Breakthrough

I just got off the phone with one of our partners that we trained and are coaching in Trauma Healing based out of Los Angeles and she shared that one of the ladies in her most recent group had a miraculous breakthrough during one of the classes letting go of deep-seated, long-held pain and the best part is she gave her life to Jesus for the first time as a result! These are things we love to celebrate as we remember Jesus coming to us during this Christmas season. This lady lives in Mexico and joined the group through Zoom. 

Another lady, Pastor Jennifer from Florida, was in this same group and shared that she did not want to come to the third class because her mother had just passed away the day before. While that is understandable something inside of her gently pushed her to log-on and join this healthy, loving community and share the loss of her pain. It just happened that the topic of the class was “What happens when someone is grieving?” and she learned valuable skills on how to go through the grieving process in a healthy way and help others as well. She shared that the timing and content was like a ring that fit perfectly on her finger. Now Jennifer and her husband, Pastor Efrain, are launching Healing Groups in their church to help others learn how to deal with the heart wounds that come through loss and the other hurts so many of us pick up through life.

Here are a few other short testimonies from some of our more recent Trauma Healing Groups:

 

·        “I came to this group just to see what it was about not thinking I needed any help, but God has used this group to show me that I had trauma and pain stuffed deep in my heart. I never really spoke about that pain, but through this group I found a safe place and easy strategies to share. I felt that as I shared my pain a deep healing began in me. I praise God for this group and that I can now walk in more freedom and wholeness!”

 

·        “Thank you to all the facilitators for sharing and being part of my healing process. Today I am an overcomer and more than a conqueror in Christ, so that I can help the many other woman who are out there that need to know their value and will be brought to healing in the name of Jesus.”

 

·        “I was touched and helped by being able to share testimonies and hear from the others in the group. The Lord truly has strengthened us, each one of us in a unique way, and to Him be the glory.”

Thank you for joining us in prayer for:

 

·        The Trauma Healing ministry to continue to expand and impact lives. Pray for us to connect with and to train key leaders and ministries so that the empowering work through these groups can expand.

·        Pray for upcoming Dean Schools (training teams to teach Church Plant schools) in Northern California in January and in Mexico in March.

·        Please keep our family in your prayers as we maneuver some challenges in family dynamics.

 

May your Christmas be a time of deep gratitude, joyful celebration, and expectancy of what is to come!

Drug Addict Stalker with Machete

Thank you for your love and support. We wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving! 

During a year full of so many challenges we hope you are able to see the goodness and majesty of God. We have certainly had to stop and lean in numerous times this year because things have been hard, but we continue to marvel at His faithfulness, power and overall goodness. We share this update with hopes you will join us in prayer, but also in celebration for what God has done, is doing and will continue to do!

DRUG ADDICT STALKER WITH MACHETE

It all started with our neighbor sending us a video of a homeless man smoking meth while sitting on our chair in the enclosed patio area right outside our kitchen – while we were home. We didn’t notice him, but our neighbor chased him out. Our neighbor was keeping an eye out since this same intruder had attempted to steal our neighbor’s motorcycle the day before. Since then, he has come back more times than we can count (usually at least daily), threatened us with a knife and a machete.

The police have come numerous times and there is now a restraining order against him. Fabiola has prayed for him, and we have tried to talk to him, but sadly he is not well and does not want to be part of a program that could offer him help. When the police came one night after the machete incident, they couldn’t find the 2-foot blade that he had hid while the police were enroute – but the next day we found it buried in the planter space outside our neighbor’s door. He continues to pound on doors at 3am in the morning, use the bathroom and do drugs on our property.

We have had a few prayer meetings with our neighbors on the property. We have installed cameras, motion lights, locks and have the police and neighbors involved too. Everyone is on edge and not feeling super confident or comfortable coming and going – especially at night when we just don’t know if he’ll be waiting outside the door or behind a car.

Here is a video of the intruder escaping while the police were looking on the side of the yard. (12 seconds)

The police were only able to find a smaller knife and drugs on him, but later we located the machete he used to threaten us with (before we retreated indoors) hidden in the space outside the front door. [Not sure why it looks so much smaller in the photo.]

The morning after being arrested he returned to look for the machete he had buried. (8 seconds)

This was from last night...(on right side) (16 seconds)

FIRES STILL AT BACK DOOR

Some have asked how the fire situation continues…well, we did have a major fire incident last week, but thankfully the fire department was very quick to respond with two engines. With the weather getting cooler and darker we smell the fires burning more and more once again. We appreciate your prayers for safety.

 

CHURCH PLANTING – 100s of Churches for 2022

We had an international church planting school planned to help train key leaders from Bangladesh, India and some other nations in Africa and Asia, but it has proven very difficult for them to get visas right now with COVID still lingering. There is great need and great interest, and we continue building and training online, but pray for opportunities in the coming year for this gathering.

COVID also made us adapt our plan for a school in Mexico for this month, but we plan on being there in March to train up key leaders to lead their own church planting schools. They have a goal to plant 500 churches throughout Mexico and Latin America.

Continue to pray for Pastor Javier who I have been coaching as he has been working with 10 churches in Columbia as he trains them using the Evangel School of Church Planting that we did with him. We believe next there will be even more multiplication through him and his growing network!

A small network of churches reached out to us this last month looking for help bringing their churches that are over 75 years old and started in the city but have not been growing. It is such a privilege to come alongside and provide resources and teaching that can help plant or rebirth churches and ministries.

 

TRAUMA HEALING – A Growing Need; A Growing Network

I have just finished training 3 groups of new Trauma Healing Group Facilitators. These are 9-week courses that equip key leaders who will lead healing groups in their churches or ministries. It is encouraging to see how impactful this material is and how our community network is growing. Two of these groups were in Spanish with people across the US, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, the other in English. Three of our facilitators are working on their advanced training (about a year-long process) and soon will be able to help us grow our reach even more as they can co-facilitate these trainings with us.

We already have several exciting groups lined up for the start of 2022 and plan on one of them training key leaders in much of French-speaking Africa.

 

REDEMPTIVE POVERTY WORK – No More Toxic Charity Work

In this holiday season a lot more attention tends to be given to giving and serving especially those in need which is great, but here at World Impact we have learned a lot over the years and are working on helping others understand that there are both helpful and harmful ways to help. We are having great conversations with churches big and small, rural, suburban, and urban about how we can help in a way that empowers and doesn’t hurt…this framework is called Redemptive Poverty Work. It is moving beyond ‘charity’, shifting our mindset from rescue to advocacy towards empowerment. If you are interested in knowing more for yourself or for a group (small group, church, missions team, etc.) let me know and I can send you some material or set up a time to dive even deeper. The last thing we want to do is offer help that makes things worse.

 

FUENTE CHURCH – Real Community; Real Impact

Our church continues to re-establish itself in the community that has been hit hard by COVID. Most families lost jobs, have been sick and have not fully recovered. We have provided a lot of physical resources thanks to churches and organizations (and individuals) that have partnered with us. We also take very seriously our call to minister spiritually and have started some new small groups in the community and are working on new ideas and outreaches to the community for 2022. For Thanksgiving we have given away over 100 meals and for Christmas, while we won’t have the huge production that we usually have we will be working with a handful of families to pour out blessings on them.

 

OUR CHILDREN – Our Co-Laborers and First Ministry 

Rebecca is a junior and on the Ministry Team and playing varsity softball.

Angela just got on the basketball team at her school, she is a sophomore. She is also doing a work internship at our church where gradually she is learning different practical skills that will help her in future job opportunities.

Justice was in his first play, Our Town, and is on the JV soccer team and really loving high school; he is a freshman.

Beniah is reading a lot and drawing great pictures and making comic books. He keeps us all smiling as he tells us all that he loves us constantly. He is in 2^nd grade.

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving! We are blessed to serve Jesus and be able to do it with you!

Thank you,

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca, Angela, Justice and Beniah 

Supporting Their Vision

This month we ask for prayer for a training we will be doing in Mexico with Pastor Daniel. Pastor Daniel has a vision to plant 500 churches. In under 10 years he has raised up a great network of pastors and leaders and has planted over 40 churches (reaching over 1,000 people). When he found out about our church plant school he asked if we would come down and train some of his key leaders so that they could use our resources to equip and empower more leaders throughout Mexico and Latin America. They don’t have a lot of resources, but they do have a lot of heart and we are inspired that they see barriers more like hurdles to go over than something that stops them in their tracks.

On the other side of the US, in Miami, and the other side of Latin America, in Columbia, we are launching two more church plant schools with a couple that we trained last year, Javier and Martha. Please keep them in prayer as they prepare to train over 60 church planters. One team that is being trained in Miami has a vision to plant in Cuba, those in Columbia want to start new churches all throughout that country. Join us in praying for these laborers who so eagerly serve the Lord in the expansion of the Gospel and for fruitfulness in the harvest through their efforts.

This month we will also be training a core group of leaders at a local church that serves the community near where we live. Each of the pastors and key leaders will be going through our Trauma Training and once trained want to take everyone in their church through a Healing Group that deals with how to heal from all types of heart wounds from a Biblical perspective.

A huge thank you to everyone that has been praying with us about our housing issues and move. In just two weeks’ time we had a fire behind our house destroying the homeless encampment and a large portion of our neighbor’s fence and yard, 2 broken car windows, a break-in/things stollen from our minivan (different vehicle than broken windows), a broken washing machine, and the stove stopped working…and we still haven’t moved to the new house due to safety issues and other complications. Living out of boxes in a part of the city that just doesn’t play fair has been difficult, but we are thankful for what we do have – which when we sit and think about it is so much compared to many of our neighbors and people around the world.

 Please join us in praying for:

 

·        Pastor Daniel and our Evangel Dean School to train pastors that will train church planters in Mexico and beyond.

·        Pastor Javier’s two Evangel Schools of Urban Church Planting in Columbia and Miami.

·        Pastor Alex and Octavio and the team from La Viña as they go through the Trauma Training and beyond.

·        Our move to be a blessing and create a safe and comfortable space where our family and ministry can thrive.

 

Thank you so much for your prayers and financial support that make this ministry possible.

Exponential Expansion

Karen is a single mother from El Salvador who was invited to our church by a lady that found us herself looking for help for her child as she was adapting to a new life in the US. When our church offered a Trauma Healing Group offered through our work with World Impact, Karen was eager to attend with her friend. They both grew a lot in the following weeks – learning basic biblical and mental health principles related to trauma care. They also dug deeper in important topics like forgiveness and skills like active listening.

After eight weeks both women were feeling the change and renewed hope as well as the desire to share this training with others. So along with a group of 6 other people that we had gathered from other groups we have led we trained them to form and lead their own Healing Groups. Since then, this group has trained people in numerous cities, states and countries. One of the ladies that was in Karen’s first group is Maria and she is also taking what she has learned to share with others – she brainstormed 89 people to invite for her first few groups and since has expanded her list considerably.

Maria works with a group of international chaplains that minister in jails, hospitals, shelters, half-way houses, homes for women recovering from abuse, prostitution, addiction and more. We have partnered up to offer not only Healing Groups but Trauma Training for these chaplains so that they can bring practical tools to those most in need. As the reach multiplies and the testimonies come in, we are reminded of how being faithful with the little and loving the person that is in front of you is God’s wisdom for seeing lasting change in communities.

We appreciate your partnership more than you know because it allows us to love, serve, equip and empower women like Karen and Maria and countless others as they reach areas that none of us have access to – from the homeless on streets in Columbia to women leaving the sex trade in Florida and beyond.

 PRAY WITH US ABOUT:

 

·        Continued growth of the Trauma Healing program. We have been working almost single-handedly at building a network of trainers in Spanish (aside from what we do in English) so that our reach can continue to grow far and wide throughout the US and Latin America and beyond.

 

·        We mentioned the fires and other problems behind our home in the last letter.

Here is an LA Times article we were interviewed for (just a little bit at the end) related to the fires: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-05-12/surge-in-fires-at-la-homeless-encampments-growing-crisis

 

 

·        A strong start for our children at school this month. Rebecca enters her junior year. Angela will be at her high school IN PERSON for the first time as a sophomore (her school never opened during COVID). Justice is starting his high school career (freshman year). And Beniah continues growing as a 2^nd grader.

Church Planting Testimonies

As we stated in our last letter, we want to share some more details about the teams we have been training to lead church plant schools.

• Javier & Martha, who we mentioned last time, are working with us to start a school for church planters in Florida and then they want to do something in Ecuador, Columbia, and Honduras. Their goal is to have two schools per year (one in the US and one abroad).

• An international prison ministry who served nearly 350,000 prisoners in 2020 and is in prisons in 30 countries wants to plant churches inside the prisons all over the world. Our dean school is helping them launch into that work.

• Jean Pierre, a Haitian who lives in New Jersey, is planning on not only training church planters in NJ, but also going 4 or more times a year into his ravaged homeland to train church plant teams there. For years helping others plant churches has been on his heart and now the potential to see 10s, if not 100s of churches is real.

• Our team from Kenya had 8 church planters representing a diverse swath of their country all eager to learn how to help others plant more churches and reach more of their nation for Jesus.

• Sudipta's ministry in India is taking people "from hopeless end to endless hope" in what he says is "a nation where millions of people perish every day without knowing the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." He is thrilled to be able to equip more church planters to help move their vision forward in reaching India for Jesus. 

• Our US partners are in major cities from coast to coast where they are working with their networks to see more churches planted. They share our burden to reach out to and equip and empower under-resourced urban leaders so that these communities will be transformed by the Gospel. We are believing with them that areas that have been plagued by racial division and economic disparities can emerge as places where God’s Kingdom is advancing, and the flavors of heaven come to earth.

We are humbled to be able to train and equip so many wonderful leaders full of vision and heart through our Dean School and we can’t wait to see how many churches are planted in the coming years as a result.

Thank you for your prayers and generous financial support that helps us get affordable resources to these precious partners as well as be able to dedicate our time to put on these intensive trainings. We know that the message of God’s love, hope and restoration will continue to be multiplied throughout barrios, cities, prisons, and slums – the darkest edges and neediest corners – due to our combined efforts as we lean into and are led by the Holy Spirit. Thank you!

Lastly, would you lift up our community and housing situation. Throughout COVID the number of people without homes living behind our home has greatly increased. As a result, there have been 6 major fires (burning down trees, fences, trash, etc.). We are working with other city, and community leaders for solutions for people without homes looking for a place to stay warm and cook their meals and we appreciate your prayer covering for safety and guidance.

Homeless Fires

More than 6 major fires have occurred in the small, neglected area behind our home this past year. Irresponsible maintenance and burning practices have led to explosions, fires burning out of control, toxic fumes, and damaged property.

Our neighbors all got out our garden hoses to try to keep our property safe while we waited for the fire department to arrive. They can shoot water down from the freeway at the brush. 

The accumulation of trash behind our house.

In these pictures (above and below) you can see the part of 3 little homes and a fire burning at the homeless encampment. 

A few weeks ago, we gathered a group of neighbors together to clean-up the area behind our homes. This space has always been used by the homeless as it is a small, sheltered, green strip of land between the I-10 freeway and our homes, but since Covid-19 it has become a dangerous encampment full of human waste, rodents, drug paraphernalia and maybe most concerning fires. We have gotten to know some of our ‘neighbors’ with mostly positive interactions, but there is more and more traffic and harder to find ways to minister and still keep a healthy boundary for our family.

 

Over the last year you never know when you will have to run out and fight a fire…these fires burn down fences, trees, bushes, and garbage. We have had to go out with fire extinguishers and hoses to fight back the flames. The fire department knows us well.

 

We were part of an effort to get the local and state government representatives and other agencies response (i.e., the land belongs to Caltrans). We were able to get the local councilman to help and are working on more permanent solutions. We are very sympathetic to the needs of those without homes, but also want to make sure our homes are safe.

 

We had a workday to clean up some of the mess and quickly filled a large dumpster and 3 dump truck hauls. We had the LA Times out taking pictures and interviewing us. If you are interested in reading the article you can see it here: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-05-12/surge-in-fires-at-la-homeless-encampments-growing-crisis (mention of our clean up and a small quote are at the very end of the article). 

The LA Times article paints the picture of the larger problem affecting all of Los Angeles. There are something like 24 fires a day caused by the homeless (usually for cooking or to stay warm). That smoke daily comes into our home. The article states that 54% of the fires the fire department responds to are caused by homeless. This article stirred up coverage both on our local TV news channels and public radio. 

L.A. Times reporter interviews some of the people at our clean-up.

L.A. Time photographer captures some of the clean-up effort as detailed in the article.

While we don't have any easy solutions, we are continuing to search for God's heart on how we can love our neighbors on 'both sides of the fence'. Helping to organize clean-up efforts blessed both those with and those without homes (and was a good opportunity to meet more of our neighbors). Now we ask you to join us in praying for continued safety, wisdom and favor as well as for creativity in ways we can truly help those without homes to find places for them to thrive and connect with our God who dearly loves them. 

Lastly, THANK YOU so much to those who have helped us with our children's tuition! They are all excited and humbled by the outpouring of help. We are almost halfway to our goal, so if you haven't given yet there is still a need and opportunity. Let us know. Thanks.

Spring 2021

We hope you are doing well as we begin to peek our heads out after such a crazy season. We wanted to share some ministry highlights and ask for some specific prayer and support (with a special letter from Justice at the end).

Highlights…

 

CHURCH PLANTING

 

Evangel School of Urban Church Planting: Training pastors, leaders and their teams to plant churches.

• We are currently leading 7 teams through a 5-week course to help them start new churches.
• We have 28 in attendance from all over Southern California and a group from Indianapolis. 

Dean School: Training ministry leaders how to use Evangel to train-up and send out more church planters.

 

While we love leading the Evangel School we can only run 2-4 or these school per year and so we are beginning to do more training of trainers.

 

·       We gathered 25 teams of movement and denominational leaders and trained them how to run their own church planting schools (so they can each run 2-4 schools per year).

 

It was inspiring to see all parts of the US represented. There are such diverse challenges in urban ministry related to poverty, racial injustices, political and social dynamics of city life, immigration issues and so much more that each city and ministry is learning to respond to in their own way. Our focus is the Bible and church planting which touch on all these issues in some way. It is great to ‘sit in the room’ with folks as they wrestle through practical and spiritual ways to transform communities and reach more people for Jesus. 

[Pictured some of the individuals and teams present at our last Dean School]

• There were also at least 6 countries represented (Bangladesh, Canada, Haiti, India, Kenya and Liberia).

This is especially exciting because while we responded to a call to the urban poor and the cities of the US twelve years ago when we moved to Los Angeles, we have never lost our heart and passion for the nations and still believe – and are starting to see this more and more – that we can reach the nations and make an impact on the world through this ministry. 

TRAUMA TRAINING

Healing Groups: Leading small groups of people through groups and even mini classes to help Biblically equip them to move through trauma to healing.

• We began leading these groups online during COVID and this has expanded our reach across state and national lines.
• We have led groups with people in at least 4 different countries recently.
• We have taken people from our children’s school, our church, pastors, and churches we know and people that have been referred to us all over the US.

Initial & Advanced Trainings: Training trainers to lead healing groups in their own context.

Expanding our efforts to help more people we continue to train the trainer.

Using this wonderful tool, we have trained:

·       ministry leaders,

·       pastors,

·       counselors,

·       therapists,

·       missionaries and

·       many others

helping them launch this powerful ministry in their church, ministry or practice.

It is so rewarding for me to cheer others on and provide support as they go through their process of training. For example, there are two ladies that I trained (from Los Angeles) a few months back that I was able to pair up with another lady from Pennsylvania so that they could put on their first Trauma Healing Group. I helped them prepare their materials, schedules, invitations, etc. and have been cheering them on this last month as they come back with great testimonies of what God is doing through them in this group. They now have people in their group that see the power and potential of these groups and want to be trained to be facilitators too.

FUENTE LOS ANGELES (our church)

Fabiola has been very busy and has started 5 community groups (Bible studies) reaching out to the families, youth and women of the church. From that we have seen several new decisions (salvations) and some baptisms that we celebrated on Easter. 

Financial Support Needs…

 

SCHOOLING

We are so thankful and excited that Justice will be joining his sister at her high school next year. This school has been so life giving for her and we know Justice will flourish there too. Scholarships and financial aid make this possible cutting the price way down, but they both need to make up another $3,270 to be fully funded for the year. Please let us know if God puts it on your heart to bless one or both of them.

 

Also, the school that Beniah (our youngest) goes to just became independent of World Impact so we will no longer get the same benefit that we have had all these years as missionaries. That additional and unplanned cost will be $2,795 for this coming school year.

 

Justice will be graduating from 8^th grade on June 10^th and is his classes valedictorian! We couldn’t be prouder. He has written you a letter below:

 

Dear Friends and Family, 

Hello! I wanted to thank those of you who have cheered me and my family on over the last 12 years we’ve been in Los Angeles helping people. I’m 13 now and almost ready to graduate from 8^th grade. I am excited that I got into my first choice high school which is pretty hard to get into. I had to go to a professional interview and answer tough questions. They were similar to the ones I practiced for a month and a half as I worked on getting ready. I also worked really hard on an essay and applied for a scholarship.

 

Even though I got some great help through the scholarship I have learned that it is good (but hard) to be willing to share my need with others to help complete the costs of my first year. My new school has so much more technology, a huge campus, exciting classes and many more opportunities than I have had before at my old school or throughout my life. Next year I can’t wait to try out some of the electives they offer. I am signing up for Drama and also Filmmaking this year. This high school is really focused on helping us get ready for college and beyond and will help me continue my Christian education. We learn New Testament in the first year and then Old Testament after that and then I’m not sure what happens yet.

 

So, maybe you can tell I’m excited. I’ll be on campus with my sister too so I can keep an eye on her. I wanted to let you know because some of you were praying, but also so you can celebrate and maybe give towards my education. Thank you!

 

With Care,

Justice

 

It does my heart good to hear and watch (and help) Justice grow up – especially as he now gets to experience new things and enter new places to expand his horizons and opportunities.

Would you be willing to give to help us off-set some of our extra schooling costs?

All of our children have maintained straight A’s through the last crazy year of online learning and hybrid school. We believe this would be a great investment into the future!

 Justice    $3,270

Rebecca  $3,270

Beniah   $2,795

 

If you would be willing to give any amount towards this extra cost to help us give Justice a great start to his high school and future or help Rebecca and Beniah continue their schooling, please send a check to:

 

Chad & Fabiola Wolyn

2001 S. Vermont Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90007

 

(Note that if giving for our schooling need this is not tax-deductible. If it is more convenient to give online through Venmo, Paypal or Zelle let us know. Thank you!) 

[Justice, when presented with balloons and the news that he was accepted to the high school of his choice.]

[Pictures of Beniah’s class coming back to school for in person learning and receiving Student of the Quarter at the awards ceremony online.]

Thank you for reading and walking with us. Please let us know if there are ways we can pray for you or expand our partnership. We want to continue empowering, teaching, training and raising up “the least of these” to make a lasting Kingdom impact on the world.

God’s richest blessings to you,

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca, Angela, Justice and Beniah

Adaptability

It feels great to help solve complex problems when you see positive results. You have actually helped us do just that! Together as we partner prayerfully and financially, we are able to bring programs that equip urban leaders all over the world to plant healthy churches. It is crazy to think that 95% of urban pastors have not been trained. But we are changing that! On April 10^th we will be commissioning 25 teams of pastors, many whom are movement and denominational leaders, as deans to go train up 100s of new church planters.

Over 7 weeks of intense learning we have equipped and empowered these men and women to host their very own church planting schools, where 100s of churches will be birthed. In the past we have always had everyone fly into a location and go through our Evangel Dean School, but due to COVID restrictions we hosted our very first online school. We have representation from 9 different states (California, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Virginia and Washington) and 5 countries outside of the US (Bangladesh, Canada, India, Kenya and Liberia).

Meeting with these diverse groups over so many time zones and hearing their hearts to help others plant churches has been inspiring and convicting. One team that we have been working with, led by Pastor Javier, is taking winning the nations for the Lord seriously. We had to make some accommodations and reschedule one of our coaching and planning sessions with them because in the middle of the school they were hosting meetings with potential church planters in Ecuador that they want to be a part of their upcoming school. One of the denominational leaders attending the class from Kenya brought a large team representing various segments of their country each with a burning passion to reach the lost and plant more churches.

Every time you give your support it helps enable us to provide accessible, high value programs like the Dean School. Your support allows us to offer these programs at very affordable prices for pastors and leaders working in the cities of the US or throughout the world in countries among many of the unreached or underreached people groups. We empower urban leaders and partner with local churches to reach their city with the Gospel. We hope to be able to share many more stories in the coming months and years as these leaders begin launching their own schools and training more people ready to reach their communities for Jesus Christ. 

Thank you for lifting us up in prayer and making this ministry possible.

Contagious

We have 32 churches and growing in the Long Beach (California) area that are lining up to go through our Trauma Training. It is so exciting to walk pastors and ministry leaders through this material for their own emotional health, but also to empower them with great materials that can help them do a better job taking care of their congregations and communities. Please join us in prayer this month for these groups and the pastors and churches participating.

After doing nearly a year worth of dozens of trainings it is rewarding to be able to have a group of leaders that we can work with that we have trained up to lead these classes, meaning we can continue to expand and don’t have to lead every class or group. One lady came with significant trauma in her life but was touched and progressed in her healing. Later she inquired about being able to help others and now is proving to be one of our most compassionate facilitators – always willing to listen and leave room for God to do His work in the group.

We also ask for your prayers for our Evangel School of Church Planting that we launch again this month with a handful of teams who are excited to learn and grow as a team in the area of urban church planting. It has taken us some time to get all our materials online and other things translated into Spanish, but we are finally launching our first Spanish online school this month! (We launched our first online English school last October and November and worked with two churches working to relaunch their churches through challenging times with the COVID pandemic). Please pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, protection, and fruit for these various churches as they evangelize the lost, make disciples and train-up leaders.

Lastly, please continue to keep our family in your prayers. Rebecca (15) and Angela (15) are now in the ‘learning to drive’ phase of life; not sure if you should pray more for them or for us. 😊 Justice (13) just put his finishing touches on his high school admissions and scholarship applications. Beniah (almost 7) continues to remind us what child-like faith looks like as he believes in God being able to do anything and loves others just as they are. May we all learn to lean into the childlikeness a bit more.

Thank you for your partnership as we lift the arms of the weary and support, train and empower these amazing people doing some of the hardest work in the darkest parts of their cities.