Merry Christmas!

What a year. While this year was nothing like what we anticipated, there is no doubt God is able to use bad situations and hard times and turn them into good and beautiful things.

We continue to be as busy as ever, but like most of the world we are learning to connect with people in different ways. We’d like to share just 5 highlights of this season and ask for you to prayerfully give to this ministry.

1.      Empowering the local church and reaching the nations through Trauma Healing Groups

God wants to heal people’s hurts. In the city we see some deep and dark pains. Some are self-inflicted, many are not. Regardless of the source we know the church has the answer. We have been training facilitators to lead groups all over the US and world. We’ve all been through a lot this year; facilitators learn how to guide groups to Biblically address these hurts.

If you would like to know more or be trained with a group from your church reach out to us. We’ve trained people in a handful of countries and dozens of different well-known ministries, missions agencies and churches.

 

2.      Sharing our passion for church planting and empowering pastors

There is no denying the burning in our hearts to walk with and encourage other pastors and ministry leaders. We love seeing new churches birthed and struggling churches get the wind in their sails to become all that they can be. We just helped two churches, one in the San Diego area and one in the Portland area, relaunch. This year we have trained and coached and encouraged (lifting up weary arms) dozens of other pastors and look forward to launching several more schools in 2021. 

 

3.     A voice and advocate for Spanish ministry

We’ve been working tirelessly to get the same quality materials that we have in English into the hands of those ministering in Spanish. While the amount and quality of resources available in Spanish is increasing it is not even half of what is made available in English. We have a heart and have been working hard to give the same quality of materials, trainings and resources into the under-resourced Spanish churches and ministries.

  

4.     Celebrating 10 years as an inner-city church and mission

While we had to cancel nearly all our typical outreaches, we have worked hard like many ministries to ‘go to the people’ digitally. This meant raising funds for technology to give out to our people who had no or limited access online. This also has meant partnering with different organizations to hand out 1,000s of pounds of food to hundreds of individuals.

We had a powerful Trauma Healing Group with a dozen women that we hosted at our church and have two ladies now trained as facilitators to continue this ministry. After meeting only online for many months we were able to celebrate our 10-year anniversary and continue to meet outdoors every week following all the safety protocols.

While we decided not to host our annual Christmas Banquet and Toy Store because of COVID-19, we are empowering and blessing the children of our church this Sunday as we hand out toys to each one of them along with an additional toy that they will be given (along with a Gospel book and some other goodies) to give to a friend of theirs that does not attend a church.

One of the most beautiful stories that has emerged during the pandemic at our church is how when 60-70% of our church lost their jobs at the outset of the quarantine families literally sacrificed their own bread and food to share with other families in need. They also willingly invited those without jobs to come work alongside them at their job so that they could share their own paycheck and have something to bring home each week. The sacrificial giving and love in action has really humbled our hearts and given us a desire to give even more to this community.

 

5.     Family

Each one of the kids is doing amazing in school, but it hasn’t been easy being stuck at home, especially for our more social kids. Having our church meet on Sundays has helped some and each one of the kids help with some aspect of the set-up and ministry.

Rebecca hopes to be able to get back to softball in early February – she is doing great in school and especially loves her art class.

Angela started high school this year and has yet to be on campus but is doing wonderfully and started a Hip Hop class (online).

Justice is working on High School applications and scholarships and doing great in 8^th grade and continues to produce very creative stop motion Lego videos.

Beniah is in 1^st grade and has proven to be really good at watching the clock and making sure we all get to our different Zoom classes and meetings at the right time.

Fabiola continues to do way more than is humanly possible as she provides support in all the different ministries and somehow keep the kids and house flourishing.

 

Opportunity to give

Would you consider partnering with us monthly or sending a special gift for Christmas/end of the year as we continue working towards a healthy church for every community of poverty? We could really use your support!

Please send financial support to: World Impact / 2001 S. Vermont Ave. / Los Angeles, CA 90007  (Please make check payable to “World Impact” and designate “WOLYN SUPPORT” on the memo)  OR  

You may also GIVE ONLINE HERE.

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

From our family to yours, we wish you a very merry, healthy and blessed Christmas,

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca, Angela, Justice and Beniah

Blessings in Disguise

What are some of the highlights for you during this COVID season? Oh, we know there are plenty of challenges and bad things happening, but as we come out of Thanksgiving and move into Christmas, we wanted to take a few moments to share some of the good things happening:

 

Expansion of our reach.

Between Trauma Healing Trainings and Evangel: School of Church Planting Chad has led online trainings and worked with people representing some 30 people groups and nations. Previously the focus was Los Angeles metro area, but now the focus is truly global.

 

Opportunity to reset and refocus.

We have realigned our priorities better during this season, letting go of some good things that were not as fruitful to allow us to focus on more important things. This season has also been a great teacher for us in balancing self-care and looking outward towards so many big needs socially, spiritually, relationally, and emotionally. It is great to hear and be led by God on when to engage and when to be patient.

 

New ministries and new churches.

This season brought the renewal of a key partnership and the launching of a food ministry which has put us in front of a great problem: ‘How can we effectively reach out to hundreds of Spanish speakers in the community and not only meet their physical needs, but their spiritual needs as well?’ It has been so fun to be part of this ministry both on the ground (distributing the food and praying for 100s of people in their cars during the weekend) and as a coach/consultant (on strategies on how to follow-up and move those hungry for God into a Gospel-community). Please pray for a church to be birthed through this effort!

 

Seeing God’s healing and provision.

Many people around us have had COVID and thankfully the majority have gotten over it, but sadly not all. God’s grace, provision, wisdom, and comfort have been on display throughout. At our church, easily half of the people lost their jobs. It has been beautiful how church members with very little have made sacrifices to provide jobs or resources for their brothers and sisters in Christ even when that meant less food on their own tables. Our family has been taken care of both physically and financially during this time too enabling us to be on the front lines to help with spiritual, emotional, physical, and financial needs.

 

Growing as a family.

We have had more time to engage in the lives of our children in their schooling and create some fun family moments together as we spend more time together at the house.

 

Thank you for your continued support – financially and through prayer and encouragement.

 

We wish your family a wonderful and blessed Christmas celebrating the birth of our amazing King!