs. Our monthly support level has been fluttering around 98%
for the last year – which is good, but it is not 100% and we have a large additional
need with this sabbatical. We could really use your help to be able to go in
and come out of this gift of rest and refocusing that God is giving us stronger
than ever.
Our end goal is $8,500…we have already received a partial scholarship
for the retreat center which will bring that total down to $7,000. The retreat
center is in Colorado and the price covers all our food, lodging and sabbatical
ministry time for two full weeks.
Sabbatical Retreat Center (2 Week Intensive) $ 5,600
Travel/Transportation $ 1,000
Monthly Support Shortfall $ 1,900
TOTAL $ 8,500 (minus scholarship = $7,000)
Your investment really will make a difference for eternity on our
family. As we’ve told our church and the other missionaries – we’ll come back
ready to be even more fruitful.
Please consider joining our monthly support team or giving us a special
gift towards this sabbatical. You can give right
here online or see below for the address and method to give by mail. (Please just put “Wolyn Sabbatical” on the
memo line.)
Thank you so much. We appreciate your prayers too! Let us know if you
have any other questions.
Chad, Fabiola,
Rebecca, Justice and Beniah
P.S. This is the time we would normally send out our other update and
prayer letter, but we wanted to let you know about this need first. Hopefully soon
you will receive the normal update with lots of pictures and updates. Thanks
for sharing our heart for the city!
Please
send any financial support to:
World Impact
C/O Chad Wolyn
2001 S. Vermont Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90007
(Please make check
payable to “World Impact” and designate “WOLYN SABBATICAL” on the memo)
-OR-
Personal
contact info:
mail: Chad and Fabiola Wolyn / 2001 S.
Vermont Ave. / Los Angeles, CA 90007
