Living for God Here & Now

“I want to learn how to live for God here and now,” said Sandra, practically begging, “I don’t want to wait until I’m old and have to go through all these problems.” When she said, ‘all these problems,’ she was referring to the endless struggles and pain she sees in her family and community as they continue to live in dysfunction without fully committing to God.  As Frank Crane is quoted as saying, “What you want to be eventually you must be every day.”  

Sandra has been faithfully coming out to church and youth group every week.  She has been meeting once a week with one of our youth leaders and is starting to study the Bible on her own. She is definitely a future Leaders In Training (LIT) candidate.

The LIT program, run through World Impact, is a three-year leadership development program where inner-city high school students are mentored and disciple by missionaries during the school year. LIT’s then spend their summers at THE OAKS camp working, leading campers and learning more.  We are excited about sending the first LIT from our church to camp this month – a young man named Alan.  When he returns I (Chad) will have the opportunity to mentor him during the course of the year. 

The LIT program is a proven spiritual-growth catalyst for youth that are given so few opportunities to develop and mature spiritually, intellectually and in their character throughout their daily life.  Please pray for Alan as he puts his faith in practice and embarks on this new journey. 

Along with praying for Sandra and Alan and their families please also lift up the men of Fuente para las Naciones as we prepare to go on a men’s retreat called “No Man Left Behind” on June 10^th -12^th.

 

Thank you,

Chad & Fabiola

It's Like Riding A Bike

To ride a bike you need balance. Sure, you can coast for a while without moving the pedals, but soon you’ll stop and have to pedal again or put your foot down. We intend to keep moving towards the prize which Christ has called us to. To move forward on a bicycle you need to move through the cycle of the extreme up and the extreme down on each side. Balancing between evangelism (reaching out) and discipleship (training up) or being outward focused and inward focused as a church can seem like going in two competing directions, but in reality they need to work together for true movement and growth. What a thrill for us to have a lot of the church out interacting with the new families at the VBS (see update below) and many also invited family or friends to the services. We as leaders cannot and should not do all the work. To move forward we know we need a healthy balance of all the seeming opposing factors in Christianity and Church life: Love and justice. Truth telling and the wisdom to speak in love. Growing fast while developing slowly. Work and rest. Just to mention a few.

Updates

V.B.S. - Vacation Bible School
What a wonderful time spending the week before Easter with our church and The King’s Academy High School out in South Park putting on a special Vacation Bible School for the community and the ladies that have their aerobics’ class every morning! We had a good turnout – over 120 kids and lots of parents. We connected with the parents as they smiled and watched the program. Between the Passion of Christ movie on Good Friday and Easter Service we had four new families come out.

Checking In Opening Session "This Little Light of Mine...I'm Going to let it Shine!" (Left)
Dress up time after the Bible Story (Right)

The Craft Zone (Making heart butterflies)

Lunch Time!

Work Projects
For us proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus is our priority. When we can do something simple to bless our community in Jesus’ name we do it. We are given a lot of favor in the community to run programs and use facilities. We love when we can give back. The King’s Academy High School group came and donated some things to this small weight area at South Park, just behind where we run our VBS programs. Blue and his buddies are ex-convicts and ex-gang members who share a desire for positive activities for the men in the community.

This bench where Bougard and Blue are working out at South Park was broken in several places.

Here is the new bench press bench that was built - better than ever.

The group also put in new cement to fix up our driveway where we hold our church service.
No more tripping on uneven cement or grass poking out in the front of our sanctuary.

Easter Sunday
I think our whole team would agree that Easter Sunday was one of our highlights of the entire year. There was such a great time of song and dance, a drama presentation and strong Gospel message, baptisms and then a family fun egg hunt and a delicious meal we all shared together.

Our worship team singing praises to our Lord.
The children joined in for a special dance.

Chad preached on the power of the resurrection.

There was a drama presentation called "The Story of the Soldier" put on completely by our church - without our help (from the concept and planning to the costumes and scenery).

The moving tomb (the rock moved on its own) and seeing Jesus emerge at the end was powerful and brought front and center what we were celebrating - the resurrection life in Jesus!

Baptisms!

We gathered everyone in our front yard - for many this was the first believer baptism they had ever seen.

Praying for the girls before their baptsim.

You are not seeing double. Twins Erika and Nancy both were baptized Easter Sunday.

There was a lot of good help in the kitchen after the baptsim.

Fellowship and Food - a great way to go deeper!

Mother’s Day Service & Baby/Child Dedication
Fabiola preached a special message for all the mothers and then had them all pass in front so we could pray for them and then present them with a rose.

We also had three families dedicate their children to the Lord. Since these families are all new to church it was a great opportunity to teach them and the congregation about consecrating our life to the Lord as followers of Christ and as parents. They were all charged with the powerful task of raising their children in a godly household – teaching them to love and fear God.

Please Pray With Us

·New Families
Please lift up these families that we have recently met through the VBS. We are praying that they will commit themselves to the Lord and come faithfully to worship, learn more and fellowship at Fuente para las Naciones.
[Maria: Xiomara, Gabriel and Christopher; Martin & Lourdes: Enid, Danny and Hector;
Claudia: Ruendy; Cecilia: Hector, Wendy and Bryan; Gabriela: Melissa, Eduardo and Luis]

·Beach Night - May 18th
A time for our church to fellowship and worship around the bonfire.

·Men’s Retreat – June 10th – 12th
Pray that men would commit and follow through. Pray for new men – husbands that we don’t typically see to come out. Pray for a powerful encounter with God and deeper relationships forged between all of us.

·Summer Interns
Three interns will be joining us this summer. Pray as they finish up school and prepare to immerse themselves in our community and church life. Their names are: Nate, Garnett and Misty.

·Sunday Service – Father’s Day – June 19th
Pray for a good turnout – especially of men who often do not accompany their families. Pray for a powerful message and worship time.

·Summer Camps
Summer camps are an amazing time for our children and youth to connect with God in an intense and real way that their home life does not generally allow. Pray that parents will be willing to send their children and that nothing will get in the way of these young people pressing deeper into their relationship and calling with God.

·Balance
Pray that our family and our church may live balanced lives – where we live and teach the whole Truth.

A Criminal Zip Code

“It's criminal when I can look at your zip code and tell what kind of education you're going to get,” said Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  We live in a part of Los Angeles known for its lack of many things from a lack of good medical care to a lack of prospering, quality businesses and even the lack of general cleanliness.  Yet one of the biggest lacks is that of a good education.  Of the 41 closest public schools only three are passing the state standard – none of which are in our zip code.  The average school ranks 2.7 (out of 10) in South Central LA and a pitiful 1.3 in our neighborhood.  (Source: L.A. Times)

Our desire as missionaries and as church planters is to provide the best education that we can for the children, youth and even the adults in our community.  Our team is too small for us to be able to offer any formal tutoring or training at this stage, but we are praying to see how God might want us to get involved or who He might bring alongside us to help us accomplish these lofty, yet urgent needs. 

One amazing thing that we have been able to do with the help of our two interns is provide a high quality, content rich and relationally deep Christian education for our children and youth.  Over the last nine months that they have been with us, both Jessica and Monica have helped us take ministry here to the next level.  Unfortunately, their internship ends at the end of this month.  Now, as they leave, we ask that you pray with us for direction and guidance for the leadership and Biblical education of the children and youth at our church, Fuente para las Naciones. 

Monica and Jessica met with all of our parents last month one-on-one to share with them the amazingly great things that they see in their children, to speak encouragement and life into them and share more deeply what they have been studying over these months in their classes. 

Many of our children and youth have given their life to Jesus!  The kid’s in Monica’s class love to sit and soak in God’s presence and hear from Him, worship through singing and simple rhythm instruments and pray for one another.  Many of these children are bringing their parent’s to church and not the other way around. 

Jessica has done an amazing job mentoring and discipling the junior high and high school youth.  One of them will be entering a Leadership In Training program through World Impact for the next three years where he will be mentored weekly by us and working on special ministry projects.  Pray with us that the next phase of Monica and Jessica’s lives will continue to be blessed and all the fruit that they have seen produced will be fruit that will remain; good fruit that will reproduce one hundred times over. 

We are excited about how God will continue to impart knowledge, wisdom and understanding to this community and provide for all our needs as we continue to grow as a church! 

Thank you for your prayers and support,

Chad & Fabiola

How Many Apples To Come?

I remember enjoying the story of Johnny Appleseed as a boy and now as I have been preparing the soil for our vegetable garden I have been reflecting on this question of seeds and productivity. I’m just one person; it’s just one apple. But how many apples do you think will come out of just one apple seed? Planting a single apple seed can result in thousands of pounds of fruit over time. This is the great harvest of fruit (lives brought to Christ) we eagerly await and part of what motivates us to faithfully minister in a place that is so hard. It is said that Johnny Appleseed planted trees in at least 5 states and some of those trees are still bearing fruit over 200 years later. His favorite book was the Bible. Walking barefoot over many miles his feet were hard, but his heart soft and his mind fixed on the mission.

Updates

Parent/Teacher Conferences

My teacher background kicked in as I received a notice about our daughter Rebecca having a parent/teacher conference at her school. I thought it would be a great idea for the teachers at our church to connect with parents and share all the positive things we’ve observed and learned about their children while simultaneously encouraging them in the tough job they have as parents and sharing about what the children/youth are learning in their classes each week. We spent two long afternoons with parents that proved to be a very much needed time or affirmation and encouragement. It was also a platform for the mothers to open up and share about their lives and struggles. Just about every mother cried and every one of them walked away taller and more hopeful. This is something we will definitely do again. We feel that it has deepened our relationships, deepened our trust and taken us to a deeper pursuit of God’s heart as a community of believers.

Winning the World Conference (Ganando al Mundo)

I took our neighbor to the World Impact church planting conference last weekend. It is exciting watching somebody from this community catch the vision to share his faith, empower and raise-up leaders and plant churches! I believe he is a future pastor in the making.

Invited to Lead Worship

Our church, Fuente para las Naciones, was invited to lead worship for a potluck dinner and church service with other ministers from the community and pastors who are a part of the local church association. It was exciting to have three vocalists from our church along with Abraham and I leading on guitar. Fabiola and Justice played drums. All of our songs were in Spanish and English – which is our first step towards becoming more bilingual.

Please Pray With Us

·Transition.

Continue to pray for our Children’s and Youth Ministries as our current interns transition out. We have some short term interns coming to help us this summer and then we don’t yet know how God will provide come fall.

·Suicide Attempt.

One of our third graders recently made an attempt to kill herself. Pray for this child and the family as they sort through layers of hurt and pain that still need to be lifted up to Jesus. Pray also that we would be filled with God’s wisdom as leaders in this community.

·Vacation Bible School

Monday – Thursday, April 18th - 21st We are trying some new things with the desire to focus on serving a need in our community we haven’t before tried to meet. The largest aerobics class in all of Los Angeles is located at South Park, the neighborhood park in front of our house. We plan on helping parents continue their workout during Spring Break by taking their children and teaching about the last week of Jesus’ life from 9:00-11:00 am each day. We hope that we can get to know many of the ladies that take aerobics and others from the community during the week and especially during our lunch together on the last day.

·“The Passion of the Christ”

We will be showing this movie on Friday, April 22nd and hope for a lot of invites from the V.B.S. and community as well as family and friends from the church to come out and be impacted by what Christ did for us.

·Easter Sunday

We have a special service full of music, a drama and baptisms planned. We will have share a meal together and again we hope for a lot of first time visitors and all of the church to come out. Pray also that people will respond to the call to give their lives to Jesus and even be baptized there on the spot.

·Reinforcement Troops?

Our friends, David and Kiara Shipley, are prayerfully making plans to move their family down here to help be a part of our church plant team – starting in August. David, will be staying with us for a week to talk through the details and seek God’s heart with us for this transition.

Words cannot express our gratitude and the sincere need we have to receive continued prayer over our lives and this ministry. Thank you for lifting us up to the Father.

Planting seeds that will turn to healthy orchards (churches!),

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca and Justice