Our Team

A few weeks ago we chartered our new church plant, Fuente para las Naciones (Fountain to the Nations). We had a productive and inspiring strategic-planning time for our church plant with our newly formed team. We would like to introduce you to two of our team members (also World Impact missionaries) and ask for your prayers for each one of us especially that God would knit us together in loving unity for His glory. It is exciting seeing how God has brought us together for this task--we all complement one another well with our different gifts, talents, interests, and personalities. Pictured L to R, The Fuente para las Naciones church plant team: Norma, Rebecca, Chad, Fabiola, Justice and Tiffany.

Norma was born in Mexico and came to the United States when she was nine years old; she is one of eight children. Norma and her whole family came to know Christ through World Impact Bible clubs. Norma has been working with World Impact for 20 years. She started her ministry at THE OAKS camp, where she worked with the youth teaching them basic work skills and cooking. She enjoyed teaching them about Christ.
Norma moved to Los Angeles six years ago and has been working as a church planter, first with a Spanish-speaking church and most recently with an English-speaking simple church (house church). Since her time in L.A., she has explored the different gifts that God has given her. She enjoys meeting people in the community when she goes out and evangelizes throughout the week. She has also been teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) and an aerobics class to ladies in the community. Norma enjoys discipling ladies and will be helping with the pastoral care and training of the women.

We met Tiffany in Wichita, Kansas, at a church-planting training two years ago. It was at that time we realized how well our gifts meshed but did not know what God might have in store. Tiffany, originally from Chicago, has been in Los Angeles for less than a year, but she is already discipling youth (junior high, high school, and college age) and training them to be future leaders in the city. She will help our team by focusing on some of our key youth with whom we have established relationships. Using her gifts, abilities, and passion to disciple and train up youth, she will pour into them biblical foundations, vision, and sincere relationship. She will also train others to minister to the youth and children leaving the ministry in good hands in the future.

Please join us this month by praying for:
• A male team member (Spanish speaking, faithful, available, teachable, shares the same values).

• Norma to be able to move into the neighborhood so she can be more fruitful with relationships and time (living incarnationally rather than commuting 15 minutes).

• Powerful, fruitful ministry and positive team dynamics as we work together for God’s glory.

For God’s team,
Chad and Fabiola Wolyn

What Does Love Look & Feel Like?

When you are hurting you don’t want anybody to touch you.

When you have been ignored for so long you may not know why somebody would want to genuinely know how you are doing.

Our desire is to get out into the community and serve, bless, and love our neighbors and let them know the Good News of Christ Jesus.

New Year’s Eve day we were able to put on a Carnival Family Fun Day at the park with the above desire as our goal. We estimate there were about 120 people that were able to experience the blessing and love in some tangible way. We had a lot of fun activities and games with prizes. The little girls loved the jewelry making and nail painting and one boy could barely walk after jumping in the bounce house all afternoon.

“It is so wonderful that you are doing something like this for the community. Though I know nothing about Christianity I would be very interested in learning more about your church and what you are doing.” -Nancy (Mother of 2)

It isn’t too common to have a safe, family friendly event that doesn’t cost anything in our community. We had a drama gospel presentation on the stage with a short explanation and invitation in English and Spanish. We were impressed by the responses we heard from different people about the drama. One man said, “That was a really powerful message. I’ve never thought of things that way before.” People are open…we just need to keep reaching out, sharing, loving and inviting. Please pray that we would be faithful and see much fruit in our outreach and evangelistic efforts. We need to continue to pray that people won’t just nod their heads, hear the Word and move on with their lives, but that there will be deep and lasting change – we are believing for 120 of those commitments this year.

Throughout the day we got to mingle and meet a lot of wonderful people and share more about God’s plan for their life and invite people out to our groups. We had an information and prayer table where people got the Gospel of John, other information about being a Christ follower and our ministry. We served over 200 hot dogs along with lots of cookies, punch and other goodies. Sometimes it’s hard to break into a hardened heart or a hurting community, but we feel God has allowed us to break in through genuine caring relationships that we’ve built with people day to day. Now with events like this we’ve found another way to ‘touch’ those that most need the touch, yet still hurt too much to receive it.

The following day, New Year’s Day, we partnered with Total Restoration Ministries, a Christian live-in drug & alcohol rehabilitation ministry, to put on another event. While the day before we had focused on the families this event was primarily for the homeless, addicts, prostitutes and gang members in and around South Park. We handed out hygiene packets, lots of hot food, clothes and powerful testimonies of what God has done to set others free. There were ex-prostitutes and ex-gang members that came to share and testify of what Jesus has done for them rescuing them for this very park and how He is worthy of receiving all our life. Chad translated the whole event in Spanish and was able to get to know some new people as well as build deeper relationships with others. It is a beautiful thing working together in unity for Christ—that’s what love looks like. We’ve had a burden for women in prostitution for a long time, but haven’t found a good opportunity or way to minister to them. Yet some of the ladies from Total Restoration were able to reach out to two very broken prostitutes that were weeping on a park bench in response to hearing the mercy, love and acceptance of their Father, maybe for the first time. One of these precious ladies heard the message in Spanish through the interpretation and the other in English. They’ve now experienced the beginning of what love feels like. They are finally getting to the point where they are sick and tired of being sick and tired…a beautiful place where God can really bring them close to Him and love on them. Prayer Requests:

·Winter Retreat – This weekend (January 15-17) two of our youth, Italia and Juan Carlos, will be going to a World Impact youth retreat with our church’s new youth worker, Tiffany.

·Evangelism AND Discipleship – Please pray that we would be able to continue to meet new people and balance making these new relationships with the need to pour into and help spiritually mature those that we’re already meeting with.

·Quality Family Time – Currently we are setting aside Mondays to rest and spend time as a family without attending to the business and urgent needs of the ministry. Pray that we’d be able to have quality times as a family and find refreshing in God and with one another….it’ll allow us to be more effective the rest of the week.

Thank you!

That many might know the love of our Father deeply and richly,
Chad & Fabiola

What A Year This Will Be!

“We become the voice of the voiceless, pleading their cause all the way to the throne of heaven. We demand to be heard. We insist that changes be made. Like Abraham we bargain with God over the fate of the city. Like Moses we argue with God over the fate of the people. Like Esther we plead with God over the fate of the nation.” –Richard Foster

While we fix our eyes on the individuals—men like Primo, Francisco and Miguel, women like Bere, Zaira and Soila, youth like Italia, Juan Carlos and Yesenia we pray and teach and serve them believing they will walk out their godly calling leading many others in turn. We are pouring our lives out for these individuals, but continue to be stirred with compassion for the many more that await the Good News.

A while back we took a group to a UCLA football game at the Rose Bowl. While we enjoyed the conversation, camaraderie and closeness of being with the 15-20 people sitting with us the experience would not be the same without the other 92,535 people filling the Rose Bowl. While we are excited about the few that have made the stand to turn from sin and walk with Christ, we feel the urgency to press in and see more people won for our Lord. This battle is won in prayer. We walk it out in faithful obedience, but we need your help to see these people through to experience all they were made for and for God to get the glory in their stories. We rejoice in the new year! It is a time to look back with thanksgiving and a time to look ahead with hope. We must do the work of our Father. He has been so good to us. We are compelled by His love. We must see change—lives are depending on it. God has been so merciful and gracious allowing us to know so many wonderful people. Yet we see the real battle that they are in—fighting drug and alcohol addictions, struggling with overcoming past wounds that are currently causing relational problems, and the outright poverty compounded by so many other complications leaving families without time to be a family as they struggle to eke out their survival day by day.

Looking back over our first sixth months here in South Central Los Angeles we realize we are still newbies in many regards, yet our roots have been set into the soil of our community. God has led us and not let us stumble. We are constantly in awe at how God chooses to use us and allows us to be His hands and feet, his mouthpiece and listening ear to so many. More Lord, for you glory!

Thank you for praying. Here are some answered prayers from the last few months:

·We’ve been able to enter more homes. We have been praying for the sick and down trodden and studying the Bible with individuals or groups in some of the houses in our neighborhood (and enjoying some great food too).

·We have a small team formed and will be having a strategic planning meeting this month looking ahead at the next few years and moving ever closer to an official launch for our church. (Please pray for this time.)

·Lots of new friends, most who are sincerely interested in knowing God in a real way.

Please pray with us for the precious people God has given us care of (some are listed above) as we continue to follow-up and disciple them, but also join us in prayer for the many great things that we believe God has in store for our neighborhood and our church in this coming year.

Remaining in the vine (for apart from Him we can do nothing),
Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca and Justice Wolyn

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