Light Destroys Darkness

"I have come face to face with evil and what part it plays in our lives, past, present, and future. I am realizing, though, that God is God and He is purposeful in destroying what evil intends for harm." Mary Beth Chapman

Part of having a heart for the city is exposing ourselves to real people with real needs.  Not hiding oneself out of self-preservation, but allowing the light and hope of Christ to penetrate through evil. While this is the example Jesus gave us through his life on Earth it is not always easy, comfortable or painless. While we celebrate the joy and truth that beauty will come out of the ashes, we also feel the pain sin can bring to a community transitioning through the darkness into the uncontainable light.  

Some highlights this month of how we’ve seen light shine in the darkness:

Continued evangelism:

New people being brought to the women’s meeting, prayer meeting, Sunday service…

Continued growth in emerging leadership and in the church:

Youth growing in leading worship in English and Spanish

People are growing in ministry and doing more independent of us as missionaries.

For example:

·         Leading mid-week meetings
·         Opening/closing the church
·         Sharing their faith with friends, family and even others they don’t know
·         Presenting ideas to help grow the church and putting them into practice

One of our classes in the tutoring program

Some of the ladies practice their English in our ESL – English class

Fabiola honors and trains the teachers and assistants that work so hard to teach our children about Jesus.

We baptized two people this month: Jose & Michelle (and enjoyed a great celebration afterwards)

Family News

Rebecca turns 9 on November 5^th.  She is a great help at home.
Justice turned 7 years old this month.  Very creative and full of love!
Beniah turned 7 months.  It is super easy to get this guy to share a smile. J





Please Pray with Us…

This month there have been more pastoral care needs arising.  As we grow as a church there are new ways we need to feed, lead, protect, guide and discipline the believers. 

Pray for wisdom for us and also for spiritual growth and maturity through the ‘growing pains’ and attacks of the enemy. 

Pray for our upcoming events that will strengthen our church family as well as give us opportunity to reach more people for Jesus Christ:

·         Worship music workshop – November 8
·         Fuente Church anniversary service.  Celebrating 4 years of meeting as a church! – Nov. 9
·         Thanksgiving Meal Outreach – November 23
·         Christmas Outreach – December 14

 

Thank you for your prayers.  We need you! 

We recently polled our church to see how they felt we could better help and equip them. One of the answers we heard over and over again was pray for us…pray for us more! 

We would ask the same of you – please pray with us that we could lead more people to Jesus and that new believers and emerging leaders alike would grow in strength.  And also pray for us – we need that support. 

May God richly bless and encourage you!

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca, Justice and Beniah

The Power of our Testimony, Encouragement and Baptism

So many wonderful, transformation things have been happening, but one that seems to stand out in our minds is that of a recent baptism of four individuals:

Laura has a passion for Jesus.  She had not been allowed to get baptized by her parents and she wanted to respect that until she was older.  Finally her time came.  She shared how she felt that God had done a miracle allowing this day to finally come.  Others in the church, much older than her, shared how her faith, sincerity and encouraging words had helped them keep going strong when things got difficult in their lives. 

Antonia was the first in her family to be baptized.  She came out of the waters crying with joy realizing the reality of this eternal transformation that she has undergone, for this new life she is experiencing.  She wants to be an example for her family in obeying Jesus and living a life of service to Him.  She is faithfully involved in various aspects of our church life. 

Claudia thinks worshipping God is one of the best and funnest activities she could possibly do with her time.  (We would agree!)  She is rejecting what society is telling her she must be as a young lady and pursuing Jesus and a life of service to Him with an increased hunger.

Yessica’s face has been glowing and radiating an amazing peace and joy.  She looks like a different person, similar to the one we use to know, but now full of life.  Her faith – so real and vibrant – has helped others enter into faith as well.  She has been able to invite several people to church through her different contacts and activities throughout the neighborhood.  

So many in our church have been maturing in their own walks with Jesus.  All who were gathered were lifted up by strong, encouraging words of exhortation that gave life to those coming out of the baptismal waters. These words were shared by their spiritual family, this amazing church that is growing in an area of such darkness and hopelessness.  We remember back just a few years when we were baptizing the first few people in this community and how everyone watching was still far from Jesus. They were attending out of a curiosity, but not out of a hunger or desire to participate.  Now some of them and many others have given their lives to Jesus.  These maturing Christians that we have baptized are now sharing wisdom and guidance to those coming behind them. 

We sincerely thank you for your prayers. Please join us this month in prayer for those mentioned by name in this letter as well as the many more that have gone before them.  Let’s also lift up those that are yet to be added to the family of God through our church Fuente para las Naciones and future churches and outreaches that will emerge from this growing church.

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca, Justice and Beniah 

Transforming Lives - Transforming Communities

Over the last two months we have continued to call out to Jesus for the harvest – more life transformation, more lasting change, more neighborhoods released from the claws of darkness and set free to experience true, life-giving community.  We are continually in awe of what God is doing.  He loves to answer these prayers.  Thank you for praying with us.  Faith can move the mountains!

Updates…

Youth Summer Camp

The third of our summer camps was focused on the youth of our church.  We have been putting the middle and high school students together and it is fun to see how they interact and help one another.

We had great Bible teaching and devotional times.  Five of the youth gave their lives to Jesus.  One of the girls kept sharing how clean and light she felt afterward.  Once we returned home her mom could hardly stop from sharing how changed her daughter was as well.  A couple other youth rededicated their life to Jesus.  Everyone had a powerful encounter with God.

There was plenty of fun.  Specialty classes every day (arts & crafts, dance, drama, swimming, graffiti, sports, coffee making and much more). Adventure sports were every afternoon (paintball, going to the lake to go tubing).  They had field games every evening.  And even camped out in tents one night.

Cabin time was rich with fun, fellowship and some really deep times with God that we will not quickly forget.  There is nothing quite like spending a week with a group of teens – you really get to know and hear them at a whole new level.  Thank you to those that helped sponsor our teens – we could not have done it without you.

Family Camp

We took 17 families – 64 people – up to family camp this year.  The majority of us made it up to the camp on a school bus we were able to rent due to a generous financial gift.  

·      We had powerful worship times, great teaching times (9 sessions in that weekend), life-changing ministry times, early morning devotionals that were both instructional and relational.  

·      There was a funny and powerful drama that Fabiola organized with two other ladies hitting home some powerful points during out teaching time. 

·      We played some games together as a church on the field that helped us get to know one another better.  Everyone also enjoyed cooling off with some good family time at the pool.

·      We did night hiking, stargazing, watched a movie together and had great fellowship times. 

·      People were ministering to one another and encouraging one another. 

·      Our theme was: Transformed in Christ (focusing on Romans 12:2 and talking about taking off the old and putting on the new). 

·      Some families brought their unsaved spouses or children.  The positive and friendly faith-filled environment really helped people grow closer to a place where they can make a decision to follow Jesus for themselves….and see that the church is not such a scary place after all.  J   

·      We ended the weekend with four baptisms and then a powerful testimony time (filled with tears of joy and shouts of praise. Powerful prayers and words were spoken):

o   One family had their first family Bible study and devotion time together – something they want to continue into the future.

o   One lady shared: “I came with my cup empty, but now it has been filled.”

o   One man shared: “I hardly spend time with my family and this was a good time and place to spend time with them.”

o   One man shared that his knee was healed during the weekend.

o   There were a number of testimonies of how God provided financially and gave favor in getting time off of work to be able to come to the event.

·      Steve and Jenny, a great couple that came and volunteered for the weekend, did so many fun activities with our children and taught them some Bible lessons allowing the adults to focus on what God was saying to them.  And the kids had a blast!

·      God was and is definitely calling people to Himself!  There were a lot of cleansing tears shed and great joy and thankfulness at the end. 

New Ministries & New Starts

School is in session and while it doesn’t feel like fall here in Los Angeles (record heat) we have launched off into some new ministries and re-started some others. 

Please be in prayer with us for each of these ministries:

·       Usher Ministry: We have launched a new usher ministry which helps get more people in our weekly services involved and will help us do a better having eyes and hands ready to welcome and serve the people that we are inviting to come worship with us.  There are over 12 people involved in this and we will be training people up as we go. 

·       Training Home Group Leaders, Facilitators and Hosts: We have begun the process of intentionally training 8 people for leading or helping in our home group ministry.  We hope to start several new groups in the new year.

·       Prayer Group: We have started a community prayer group that will be hosted at a different house every week.  We will intercede for the needs of the church, the family whom we are visiting and the community.  As we continue to strive to empower and train-up others in ministry we are so encouraged that this is a member-led ministry. 

·      English Classes:  We piloted an English (ESL) class last spring and are now ready to launch this needed class for the adults in our community come the first week of October.

·      Tutoring: We are starting the third year of our tutoring program.  We hope to increase the number of students we serve once again this year and continue to take them to the next level academically and spiritually.

·       Worship Team:  We have a small group of worshippers that are meeting weekly to rehearse and will be leading worship for the first time this month.  We are excited as we see their growth in understanding the power and intimacy of worship.  They have been developing musically and in their ability to lead others into God’s presence. 

·         Internship/Leadership Program: We will start our second year of the Fuente Internship this month. 

  

Youth Beach Trip

Enjoying the last days of summer before school starts Joshua and Rocio, our youth leaders, took a group of the youth and some of their parents to the beach for some fun in the surf, time on the sand and a stop at the local arcade. 

Work being done around church

Over the last months we have been plugging away at some projects at the church. 

It is always great to get outside help for some of the things we can’t do on our own – whether because of our lack of the proper finances or skills. 

Pictured above – getting help to put a safer/cleaner ground cover under our play structure.

It is even greater when we see our own people take ownership and work with their hands and minds and buy the needed things to make improvements in our facility. 

Pictured above and below: Our church taking the initiative to install new blinds and do a deep clean throughout the church.

We see that God is moving through the outside help and the inside growth.  The Church family throughout the world is an amazing thing!

Family News

Beniah is 5 ½ months old.  

Chad & Fabiola just celebrated 10 years of marriage (August 15).

We were able to go to Mexico and visit Fabiola’s family a couple weeks ago.  They all love Beniah!  Our church did awesome without us!  While in Mexico we were able to teach an internship class and impart some vision to a new group of leader’s at Fabiola’s home church in Puebla, Mexico. 

Rebecca started 4^th grade this year.  Justice is in 2^nd grade and will be turning 7 in a few weeks (October 4^th).  Chad is also turning older this month (Sept. 28^th)….yikes!

Please Pray with Us…

Our purpose for being here in the city is to evangelize the lost, empower and equip those that have come to know Jesus and plant churches. 

We cannot do this alone.  Without prayers we grow weak and doors in our community do not open.

Really we cannot do this alone! Without your financial support we could not focus all our time and energy on these precious people – imparting vision, teaching the Word of God and modeling a godly life.  Thank you for all that you do!

Please keep each of the “new ministries & new starts” listed above in your prayers this month.  Keep our family in your prayers as well. 

May each life that is transformed by Jesus be a seed that transforms many more families and communities here in Los Angeles and throughout the world.  Thank you for being a part of this vision!

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca, Justice and Beniah