Spring 2017

We apologize for not getting these updates out as frequently. This week we begin our sabbatical and there have been a lot of layers of responsibility to shed, people to train-up and things to put into place for our successful transition out of ministry for the next 3 months.

Before we head off to refresh and be renewed in extended times of being filled up by God we wanted to give thanks to everyone for your prayers, encouragement and financial support as well as give thanks to God for all the amazing things He has done not only over the last 8 years in ministry here in Los Angeles, but specifically over these last months. You’ll find lots of pictures and short updates and testimonies below. Please be in prayer for our family as we reflect and recharge as well as for the ministry in Los Angeles for these next 3 months.

Praise Report! Thank you so much to everyone who gave financially and has been praying. 100% of the extra expenses we needed to raise for of our sabbatical have been provided! (More information about the sabbatical, prayer requests and God’s provision at the end of this update.)

UPDATES

Youth Winter Retreat

Our youth leaders, Hugo & Yuri, led 18 youth to winter camp back in February. Soon they will be leading a couple more groups for summer camps. 

Camp is a lot of fun (this year laser tag was a big favorite), but it is also a place of rest, reconnecting with God and team building. 

The youth were encouraged to shine their light (share their faith and love for Jesus with others) and let go of pain, doubt, guilt and other things that might hold them back. Since camp most of the youth have participated in a major way during all our outreaches; they have even done some on their own. They have just formed a student leadership team as well to figure out new ways they can be light in the dark hallways of their schools or in their communities and even own homes. 

Immigration Talks

Working with and amongst immigrants during a time when immigration has been such a hot topic has opened more opportunities to share the love and compassion of Christ to our community. We had a really special time having a round table discussion with a college ministry from the suburbs. The college group left enlightened and those that participated from our church really left feeling humanized and heard. We hope to do more things like this to bridge the divide that often spans between cultural and socio-economic groups (even within the Church).

Women’s Breakfast Outreach

God put it on Araceli’s heart to reach out to the women at the rehabilitation home located squarely between her home and church, the one she passes by every day. 

That was the beginning of what became a special women’s breakfast and service. The gospel was preached, many new women came out and were encouraged.

Araceli was able to grow in her leadership abilities and got many other women from the church involved!

Building Deeper Bonds

For the third year we were able to team up with one of our old youth leader’s youth groups. Jim took a job in Northern California, but brings a group of teens down to reach out, serve and learn from the people and issues of the city. This year it was extra special because we were able to host the team at our church having them camp out in the various classrooms and then host the outreach services at our church as well – providing a better connection between Jim’s group, our church and the community we want to reach for Jesus. 

AdAM (Worship & Music Academy)

From the start of the year until Easter we trained up new musicians as well as taught some worship classes in drama and dance to a group of about 15 children, youth and adults.

Easter Week (Vacation Bible School Outreach/Work Project)

Orientation  

For eight years we have spent every week leading up to Easter putting on a special Vacation Bible School in the park for anyone and everyone from the community to come out and participate. We have worked closely with the Department of Recreation and Parks and The Kings Academy for most of those years. 

The Sunday prior to Easter we generally start with an orientation and introduction to the community and planning/prep time for the week. We hand out nearly 1000 fliers door to door and then for four days the fun begins. We get to know the kids and their families. We shower them with love and teach them the gospel through song, drama, story, crafts and just practically demonstrating it. 

We still know many of the families – some are part of our church and some are not – from many years ago. We served over 250 hot dogs at our lunch on the last day and two of our youth shared the gospel in both Spanish and English from the stage, which was a huge highlight seeing them shine their light brightly for God in their own community. 

A few youth from The Kings Academy also blessed us by putting in a wood edge barrier and new flowers in the church’s garden to make things extra special for our Easter service. 

Good Friday

For Good Friday the youth group hosted the showing of the movie “Ben Hur” for the community… they ran concessions and child care and after the movie one of our leaders, Jorge, gave a powerful altar call leading many first time visitors to call out to God in tears.

Easter Sunday

Our drama and dance teams each presented something special to celebrate Easter. 

We also had baptisms.

Every Easter there are several people that show up with hollowed out eggs full of baby powder and confetti – which after the service people run around smashing on each other’s heads…which is great fun to watch, but a mess to clean up! 😊

Beniah and Fabiola celebrate birthdays

Fabiola celebrating another year of life. 

Beniah and his sister Rebecca (11) and brother Justice (9) on his 3^rd birthday. 

Wedding

We had our fourth wedding at our church Fuente. Luis and Veronica have recently given their lives to Jesus. They were invited to church by Luis’ brother and have made radical changes in their lives. One of these areas of change and obedience was to get married. They planned every aspect of their wedding to bring glory and honor to God and to help their family and friends hear and respond to the Gospel. It was a touching ceremony full of worship and many of the non-believers present commented on how impactful the ceremony was, yet just about everyone also added a phrase similar to this: “…but what especially has impacted me is to see how Luis and Veronica have changed so much recently."

Praying for the groom before the ceremony

The presentation of the bride

Fabiola part of leadership team helping to lead Day of Prayer and Fasting at World Impact 

Fabiola has been serving as part of a team that has been organizing our quarterly days of prayer and fasting as a missionary community. These are special days where all other ministry stops and where we seek God and intercede for our communities and ministries. Both of us love being involved in transforming communities and having an impact that goes beyond just our neighborhood or church.

Visit from Intern Misty

Misty originally came down to Los Angeles as a part of her high school youth group mission trip to work with us when we first began outreach and hadn’t yet started a church. She was so impacted by the experience that she asked to return on her own for a summer internship. She lived with our family for a summer and helped us start a children’s ministry and a youth outreach. It was great having her back in Los Angeles for a short visit.

Pampering Mom’s – 3^rd Annual Mother’s Day Outreach

Just before Mother’s Day we hosted our 3^rd annual “Pampering Mom’s” event. 

Each event has brought out new people and strengthened relationships. 

There was much relaxed and yet deep conversation and plenty of laughter too.

Fabiola preached to the women, they received manicures, took some fun pictures, received special goodie bags and had a great lunch while their children and grandchildren were making special Mother’s Day crafts and having a blast. 

Child Dedication

We realized that we had not dedicated Beniah to the Lord officially in any context, which is something we did with Rebecca and Justice when they were newborns and really love to do for other families at church. Seeing an opportunity to publicly dedicate him at our church and train-up our newly installed elders we asked them to help us put on a small dedication service. It was special on so many levels: as a parent realizing what an awesome privilege and responsibility it is to be call “Daddy”, as pastor watching new leaders shine and having my heart hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” on their behalf, and receiving the love and support as we immerse ourselves fully in this community whom we have given everything to knowing that we are living out our lives as examples, as real broken people blessed and used by God.

Adopt-An-Apartment Complex

Paloma Terrace is a new apartment complex with 58-units designated for low-income families that was built this last year 2 blocks from our church. We have developed a great relationship with the management and along with a supporting church put together a BBQ and special family fun time: carnival games, live worship music playing in the courtyard, face painting, crafts and more. 

We were able to let people know about our church – many were interested as they are new to the community they don’t know what is available to them. We will also be able to connect further with some of these families through our food box ministry (visiting them and bringing them a box of food staples every week for a season). 

These outreaches are healthy for our growing church family to get out and see how they can use their time, talent and finances to make a difference in their community. Each time we do something we hear from somebody within our own church that is impacted, challenged or awoken to the need of their neighbors…moving us closer to really see this ministry reproduce itself.

Vandalism. Break In.  And other Van Problems.

There has been an increase in vandalism to our church property and community, various attempts to rob things and our own family van was broken into during a youth service while parked right outside of the front door. 

One car parked outside the church was tagged up, scratched and had every window broken, evidently gang retaliation.

During the break-in of our van, the door handle and other components inside were broken not to mention everything stolen. Then while moving items for an outreach our windshield was broken. Minor things, but annoying!

The plan was to use our van this summer during our sabbatical as we need to travel some, BUT now we have the dreaded “Check Engine” light frowning at us. We took it into two different mechanics to find out it is a transmission problem – the replacement cost would be several times the value of the vehicle so we are now needing a new vehicle. This van has been such a blessing – it really helps move the 5 of us around, but we also use it constantly for ministry trips and rides, helping people move, setting up for outreaches, etc. Thankfully we have been blessed by a friend and ministry partner to be able to use her ministry passenger van for the summer to get us around. Meanwhile we are working on saving funds, raising more donations and praying for a solution for when we return to Los Angeles…because we will need a working van.

 

***If you have a mini-van or something comparable that you would like to donate to us or if you would like to help us raise the funds to buy a van please let us know! Special donations can be sent directly to our missionary account, just let us know it is for “Wolyn Van” so we can set that aside for this need.

Wolyn Sabbatical

Our plans for sabbatical are:

-Lots of rest!

Time away from our normal day to day activities allowing us to renew, restore, and strengthen.

-Uninterrupted family time.

-Two retreats:

First an intentional time of prayer, reflection and guided processing with trained professionals for two weeks at a retreat center in Colorado.

Second a Christian family camp in California where we can continue to be poured into while having lots of fun together as a family creating memories.

Again, thank you for all the generous support that helped make both of these retreats, the travel and this entire sabbatical season possible. 

Please Pray with Us…

1.     An amazing time of refreshing and renewal on sabbatical. That God would accomplish all His purposes in us first as His children, then as His servants. {Sabbatical is from June 9-September 9}

2.     For the elders of the church as they lead every aspect of the ministry in our absence. Pray for wisdom, strength, unity and a deepening heart for the people and even a clarity in their ministry calling.

3.     For the families and individuals – some who are going through real hard times right now – to press into Jesus and grow in their faith while we are away. We are believing for and ask that you would join us in prayer for a very noticeable spiritual and numerical growth in the church while we are away. We love that God would show His power and prove to all of us it has nothing to do with us, but that He is the one who ministers through us – using anyone or anything at any time.

4.     For summer camps. Hugo & Yuri are in charge of running these.

          Grades 4-6      July 2-7

          Grades 7-12    July 9-14

          Grades 1-3      July 18-21

Thank you so much for standing with us! We feel loved and blessed to be a part of your life in some way and to be able to partner for such an amazing cause – restoring communities, salvation for the lost and empowering the urban poor. 

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca, Justice and Beniah