Ruined for the Ordinary

Missions work is so amazing; it really ruins you for the ordinary. Once you’ve tasted of the rich transformation that can take place in an individual’s life and then see an entire family be molded by Jesus and still later you see the beginnings of an entire community being transformed it’s pretty hard to go back to anything that you knew before.

On July 1st we completed one year of ministry here in South Central Los Angeles. A lot has happened in a short amount of time! Just this last month almost seemed like a year. Thank you for praying! Here are some pictures and quick updates on some of the major events of the month:

Sports Club

The day we sent off our last update letter we were starting up a sports club (a vacation Bible school with sports, crafts, and great Bible stories & lessons) for the children in our neighborhood. We had 58 children show up, which was less than we had planned for, but has led to some great follow-up visits with a few of the families that are interested in pursuing God further.

WOW Jam

What a day! There were over 4,000 people that came out from 4:00-9:00 pm on Monday, June 21st for WOW Jam. Our church was the sponsoring church for this event, but it would have been impossible without the team of volunteers that came in from many other area churches. We translated the event into Spanish and throughout this evangelistic outreach we were given various opportunities to share with everyone about our church so they can continue learning more about Jesus and His message of reconciliation with us.

Over 4,000 in attendance
200 Volunteers
104 Faces painted
50 Family photos taken
75 Haircuts given
70 Manicures given
400 Potted plants given away
2,970 Hot meals served
630 Snow cones
and most important….


..... 276 came forward for salvation!

Santa Fe Dam
A couple, Jacobo and Maribel, that we met as a result of a past outreach has been meeting with us regularly. Recently we spent a day with them at a lake just outside of Los Angeles and were able to really get to know them better. Jacobo also had a really bad tooth ache that was affecting his work and sleep, and we were able to arrange for him to get the tooth extracted for free by a dentist that volunteers at one of the World Impact clinics. Having never been to the dentist before this was a scary experience, but driving out there with him and waiting in the waiting room gave us a lot more time to build relationship and go deeper into the things of God.

Baptisms
A few days later we went out to Long Beach to baptize some of the people from WOW Jam that had made decisions to follow Jesus. It was a powerful experience and one onlooker heard the worship, preaching and instructions before we actually started to baptize and decided that he too must be saved and got baptized right then and there. It was fun being out in God’s creation with the power of the waves and the vastness of the sea. God is doing wonderful things here and it was such a privilege to get to meet and baptize these wonderful people.

Summer Camp at THE OAKS
We sent Angel (in black), Jennifer (in the middle with stripes) and Araceli (on the right) to the 1st – 3rd grade camp at THE OAKS for the week along with Norma. Our family was able to catch up with them on the last two days after finishing up with all our weekly Bible study groups and discipleship meetings. It was a proud moment for us all when Jennifer won the Acorn award, given to the camper with the most growth and potential during the week out of all the 100+ campers. All of our kids learned so much about God. Silvia, Angel’s mom, shared with us at the 4th of July BBQ that her son came back saying, “I feel different Mom, I can’t really explain it, but I feel different inside.” Silvia asked, “But how? What do you mean you feel different? Are you okay?” “I don’t know how to explain it,” responded Angel, “but I just do, I feel better inside, all clean and new…I can’t explain it, but it feels great.” What an opportunity camp gave to Angel and Silvia to experience the love of God and to open doors even wider for us to share with the whole family who Jesus Christ is on a personal and day to day level.

Some highlights of the week include making new friends, getting very wet (see Fabiola and Jennifer above) by the firemen that hosed everyone down during the carnival complete with games, cotton candy, snow cones, mini-train rides (see below), a petting zoo and lots of prizes.

The camp fire songs and skits were a lot of fun (see below), as was cabin time and the great food during meals. Overall it was a wonderful time to experience and know Jesus more through wonderful teaching time during Bible class times and probably more so, through the love shared by their counselors.

BBQ (4th of July)

We are always looking for excuses to get together and invite more people out and the Fourth of July was a perfect reason to bring everyone from the church together for a BBQ, some games (volleyball, soccer) and fellowship. We had a turnout of about 50 people not counting the many families and homeless that we were able to feed while we were there in the park.

World Cup 2010

June 11 – July 11
Isn’t great what a sporting event will do to bring people together? During several of the games over the last month Chad has been able to connect in a fun, but also really meaningful way with some of the key men in the church.

Please join us in prayer for:

“Go the Distance” Sports Camp

August 2-6
·A high-quality Christ-centered sports camp offering classes in basketball, soccer & cheerleading.
·BBQ on Friday (we still need a sponsor for this event; if you are interested in financing or live in the area and can come out around noon on Friday, August 6th please let us know A.S.A.P.)

Movie Night

August 3rd
Outreach and fun time together as a church…movie is currently still being selected.

Creative Solutions
With everyone that is coming to Fuente para las Naciones arriving without a background in what it means to follow Christ and be part of the Church….we have to depend on God for a lot of wisdom, direction and patience as each person grows in their faith and understanding. We spend a lot of time in the Bible and praying with each person. We also believe that living life together is the best way to be a church. We know that God’s timing and God’s way are perfect, but as we wait and listen we would greatly appreciate that you join us as we pray for what to do about:

·Children’s Bible classes (“Sunday School”) (we need teachers – would love them to come from within the church, curriculum, materials)

·Youth group (we need youth workers)

·Music (Worship) ministry (we need instruments and talented individuals/people with a desire to learn)

·English service (we have many that are interested in becoming more a part of Fountain for the Nations (Fuente) but not enough people to teach in English or enough days to split the services and we feel it isn’t time for bilingual services just yet.

Family Camp

September 4-6 (Labor Day Weekend)
This is a ways out yet, but potentially such a life-giving event for families in our church and us as a church as a whole (it’s like the summer camp we wrote about above, but for the entire family and church).


Thank you for your continued support!

Never to be the same,
Chad & Fabiola

The Youth of our Nation

Thank you for joining us in prayer last month for the men of the city as they are such pillars of the family and community and truly are underrepresented in our church and churches throughout our nation.

Our hearts are also deeply burdened for the youth.

This month we ask that you join us in prayer for the many young people wading through hurts, pains and confusion who need to hear and begin to run with the Good News. Today’s youth are in crisis – to them there is no absolute truth and no morality. Just the other day we received a phone call from a lady in our church referring us to a family that was severely struggling relationally. After going and visiting this family and speaking with the mother and the daughter together we later had the daughter and a couple of her friends over for an introduction to the Bible class. Our heart was broken as she began to share about the gang members coming outside of her sixth grade class and beating up one of her friends. She then shared that her uncle was just shot to death a block from our house recently. She was open to our love and God’s love, but is so hardened at such a young age and has a lot of healing and growing to do in the years ahead. When asked if she knew what sin was she mentioned details of things no 12 year old should know about. Many young people struggle with loneliness, feelings of worthlessness, anger, hurt, meaninglessness, and unmet needs. Only 12 percent of people under 18 are coming to church in the US. Surveys show that 90 percent of people who give their lives to Christ do so before the age of 30. The need is huge, because nearly 50 percent of the world’s population is under the age of 25. Clearly there is a lot of work to be done and we realize that this works falls squarely on all of our shoulders. (Statistics from Ten Keys to Reaching Youth by Paul Fritz.)

We want to be ready to address these issues that come up within the youth of our church and be positioned for the influx of growth in the next two years. There is a huge high school being constructed just 3 blocks from our home with over 75 classrooms (over 2,000 seats) to be completed for opening in 2012. Soon there will be thousands of young, lost students walking up and down our street, using the park in front of our home and bringing in families for sporting events. Currently apart from meeting the youth individually or in special meetings we have been plugging them in to Kaleo, World Impact’s youth ministry, where they are able to interact with a diverse group of youth from all over South Central Los Angeles and receive powerful teaching and activities directed towards their age group. This summer we are hoping that we can take many youth to summer camp at THE OAKS, where the theme is “Take off the Mask”. Pray with us please that many would come and that their lives would be transformed in the saturated times of fun, acceptance, relationship building and great teaching during the week long experience.

Please pray with us that Jesus may capture the hearts of the youth here and that they might be an integral part of what is happening in South Central through our church, Fuente para las Naciones!

Thank you!!!

Chad & Fabiola

Summer Love

This last month has been exciting as we’ve seen relationships continue to deepen with us and more importantly with God. This last month there have been great breakthroughs in Maribel & Jacobo’s lives (introduced last month) some of which happened on Jacobo’s birthday when they invited us over to eat his favorite dish. Due to our conversations with them and the Spirit’s guidance both are leaving behind major hurts that have held them back and lead them to bigger problems in their lives. They have also begun to study the Bible and pray frequently. Again we were amazed as they shared that we were the first couple/family they have ever invited over to their home. Marta & Rigo also invited us over to their home and our dialogue about following Jesus and not a religion continues to show signs that they are close to making some changes in their lives and priorities.

We also have a very full month ahead with a lot of formal and informal outreach events, a new Bible study group starting and some baptisms. You’re prayers really are making a huge difference. We are continually AMAZED at what God is doing here!

Please Pray With Us For:

Sports Camp at South Park
Tuesday – Thursday, June 15-17

We continue to plan events that get us out into the community serving different needs. During summer, families are grateful for free, fun and safe opportunities for their children to participate. Starting today we will be connecting with families and playing a variety of sports with their children. Please pray that there would be a great turn out, and that families would also be interested in connecting with Jesus on a personal level and getting involved in our church Fuente para las Naciones. We will be visiting and continuing to grow these relationships in the weeks that follow.

Graduation We just finished a 12-week study that we put together, called Foundations, with one of our Bible study groups. Each week we go through the Bible to understand more about foundational topics such as salvation, faith, the Bible, the fruit of the Spirit, etc. Students are required to memorize verses and read their Bible each week. We have seen the group get a good foundation and grow spiritually and relationally during this time. This week we will present Blanca and Nacha with a certificate congratulating them on their completion. Dora will probably receive her certificate shortly, but she has one more class to make-up. Please pray for Primo & Bere (whom this group started around) because they have shown less and less interest in seeking God – allowing work, family, and health issues to distract and disrupt their faith. Please also pray that we would continue to see spiritual growth in the rest of the group as we start a new course called “Planos”.

WOW JAM Outreach at South Park
Through some of the connections we have been able to make with other churches, pastors and ministries in the Los Angeles area we got word of an organization called Winning Our World International out of Pasadena. They will now be partnering with our church plant to do a LARGE-scale evangelistic outreach at South Park to bless our community. This event will include free haircuts, make-overs, face painting and a bounce house for the kids, family portraits, free bike repair, food, games, lots of music and a clear Gospel message. We will be translating the event into Spanish for our predominantly Hispanic neighborhood.

This event, called the WOW JAM, will be Monday, June 21st from 4pm-8pm. We have been given the honor and hard job of doing all the following-up, discipling and integrating of people that make decisions to follow Jesus during this crusade. We’re anticipating a couple thousand people.

We have been working hard this last month to continue to train-up, equip and empower our church to serve and minister to the community in general and specifically during this event. Pray for God’s will to be done here in South Park as it is in Heaven. Pray for unity and wisdom and for the many new believers we’re working with to passionately get involved.

Special Dinner & Bible Study
Wednesday, June 23 Following the Sport’s Camp and the WOW JAM we will have a dinner inviting people who are interested in knowing more about God and our church come over and enjoy a meal and fellowship with us followed by a short time of worship and devotional. Please pray for all the details to come into place. Our church will be preparing the food and our congregation of young believers will be welcoming in a whole lot of new people as well. Please also pray that God would draw all the people to himself and that they would not be hindered in coming and becoming part of the local church.

Summer Camp
We’re sending some of the children from Fuente para las Naciones to camp. Jennifer, Angel and Araceli along with others will be going to camp from June 29 – July 2. This is everyone’s first experience at a summer camp. Having so many great experiences at camp myself I can’t wait to see what God does as he speaks to each child through the message, their counselors and the fun-loaded week of adventure and friendships. Norma will be going with them so we’ll be a little short handed while they’re gone. Please pray for both Norma and the kids and all of us who are staying back to continue to work in the South Park area.

SUMMER CAMP @ THE OAKS
THEME: The Grand Theatre
Do you ever feel like you are wearing a mask? Do you ever find yourself pretending to be someone you're not? Pretending to "have it all together," but in reality, your "all togethers" are falling apart? You would never want people to see the "real you", the person behind the mask. You would be embarrassed if you were ever "found out."

But, God sees through the mask right down to the "real you". He sees all the flaws and mistakes and failures and yet loves us completely & unconditionally. Isn't it comforting to know how much He loves us? God searches us and knows us. He knows every thought, every worry, every joy, every hurt. There is nowhere we can run from His Spirit, nowhere to escape His love, no mask to hide our person from Him. With God, we can stop pretending, take off our mask, and allow Him to love us. Once we know this truth, it will set us free.

By the way if you want a read a good book on this theme I’d recommend TrueFaced by Bill Thrall and others.

Youth Group
Fabiola has started meeting with youth (13-18) once a week. This sort of just started as she continued to follow-up with various families with teenagers and now has them coming over to study the Bible and talk about life once a week. Below Fabiola is pictured with Flor, a 13-year old, who has enjoyed inviting her friends and coming out each week.

Two More Inches
Both Rebecca and Justice have grown about 2 inches taller in the last 3 months. It is such an amazing journey watching them grow and learn new things. Rebecca has humbled our hearts as she prays intimately with God about anything and everything and Justice just loves to interact with all the other kids and adults at the park making us all laugh. As we are here in the heart of the city making disciples of Christ we are aware that these two gems that have been entrusted to us are in many ways our biggest responsibility. What a privilege! Please pray with us as we consider where to enroll Rebecca into Kindergarten. This week is her last week of preschool (already!?!) Pray for their health, protection and spiritual growth. Thank you!

“It is possible for the most obscure person in a church, with a heart right toward God, to exercise as much power for the evangelization of the world, as it is for those who stand in the most prominent positions.”
– John R. Mott

We pray that our hearts and your hearts may be one with God’s heart for the lost, the broken, the forgotten and that we might all have a heart that is made right and pure towards God and our neighbor. Summer love isn’t something just for the romantic or teenager, but for those of us who want to love more and more the way God first loved us. Thank you for standing with us in prayer and blessing us so much as we go out and bless others in Jesus’ name.

Chad & Fabiola

Fighting for the Treasure Locked up in the Men

As we continue to faithfully pour into the relationships that God has allowed us to have with our neighbors here in South Central Los Angeles we are seeing a need become more and more evident. While socially we have been able to interact and connect with a lot of families most of the families come out to our weekly meetings without the man of the house. It is incredible to see how the women and children are growing in their faith in the Lord and how we as a local body of believers are growing closer with one another, but where are the men? Here are some staggering statistics (from churchformen.com):

·On an average Sunday in the US, six million married women will worship without their husbands. That’s one out of five. The average congregation is 61 percent female and 39 percent male.

·About 90 percent of the boys who are raised in church abandon it during their teens and twenties. Most never return.

·Most churchgoing guys are “lifers” who grew up in church. Men are the hardest group to reach.

Please join us in prayer this month for the men of Los Angeles especially those that are in our immediate sphere of influence. The weekend before Father’s Day, our church, Fuente para las Naciones, will be taking a group of men to World Impact’s “Retiro de Hombres” (Men’s Retreat) where the theme will be ‘Fighting for the victory and treasure that we have in Christ’. This will be a time of great Bible teaching and fellowship with a lot of great adventure and challenge activities, sports and, of course, some great food.

According to many studies, (see Why Religion Matters: The Impact of Religious Practice on Social Stability by Patrick Fagan, Ph.D.) families that worship together not only provide strength to their own family, but to their community – often leaving poverty, addictions and other social problems behind. When we live our life the way God created us to live we see His blessings overflow into all areas of our life.

Please pray with us for these three key areas:
·That the men God has been hand selecting would come out for the Men’s Retreat (June 11-13) and that they would all be drawn closer to God (either accept the Lord or grow in their faith with the Lord).

·For these men specifically as we believe they are on the verge of breakthrough: Primo, Adelso, Carlos, Alejandro, Daniel, Jesus, Urbano, Sergio, Cesar, Florentino, Saul, Jose, Juan Carlos and Giovanni.

·For marriages. That God would continue to give us wisdom on how to council couples, but even more that they would walk in unity, godliness and purity. That couples would communicate with one another and their children in a God-honoring manner.

Fighting for the treasure locked up in the men in South Central Los Angeles,

Chad & Fabiola Wolyn

Stop By and Stay a While

We’ve really come to embrace the art of “stopping in.” At our home we are glad and count it an honor to receive guests formally and informally (pre-planned and scheduled as well as surprise visits). We also love to “pop in” and visit other homes without having to call ahead and just spending quality time and maybe enjoy a small meal or drink. From the American/western mind-set there are times that seem inopportune where the space and time of ‘home’ is sacredly personal, but as we embrace living in our predominantly Hispanic community and seeing our neighborhood, city and the nations won for Christ we realize that those boundaries are not necessary or beneficial. This month we would like to share with you some of our visits and visitors and hope that you will pray with us that they will keep coming and “stay a while,” in other words that they will connect to God and His local church body, Fuente para las Naciones.

Visiting Homes
We have really enjoyed walking around our neighborhood and visiting the children and parents that came out to our VBS last month – there were 146 children and we visited every one of them that live in our neighborhood (which was about 140 of them). Maribel and Jacobo live across from the park diagonally across from us and have five children between 2 and 10 years old. On one of our visits to their home they invited us into their home and over a glass of limonada (fresh lemonade) began to open up about their life and needs (from raising their children, to fighting drug and alcohol addiction, to staying caught up on bills while hours are being continually cut at work). Knowing that we were from the church they asked us for help, but then Jacobo said, “I’m not really interested in getting involved in religion.” We shared that we weren’t visiting them to get them involved in religion, but to offer them what God had planned and intended for their lives from the beginning. Jacobo responded, “Oh, in that case, definitely – that is what we want.” They have invited us back to their home to study the Bible and work through some of these needs with them from God’s perspective on a weekly basis.

Please pray for these times to be fruitful, that both Maribel and Jacobo would be there and that what God wants to do in their lives would be accomplished.

Alegria’s Pupusas
We’ve also gotten to know Alegria from El Salvador during these visits to homes. During a conversation started over food and culture (great topics by the way!) Fabiola invited her over to our house to teach everyone at our Bible study on Wednesday night how to make the famous Salvadorian stuffed tortillas called pupusas. It was a great opportunity for our church to get to know her and her to get to know us.

We are now praying that we can continue to strengthen our relationship with Alegria and her husband and two children. Would you pray with us that they would come out again to study God’s word and fellowship with us again?

Friends from Preschool
The other night we invited one of Rebecca’s new friends from preschool, Giselle, her parents, Marta, Rigo and baby sister over for dinner. After four hours nobody wanted to leave because we were all having such a great time getting to know one another and the kids were having a blast playing with one another. We were surprised to hear that in nine years of living in the United States they have never been invited over to somebody else’s house to eat and spend quality time together. Both Marta and Rigo are very open to learning more about Jesus.

We are excited and blessed that Giselle (pictured above playing with Rebecca), has been such a great friend for Rebecca and now ask that you pray with us that this family may come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

A visit from ‘afar’
We were so blessed by Abiding Place Christian Fellowship (pictured above) ‘stopping in’ on us and praying for and with us; doing service projects, helping us get away and rest up a little, minister with us and so much more. There are too many highlights to share, but one definitely was the movie night we asked you to pray about last month. Our core church group all came out to our house and enjoyed the experience together on the big screen along with plenty of delicious, buttery popcorn – we will definitely have to do something like that again as we saw deeper community being grown within the larger group, an opportunity for people to invite friends of family to participate and really left us all thinking about the powerful message of faith and following Christ presented in the movie.

Chavela’s Art Class
During one of our weekly Bible studies located at somebody else’s house one of the host’s adult daughters came over. During a brief conversation we discovered that she was talented and interested in various types of artwork. Fabiola asked if she would be willing to come and teach the women’s group the following week how to do one of the art projects (metal relief). She agreed and again there was a great opportunity for us to continue building relationships both within the group and with new people that we are meeting.

Please pray for Chavela, the lady that came out to teach us (pictured above at top of picture in white), her two boys and her also had joined us for our Easter potluck after the service – we are now praying that she will come and “stay a while.”

Please Pray With Us For:

·Men’s Retreat - June 11-13

·Sports Club at South Park – June 15-17

·WOW Jam Outreach at South Park – June 21

·Maribel & Jacobo, Alegria, Chavela, Marta & Rigo and their families (all mentioned above).

·Our team: Chad, Fabiola and Norma. Tiffany, who has been a part of our team since starting the church planting phase in January, had to return to Chicago and so will no longer be a part of the ministry here in South Central Los Angeles. She will be missed in many ways as a team member and a friend/sister in Christ. We trust God and look to Him to provide the missing pieces and the strength to continue strong in what He has us to do with a smaller team.



Thanks for ‘stopping by’ and reading and praying with us.

We appreciate you and send our love,
Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca and Justice Wolyn

Working Together - United in Purpose

We are here in Los Angeles not only to make disciples, raise up leaders and plant churches, but to see God’s Kingdom advance in every direction and dimension leading to a church-plant movement.

Part of keeping us healthy spiritually, emotionally and relationally and on track with this purpose is a monthly meeting with other area pastors to fellowship, encourage and resource one another.

The purpose of The Urban Pastors Association (UPA) is to glorify God by expanding and advancing God’s Kingdom among the urban poor through the making of disciples and church planting. We come from churches of all different sizes and shapes, but we all hold to this purpose. The first Saturday morning of every month we get to see and experience God’s commanded blessing (Psalm 133) and a renewed sense of hope and strength through this band of brothers and sisters working for Jesus in unity.

We recognize that though God has big plans for our church Fuente para las Naciones it is still just a piece of the big global picture of what God is doing. As we mentioned in our last post, we got to see that first hand at a conference geared for pastors throughout Mexico at Fabiola’s home church in Puebla, Mexico. This was a huge time of being refreshed and further equipped for the task before us. There was such a generous outpouring of love and prayer. It is amazing being united in purpose and vision internationally as well as locally.

Thank you for your faithful prayers as we continue to work together to see that, as many as possible, people might know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,

Chad and Fabiola Wolyn

Wasn't That Fun!

Updates
Thank you for your prayers! Here is a look back at highlights of the last month (it’s so fun to serve the Lord!):

Kid’s Club (VBS)
The week leading up to Easter we had a marvelous time sharing the Easter story with children and their parents at our Vacation Bible School (VBS) at the park. For the last two weeks we have been diligently working at visiting every family in their homes and building more relationship off of our time together at the park. Not only were many families blessed, but we were able to build and deepen some other strategic relationships in the neighborhood. Please continue to lift up these families in prayer!

Kid’s Club 2010

5 days of Bible stories, crafts, games, songs & a whole lot of fun!

146 children participated in our VBS

3 high school youth groups came to help

275 hot dogs served at our mid-week family BBQ

700 candy-filled eggs were eagerly found

The kid’s cycled through stations where they learned a Bible story, did a craft that reinforced that story, played games and enjoyed a snack. They had memory verses and sang lots of fun action songs. As the children we’re busy having fun and being loved we connected with the parents. (Fabiola, pictured below in white, was able to sit and get to know more parents every day.)

We had children separated into age groups. It was exciting to see that as the youngest group heard the gospel presented every day their parents were sitting with them hearing the same Good News!

Easter Sunday
The whole week of Kid’s Club was to designed to bless the community, build more relationships and lead up to our first ever Sunday service. We had a nice group of people gathered at our house. Everyone that normally attends during the week came along with a few others that we hadn’t yet met.Pictured above, Fabiola teaches the older children during our first Sunday worship service out behind our house. We had some volunteers from World Impact help us with our nursery class.

Two primary goals in having us meet together was first to bring all our different groups (cell groups that meet during the week) together since they have never met one another. The second goal was to give everyone in the church a chance to get involved and serve in some way. As I (Chad) shared the Easter message I emphasized this point and we were ecstatic to see how from the moment the message was over every detail imaginable was taken care of. We had a huge potluck out at the park, Easter egg hunt, games and fun fellowship. Every detail from the BBQ to chairs and tables being set up, clean up, game organization, everything was taken up by the people. We were also blessed to see that they did mingle and get to know one another naturally without us organizing anything to facilitate this. The food was great, but the fellowship and richness of being together as a newly formed body of believers was much greater. Continue to pray for us as we grow.Above, some of the Fuente para las Naciones children show off the eggs they found. Below, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus together with the classic pot luck!

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” – Henry Ford

Mexico
Thank you for praying for us while we were at the pastor’s conference in Mexico. We were able to meet a lot of great men and women of God some whom we are sure we’ll be working with more in the future as our churches expand and send people out to continue evangelizing, discipling and planting more churches throughout the nations. We were stirred up in our faith and in many ways had a spiritual retreat that prepared us to come back to Los Angeles refreshed and ready to work all the more passionatly and focused on what God is doing here. Even though we were very busy visiting people the whole time the change of pace and enviornment was very healthy for us and has allowed us to rekindle some of the heart for the city that God has given us.

We stayed with Fabiola’s sister and got to see her mom and dad every day, which was great for all of us. Rebecca and Justice got to know their cousins, aunts and uncles better too, which was great – and knowing they were having fun with family allowed us to do some of the things at the conference without thinking about how they were doing.

We were appreciated and showered with blessings. The women’s group rallied the congregation to shower us with gifts, which they called ‘Christmas in March’, to show their love and support of our family. The generosity, hospitality, sincerety and passion for the Lord that the pastors, leaders and people of God have for Jesus and His Kingdom are contagious and humbling.

On our last day we were honored in front of the entire congregation of over 3,000 people where we were sent out from Mexico (Fabiola’s home church) to plant the church Fuente - Los Angeles with their love and prayers. This formal act demonstrates how much prayer, love and support is really coming from Mexico and part of the reason we are seeing fruit here in this hardened city of Angeles.

Please Pray With Us
·Pray that we would build trust and show love as we seek to build relationships with our neighbors, especially as we continue to visit every child that came to VBS – that’s a lot of homes! Pray that hearts would be open and ready to receive the Good News!

·Some friends from Abiding Place Christian Fellowship will be coming to support us in various ways this coming week (March 19-23). Please cover this time in prayer as we prayer walk the community, do some outreach and evangelism as well as a variety of other projects.

·Big Screen Family Movie Night (Facing the Giants/Desafio a los Gigantes) Tuesday, March 20 – After teaching about how being a disciple means making disciples and sharing about our relationship with Jesus with others, this will be the first event for our church where we’ve encouraged people to invite friends, relatives and neighbors. Up to this point we’ve focused on meeting people at the park or passing out fliers. This is special because it will allow us to meet people that are connected already to our existing relationships. Pray that converting our home into a movie theater will go well and many new people will come out.

·Men’s Retreat - June 11-13— The majority of our church is made up of women and children. We ask that you would pray with us that we could take a good group of guys up to the World Impact camp, THE OAKS, for this year’s Men’s Retreat. Pray specifically for Primo, Adelso, Carlos, Alejandro, Daniel, Jesus, Urbano and Florentino. Some of these men are faithfully attending our cell groups, but others we know only socially because their wives come out faithfully. Please pray for some breakthrough in the lives of these men…many who are struggling to make ends meet and some who have other addictions or problems they are dealing with right now.

·Please continue to cover our family in your prayers. Pray against sickness. Pray that we would be good parents and Rebecca and Justice would be good children. Also lift up our unity and the balance in our work load – we want to honor God in all that we do and all that we don’t do. We know there is an abundance of wisdom that God will continue to pour down on us so that we can be more than victorious.

Enjoying His Presence & Loving to Serve His People,
Chad & Fabiola