Christmas Celebrations

It was a long day, but well worth the effort. We met at our house for coffee and sweat bread and loaded up a coach bus to take the hour and a half ride out of the city to the camp. There were 20 of us that went from our group (unfortunately two families had to cancel—one due to a sickness and another due to legal problems). There were hay rides behind the tractor, numerous Christmas crafts, adventure and team sports, archery, great food, family pictures, air hockey, ping pong, foosball, special activities for the kids all rolled up into one day.

We ended the day with a special time in the Word of God. We had a great discussion about Christmas and its meaning.
Can you believe that nobody in our group knew what Christmas was all about?
They shrugged their shoulders and shared what they thought Christmas with comments like:
“It is a good way to wind down the year.”
“It is a time to get together with family and tell them that we’re thankful for them and give them gifts.”
“A time to use any extra money we have to buy things.”
WOW! There wasn’t even an, “Oh, that’s what I meant.” or “I’ve heard of that before.”, just wide eyes taking it all in when I started sharing from Luke 2, about the Savior’s birth and how significant that event is for all of us. We also reflected on how Jesus is our Emmanuel, our God with us. This event took place on December 5th so we were still early in the time of Advent. I shared how this time is meant for us to reflect and anticipate the coming King. He came as a baby and shared His life and death with us, but I also challenged each person to prepare for the second coming of the King in all of His glory. What a wonderful thing to wait expectantly and prepare for! What a great day to get the opportunity to build relationships deeper and wider and allow each one learn of the coming King. Thank you for your prayers.

As a result of prayer and this event we now have two of our youth (Italia and Juan Carlos) connected to the World Impact youth group which will allow the youth more opportunities-apart from our times with them-to grow in their forming faith as we plant and grow the church. At our regular Wednesday morning Bible study time with Primo, Bere and their family one of Primo’s sisters, Blanca, gave her life to the Lord! She was very hungry and responded with deep emotion and gratitude not based out of a sole intellectual understanding, but out of her heart and a longing for forgiveness and to know her Maker.

Adelso & Faustina (Tina) – Remember the couples that surprised us by coming to Rebecca’s birthday party after meeting them on the sidewalk the day before? We had them over for tea and coffee last Wednesday night and had a wonderful two hour discussion about God and having a living, active faith. Both of them are excited about continuing to meet with us and study the Word and pray. We feel like they are getting close to accepting the Lord and giving their life to Him, but know it is a spiritual battle with a lot of unknown factors and ask that you would pray for them and for us as we continue to reach out to them and other neighbors like them.

Upcoming Events & Prayer Needs:

December 30

– Prayer walk; canvassing the neighborhood; evangelism.
Focus: What are the real and felt needs of our community and how can we partner with God to be a part of the solution?

December 31

– Carnival Outreach at South Park (carnival games, bounce house, drama and music with gospel presentation).
Focus: Families of South Park community

January 1

– “Whatcha Gonna Do?” Gospel Outreach (free hot meal, clothing, care packages, rehab referrals, prayer tent and gospel presentation).
Focus: Homeless, Day Labors, Drug & Alcohol Addicts, Prostitutes of South Park and surroundings.

January 11-13

– Strategic Planning Time/Retreat with our team to prepare for launching the church in South Park – Los Angeles.
Focus: Laying out the vision, plans, strategies, and tasks for the coming year and beyond.

We pray you have a fantastic Christmas celebration with family and friends remembering the greatest gift any of us have ever received—Christ.

Thank you for celebrating Christmas with us through your prayers, encouraging emails and cards, and financial support.

We send our love!
Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca and Justice Wolyn

Thanksgiving Update

Thank you for your prayers for our Thanksgiving outreach. We had 18 people come to our house for a Thanksgiving dinner. Though we did hand out food baskets and boxes to some of our more needy neighbors and friends we really wanted this to be a time to come together and grown in our relationship with people and not just be “another hand out”. So Fabiola invited a handful of ladies to help cook the Thanksgiving meal with her. There were others that were unable to make the preparation time at our house so we helped gather up the needed ingredients for their dishes so that they could prepare something at home to bring to our feast. We had several families and our regular Wednesday night Bible study and prayer group in attendance. We all sat at a long table (see photo below) and had a special time in prayer and then enjoyed a great meal, laughing the night away with stories and just getting to know one another better. This was the first time three of them had ever come into our home.On Thursday, we were invited to two other Thanksgiving celebrations and were able to continue to grow relationships, express our values and the heart of thankfulness and dedication to God and get to know even more people (extended families). On Sunday, during our normal outreach/church service at South Park we were able to work with some volunteers and serve a full Thanksgiving meal. The homeless, some day laborers and others that sell concessions all greatly appreciated the meal. Afterwards we had enough food left over that we were able to call some of our other friends and neighbors and drop off plates of food and sweat bread just to bless them and share in the holiday spirit of giving.
Prayer Points

· This Saturday (Dec. 5) we take a group out on an excursion out of the city. Legal, money and health issues are pulling some people who were planning to go potentially out of the trip. Pray that everyone that should be there is able to come. Pray that they would all enjoy a refreshing time and that the Christmas message that we present at the end will be powerful and penetrate deep.

· Please pray for complete healing and restoration of one of our closer friends here who has been admitted to the psychiatric ward at the hospital. She has three young children, who are being watched by a relative.

· Pray that our relationships with people that are still on an acquaintance or friend level will develop deeper and people will radically decide to leave their old lives behind in order to follow Christ. Specifically pray for Guadalupe, who is very open, but has some concerns based on some bad past experiences with ‘religion.’

Like Anna, the prophetess (Luke 2:36-38), we are eagerly anticipating celebrating the coming of our King and Savior. We are thankful that He came and that He will come again. We are thankful for faithful friends and family that support us with their prayers and help us do what we’re doing with their own sacrificial giving. We are thankful that God has chosen to use us and we get to be “on the ground” meeting and helping these beautiful people know Jesus.

“[Anna] never left the Temple area, worshiping night and day with her fastings and prayers. At the very time Simeon was praying, she showed up, broke into an anthem of praise to God [giving thanks], and talked about the child to all who were waiting expectantly for the freeing of Jerusalem [all believers]” (Luke 2:36-28, The Message, additions are mine). We are free because He came! Thanks be to God.

Breaking into an anthem of praise,
Chad & Fabiola

Christmas at THE OAKS

Merry Christmas!

It definitly doesn't feel like fall in Los Angeles, but the Christmas decorations are out and I did notice snow on the peaks of the Los Angeles mountains that make such a nice backdrop on our cityline.

In line with our mission to make disciples, raise up leaders, and plant churches in the city, we are starting the Christmas celebrations here with our neighbors in an exciting way. We are taking 25 people in whom we have invested the most (meeting weekly, studying the Bible, praying and being involved in one another’s lives) for a day-long retreat. On Saturday, December 5, we will all board a bus headed for an annual World Impact tradition, "Christmas at THE OAKS."

We leave at 9:00 a.m. and return to the city by 10:00 p.m. for a whole day of fun, good memories and deepening relationships! There will be special activities for each age group including adventures and challenges like the zip line, high ropes course and numerous team sports; crafts and projects like making Christmas jewelry and gingerbread houses. We will even have a family fun hayride. We will eat a delicious Christmas lunch and dinner, with all the trimmings, together as a growing family, and each family will come away with a family picture to remember the special time they had soaking up God’s love. Before we head back for the city, we will all gather and have a special time as a newly-forming church sharing our first Christmas together, looking into the Bible to learn more deeply what Christmas is really all about and how it can affect not only one month of our year, but every day of our lives. We will give everyone the opportunity to accept the gift of salvation and commit to grow in their relationship with God.

Please pray for unity among our group, lasting fruit, good follow-up time on the relationships and memories that are strengthened together.

Rejoicing that God is with us—our Emmanuel,
Chad & Fabiola

What A Party!

We’re coming off of last week pretty tired, but the joy of the Lord is our strength. We had a successful birthday party outreach (thank you for praying!). Here are some of the highlights:

There were 53 people at our party and everyone appeared to have a great time.

Rebecca was blessed and felt special.

We had the help of some potential team members for the church plant and were blessed at watching everyone’s gifts work together.
We met some new neighbors…in fact, while not everyone we invited showed up we had some people come that we didn’t even know.

I had to go up to two families and introduce myself because I hadn’t seen them before. Fabiola had invited Adelso & Faustina (Tina) when she saw them walk by with their two young children the day before the party. They live on our block and surprised us by coming. They were super appreciative to the invitation and stayed late. Fabiola went and visited them this week and enjoyed a great time at their house for some coffee. The other group was Patricia, her daughter Ashanti, her niece and mother. Fabiola and Rebecca had met them about 2 or 3 days before the party at the park. A few days ago they went over to her house to play to continue to build relationship with them.

Last minute sound system donation. We were set up to use our little boom box, but a neighbor pulled out a serious sound system and really helped transform the ambiance of the party. He even set up a microphone and helped DJ the party. We played Spanish children’s music, then we transitioned into Children’s praise music in Spanish and ended with a great Spanish Praise and Worship set.

A new friend and her daughter made up awesome party favor bags for the children that blessed our guests and us!
Finances provided for the event! We went in to this party believing that God was leading us, but were still amazed at how God took care of the details—including the cost of the party! Hug from Soila. Soila is leaving the gang culture and someone that has been meeting with us semi-regularly. (She and her boyfriend can’t come to our evening meetings because she is fearful that one of her ex-boyfriend gang members will try to shoot her current boyfriend Miguel.) She is trying to get her life back in line. Fabiola was blessed to see how their relationship has been growing in trust and endearment as demonstrated through a great hug at the end of the party.
Teresa and her family couldn’t make it that evening to the party, but they called the next day and asked if they could stop by. So Teresa, her grown daughter and two of her grandchildren (Rebecca’s age) came by and spent a great time with us. It is exciting how several of our new friends have presented us to meet other family members. Our level of penetration into the community continues to expand through these relationships.

Other Updates

We continue to meet regularly during the week with a variety of people. Here are a few stories from those meetings and relationships:

One of our goals is that everyone will be active and involved. Participation and ownership are important as we help people come to know Jesus more and serve one another in their gifting and talents. How exciting it is that Primo and Vere (pictured below) in wanting to include their family more had us move the prayer and study time we had at our house to their house. We now meet with two of Primo’s sisters Dora and Blanca and some of their children (Aurora, Araceli, Anthony) and their mother Nacha. Vere helps direct the flow of our time, sharing the verses she and Primo have been memorizing, challenging others to memorize it too, asking questions about the Bible and making song requests—even leading to songs to some extent. Both Dora and Blanca have taken ownership (without our asking) of making and preparing food for all of us. There is something very special and powerful about our times together.

Prayer for this family: There still are serious prayer needs for this family however. Pray that both Dora and Blanca’s husbands will get involved, that Giovanni (Dora’s oldest son, in high school) would participate and actually talk with his mother (he rarely does). Also lift up Primo and Vere as they continue to struggle with finances and have ups and downs in their relationship as they work out their new found relationship with Jesus. While we’re all meeting together only Primo and Vere have made confessions of faith and real steps to follow God, so while the others are beginning to experience and understand and move in that direction we can’t wait until it is their turn to have their names written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Zaira who meets with us on Wednesday evenings asked to come over and pray for us. She and Fabiola meet one-on-one during the week and after that meeting she felt directed by the Lord to come and pray for us. What a blessing to have somebody you’ve been ministering to come and minister to you! Since that time she has continued to do things on her own imitative such as bring donuts to a meeting to share with the group and reach out to Carlos and offer him prayer and words of consolation as he shared the news of his brother getting killed in Guatemala last week.
Please pray for Zaira’s boyfriend, Francisco, who I meet with on a weekly basis. He has slipped back into a drug habit and is walking around in a lot of shame and feeling worthless unable to move forward. Pray for wisdom as I meet with him and victory over this chain in his life.

Gifts for our Church
As we approach the Christmas season we’d like to offer some practical ways you could help this ministry as we continue to share the Good News and pour our lives into future leaders.

We’d like to have Bibles on hand for group study times as well as some to hand out to people that are beginning to study the Word with us and don’t have a copy of the Word. We are also working on memorizing Scripture with various people and would like to reward them with a nicer study type Bible once they get to 10 verses memorized.

We’d also like to have some Praise and Worship CDs in Spanish that we can use to learn more songs to sing in our groups, bless others with and move towards raising up some worshipers in our midst.

If you would like to bless us and our community please consider sending us:
Praise & Worship CDs in Spanish
(Any title or musician. Especially Marcos Witt, Jesús Adrián Romero, Danilo Montero, or songs in English that have been translated into Spanish)
Spanish Bibles (Old & New Testament)
Any of these three versions:
Reina Valera 1960 or
La Biblia de las Américas or
NVI (Nueva Version Internacional)

Please send any CDs or Bibles to: Chad & Fabiola Wolyn/ 2001 S. Vermont Ave. / Los Angeles, CA 90007
Thanks you!

Prayer

Please pray for these upcoming events:
Thanksgiving Dinner. We plan on having about 12-15 of our new friends over for a time to give thanks as a community and enjoy food and fellowship. We will provide the majority of the food, but are asking that people come over for the day to help make different dishes and contribute in some way to the final meal. Pray that it would be a refreshing and powerful time for everyone where Christ is the center.

Christmas at THE OAKS. December 5 we will be taking a group of people to World Impact’s Christian Camp and Conference Center, THE OAKS. This will be a time for all of us to have a lot of fun and celebrate the true meaning of Christmas together outside of the stresses and distractions of the city. (There will be crafts, sports, hayride, great food, and then I’ll be sharing a message about the significance of Christmas in our lives today). Pray that we’d be able to take the right group of people and that great fruit would come from this. (More information coming on this later.)

Pray that people would receive the word in their hearts (good soil), have a desire for Him and not get distracted and caught up in the things of the world (seek Him first, and trust Him). Also that they would have the desire to serve the Lord and work for His Kingdom.

Pray for our family’s health (physical, emotional, spiritual) and our continued intimacy with our Father.

Glad we’re all in this together!
Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca and Justice

A Fire Is Burning

“Prayer is the mighty engine that is to move the missionary work” (A.B. Simpson, founder of The Christian and Missionary Alliance) Thank you for helping move this ministry forward through your prayers.

As we move closer to launching a church in our neighborhood we are blessed to be continually meeting new people and growing in the depth of these relationships. We currently have a weekly meeting in our home where we are praying, studying the Bible and growing in relationship while we help equip and empower one couple that just gave their lives to Christ and another who has a lot of interest in Jesus, but haven’t yet surrendered all to Him. We have a Children’s program and teacher as well since we’ve been averaging five children. We hope to see a couple more of these fellowship and study times start up in the next two months in other people’s homes…maybe even started by those that come to our Monday group. One of our foundational values as a forming church is summed up in this quote by M. Stachura, “The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity.” The recent fire in the Angeles NF sent ash over the Rocky Mountains and beyond and was visible from the heavens (space). We desire to burn and stir up others to burn even hotter and longer than this forest fire…so much so that we cannot be contained and the ash (fruit) would reach the farthest reaches of the Earth, touching every people group. Pray with us that this church would have such an impact and reach—touching lives both here in Los Angeles and throughout the World.

Specifically, to continue to build and grow relationships, we are planning a party to celebrate Rebecca’s fourth birthday. We are inviting many of the neighborhood children and their families. Please pray that not only will it be a special time for our daughter, but that we might see people come closer to God through this ‘outreach’.

Please also pray with us for:
· Team members for the launch of the church.
· To get into homes (on their ‘turf’) to deepen relationships that we have beyond the surface level.
· Protection, unity and rest for our family.

“Please Pray With Me”

As we share a few stories with you please keep us and these people in prayer. Everyday there is another opportunity to help bring healing to a hurting heart—Jesus is so passionate about reaching His people. Thank you for joining us in this rescue mission.

Home Group on Mondays 10am-Noon

Miguel & Soila (pictured below with Justice)

Consuelo (Soila’s mom)
Primo & Vere (2 children: Denis y Alisa and niece)

Home Group on Wednesdays 6:30pm-8:30pm

Francisco & Zaira (3 kids: Jair, Yamilect, Melody)

Carlos- It was one of those times you walk by somebody and you feel a tug in your heart to go talk to them. I knew it was the Holy Spirit, but I really wanted to keep walking. Yet, I found myself, while somewhat reluctantly, returning to talk to this young man sitting against the wall with his bike at the park. All I did was invite him to the service that we were holding around the corner. He got up almost immediately and began to walk in that direction thanking me. I continued on to the other part of the park where we have the children’s ministry to get things set up there. While we were cleaning up at the end this same young guy came back and began sharing how he had just been robbed early that day and being so upset about that had gone and drunk more beer than he should have. He asked if I would “Please could you come to my house this week and pray with me.” We’ve been asking God to draw people to Himself and help us to be a part of the process and here was Carlos, an answer to that prayer. I had a great time of conversation and prayer at his house later that week and now we are waiting to meet up with him at our Wednesday night home group. He shared that his mother, who still lives in Guatemala, is a believer and that he has always thought he was too, but is now realizing that he can’t be a Christian just because his mom is and is making some real steps to make a personal decision to follow Jesus for himself. Please help pray him into the Kingdom and into spiritual maturity as we continue to meet with him.

Efran, Luis, Santo, Gegorio- These four guys are day labor workers that I met last week. They came out to our service out in the park and I was able to share the Gospel with them. They said they were interested in coming back every Sunday and also coming to our house for our home group on Wednesday. Pray with us for these men and many others to come get connected to God and raised up as men of influence.

Outreach at the Park Sundays 3:30pm-5:30pm

Italia- Part of the vision of our outreach on Sundays at our park is to “empower parents to raise godly children” and have the parents join the team (and eventually take over) this ministry. We want to eventually pass the baton on to others. While we’re waiting for the right connections to arise from the parents, we’ve begun training our first “junior volunteer”. Since she has been coming faithfully along with her younger sisters and a brother we’ve had our eye on here. She is part of the family of 10 that live in the park. She is very bright and since she is much older than the majority of the children that come it seemed like a good opportunity to begin the training up even if it wasn’t a mother or father, but a 14 year old girl. Fabiola has been meeting with Italia once a week after school and is working with her on how to do as much during the outreach as possible, while working on her Bible knowledge and memorization and character things. Please pray that she will be a key to reaching her parents and the first of many we can train to lead this and future ministries.

Upcoming Birthday Party/Outreach (Saturday, November 7th)

Please pray with us also for Rebecca’s 4th birthday party. We are gearing up for a big birthday celebration where we are going to invite virtually everyone we have met and can think of to help provide some more relationship building time. This will probably be our first real big expense as we’re planning on a lot of food, a piñata of course and maybe even a jump-house (which is almost par for the course around here). We want Rebecca to feel special and honored, but this is just as much an excuse to get people to come and spend time with us and we even hope we’ll get invited to their houses for future parties and events. Neither of us are very gifted in ‘party planning’ so beyond the spiritual aspects of relationships and conversations please pray for everything to go smoothly before, during and after.

South Park Statistics and Needs

South Central Los Angeles is among the poorest, most congested and medically deprived areas in the county. In less than a decade, the population has grown at triple the overall country rate. Slightly more than 55% of South L.A.’s 1.32 million people are under 17 years of age, yet the areas has just 11 pediatricians per 1,000 patients, compared with 57 in the county as a whole and a whopping 193 per 1,000 children and adolescents on the Westside (of LA). Source: “Regents Can Heal South LA” by Tim Rutten, LA Times, 09/19/09

We’ve heard it called the ‘donut effect’ because when you plot hospitals, retail stores and other services and commodities on a map they all make a donut shape with a hole right where we are living and ministering among the poor. Whatever the reason, whether it is motivated by money or convenience, it has left a critical mass of people underserved and in many ways forgotten.

The map above shows Los Angeles and its suburbs surrounded by the red circle. We live and minister where the red cross is located. The red dots represent hospitals and medical centers. As you can see inside of the donut (the black circle, representing South Central Los Angeles) there are only 2 hospitals for the over 1.1 million people that live in that area. By the way, some 98,000 people have moved into that area in the last few years. This compared to the 27 hospitals for all the people in downtown, West and North LA and the suburbs.

We’ve spent the last few months out and about trying to get ‘the pulse’ of the area—seeking to understand both the felt and real physical and spiritual needs of the area. We want our impact here to be lasting and powerful and believe that doing the best we can to understand who we are ministering to will help. We know there is much to learn, but we are also grateful to have the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

We would like to share some more information specifically about the neighborhood that we live in (South Park) through some statistics (Source: 2000 Census) so that you can get a better perspective on where we are and get some more insight on how to pray for us and our neighbors.

Population
While the population of the South Park area is about average for Los Angeles, it is one of the smallest and most densely populated neighborhoods. There are about 30,500 people living in an area of 1.4 square miles (which means there are about 21,650 people living per square mile). This of course does not count the homeless that live in the park and on the street.

Centered around “South Park” a large, diverse park the South Park Neighborhood is where we will be planting a church. Its 30,500 residents are our focus for outreach, discipleship and leadership training. Currently we have two weekly small group meetings at our house (located across from the park where the “A” marker is located) along with several other one-on-one times.

Income
We are in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The median yearly household income is $29,500. To put that statistic in perspective remember that most households here contain extended family working to pay the bills together—so that isn’t usually one persons pay for a year, but several.

Housing
72% of households are renters. We’ve been able to meet with a few different individuals in these last couple weeks in their own homes (rather than at our home or another location such as the park) and have been amazed at how many medium sized homes have been converted into 5 or 6 separate units with little care taken in the quality of work put into the subdivisions. There are also an amazing amount of bold cockroaches, ants and vermin living in these homes that freely walk around during the daylight hours.

Ethnicity
While not especially diverse for Los Angeles, the population of Latinos and Blacks is one of the highest in the city. Roughly there is 80% Hispanics and 20% African-Americans living in the South Park area.

Mexican (57.2%) and Salvadoran (2%) are the most common ancestries. (Many children are born with mixed ancestry, for example, Mexican-Salvadoran. It is our observation that there are quite a few Salvadorans, Guatemalans and even a handful from Honduras in our community, but clearly the majority is from Mexico.) 49.4% of residents of South Park are foreign born, which is one of the highest in Los Angeles. Mexico (76.8%) and El Salvador (10.2%) are the most common foreign places of birth.

Families
At the time of the census there were 1,126 single mothers—or 20% of the families—which, again is among the highest percentages in the city of single mothers. Also among the city’s highest, is the number of men and women who have never been married (whether living with someone or on their own). At this point everyone we are ministering to is either single or living together, but not married. We sense that teaching about godly relationships and on how to raise godly children are two of the most important biblical life-skills that we can offer our community.

Schools
Of the 7 schools in this area only one ranks 3/10 (still horrible), while the rest rank 1/10 in the California ranking system. The city is currently building a new high school 3 blocks from our house that should be ready to open by next fall.

Education
About 34% of the population has not completed high school—again amongst the city’s highest.

Education level

Age
The median age is 23 years old, young in comparison to the rest of the city. The percentages of residents in the age range 0-10 and 11-18 are some of the highest in the city of Los Angeles.

Age

While statistics only give part of the story we hope that these numbers will stir you up to pray over some of the specific needs of our neighborhood and some of the direction we feel led to take to share the full-gospel with our neighbors in word and deed. We are so blessed that we have a team of people that through prayer and financial gifts have made moving into this community a possibility so that we might continue to see the nations come to a saving knowledge of His Kingdom. As Eugene Peterson says in The Message (from John 1:14), “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” We’re excited about brining Jesus to as many households as possible in Los Angeles, starting right here in our neighborhood.

Thank you for being a part!