As we approach summer, we reflect on how God remains our faithful sustainer. He is the reason for investing our time, resources, and relationships here in Los Angeles, across the US, and around the world.

His heart beats in us. We are His hands and voice to communities that desperately need to feel and hear the Father’s love and the unmerited forgiveness of Jesus.

Thank you for celebrating with us, crying with us, and supporting us in so many amazing ways.

Spring Community Outreach

Beniah & Fabiola at our outreach welcome table.

Prior to Easter, we gathered families in the park to lead the children through four days of fun and Bible activities, introducing them to Jesus and the meaning behind Easter. 

This was also a time to introduce more people in our community to our exercise classes (aerobics step class and stretch class) and coffee shop. 

Some of the children we met at the park are now a part of our church. 

A group of children enjoying an ice cream (from Fuente Café) on our church’s playground. 

Fuente Café: Special Events

The café continues to grow and bring new people to our door that we normally would not have been able to meet. Each month, the café hosts a special event for friends, neighbors, and community members who hear about us through social media to come out and have a good time.

Here are some pictures of a “Paint and Sip” event back in February:

Fire Destroys, but Light gives Life

Isabella is one of the people that we have met through Fuente Café. She was relocated to our neighborhood because the home she was living in was burned down. 

At first, when she began attending our church, she was quiet, but now she is sharing Jesus with people at her work and asking our mid-week community group to join her in prayer. She is being light in a dark workplace. 

When she noticed a client was struggling with addiction and then heard he was struggling with suicidal ideation, she immediately began sharing the love and hope of Christ. 

Her heart is overflowing with compassion. Another person was recently diagnosed with cancer and complained about having “horrible luck”. 

She introduced this woman and their family to Jesus as the Healer and asked if she could pray for her. As Isabella prayed, she watched the lady's countenance lighten and leave with hope. These are seeds planted that we pray will lead to eternal life.

Fuente Café: Front Door Installation 

Thanks to one of our talented family’s businesses and generous offerings from our church, as well as some outside gifts, we were able to install a new glass door at the café – making the welcoming space more visible from the street and bringing in more natural light. 

Fuente Café: Barista Training

A small group of volunteers came to train our café team.  

They were taught and improved upon their skills as baristas – from making the perfect espresso, to milk art in lattes, to the proper techniques, to cleaning the machines so they last.

We are thankful to them for sharing their experience as well as all the donations that they provided. 

It was a fun day!

Fuente Café: Back Patio Remodel (Phase 1)

Another group helped make a big transformation in the back patio space of our café. When you enter the café, there is a place to order and sit and enjoy your coffee with a friend, study or work on your laptop, or play games.

Then, just past the bathroom, there is a prayer room, where community members can share prayer requests and praise.

One homeless man recently entered and shared his needs and spent some time writing out his thankfulness for being accepted and cared for by the café volunteers.

Once you go through the prayer room, you find the boutique, a room full of new and vintage items curated for each season that are for sale.

As you exit the boutique, you find the “hidden” back patio. 

We are currently working to get the patio furniture, plants, shade cover, lights, and other decorative pieces needed to complete that space. 

Pictured are some of the before and after and the process of phase 1 – removing the weeds, creating the proper drainage, and putting down the tiles. 

We are so thankful for TKA and all the people who put their time and money into this project, and can’t wait to see it being used!

Children's Ministry: Classroom Remodel (Phase 1)

Our church has a heart for the children in our community. We have been able to connect many families to Jesus through our children’s ministry and outreach. 

It is often the children who are ‘bringing’ their families to church, and so, to best steward this ministry, it was time to update one of our classrooms. 

This room still had the original built-in bunk bed, second-hand furniture, and carpet from when our children were sharing that bedroom as 1 and 3-year-olds before we converted the house into the church building. 

Here is what's happened so far...

• Removed the built-in bunk bed that we used for storage
• Reorganized and found new storage alternatives for yard sale and other items
• Removed all the old, broken furniture
• Removed the carpet
• Installed new flooring
• Painted the walls

Everything that was stored in the bunk beds filled nearly two rooms and had to find a new home.

We are currently working towards our next phase, which is installing a new storage space for our children’s ministry supplies and toys. 

Here is a sketch of our plan.

From Broken to Beautiful

Nancy was recently baptized. As she shared her testimony that day, she revealed the deep healing work the Holy Spirit has been doing in her life since her childhood. 

Coming with many broken pieces, she shared and declared that it was Jesus who was putting her together again and creating something beautiful.

She and her roommate read the Bible together every morning before work and have been growing a lot in their faith. 

Nancy has an amazing gift of sharing with others and has begun creating flyers to hand out to people in the neighborhood as she walks to/from church and around the community. 

She engages them in conversation and lets them know about our church, our exercise class, our café, and of course, Jesus, the reason for it all. 

Undercover Hospital Prayer Ministry

Another one of our members cleans doctors’ offices and hospitals as a temp worker and shared how a nurse came running up to her the other day, asking for prayer. 

We are so encouraged to hear about these examples of those we are pouring into being the salt and light in their workplaces. We love being able to stand with them in prayer for their own needs and the ministry that God is giving them.

 

Not Everyone Chooses Christ

We hurt with our neighborhood as another family mourns the loss of a son to gang violence. Junior (name is changed) was invited to our church youth group years ago, but didn’t stick around very long because he wanted to hang out with his homies. 

He lived next door to one of the families in our church and chose a lifestyle of drugs and violence rather than following God. This has been a wake-up call for many of the youth to commit their lives fully to Jesus. 

Junior was only 17 years old when he was shot and killed. 

We continue to lift his family up in prayer and engage with the community on solutions to this much too common problem.

 

Mobilizing the Church

One of the single moms in our church, who cares for her daughter with special needs, was recently rushed to the hospital and had to spend a couple of days there receiving medical attention. 

While this was a scary time for all of us, it was encouraging to immediately see our church rushing to visit and pray for her at the hospital, care for her two daughters at home, and put things in order at the house, as well as provide needed groceries and money for her son to take the bus to work. 

Our church may not be rich in resources, but they are rich in the love and compassion of Christ.

 

World Impact

Please be in prayer for Chad as he is currently in the interview and hiring process for three positions to help advance the vision of deepening, expanding, and developing more healthy churches, ministries, and church leaders ministering to communities of poverty throughout the US.

 

Church Planting Events in Houston & Fort Worth

Chad met with many pastors, leaders, and aspiring church planters in Texas in May. 

The need to care for the spiritual, emotional, relational, and physical well-being of those in ministry was seen so clearly. 

We plan to return to continue to build those networks and provide needed training and mentoring. 

Trauma Healing: Fabiola’s Expansion

This year Fabiola has gone from a healing group leader to a trainer in our adult trauma healing ministry as she expands her reach to help more people.

She has also been trained in the new healing groups for youth (teens) and was part of a special group of trauma and healing facilitators that met in Indianapolis in late April. 

Fabiola has most recently been leading an online group representing Mexico, Belize, and Nicaragua, and plans to continue growing the ministry throughout Latin America as well as in the US, in both English and Spanish. 

Family Updates

Beniah decided to be baptized on Easter. It was a great privilege for both of us as parents to be able to baptize him at Fuente. 

Our home is full again! Justice and Rebecca are home from college. 

Come fall, Rebecca will be entering her last year and begin her student teaching as a 3rd and 4th-grade dual language teacher in Fort Worth. 

Justice will be entering his second year as a Biblical Studies major at Biola and continues to have fun doing some acting and film-related projects with his friends who are studying Film. 

There are so many more things happening, but we know this is a long update already.

More than anything, we just love to know that you are part of what is happening and want to thank you for your prayers and support.

God bless you!

Chad & Fabiola Wolyn