Homeless Fires

More than 6 major fires have occurred in the small, neglected area behind our home this past year. Irresponsible maintenance and burning practices have led to explosions, fires burning out of control, toxic fumes, and damaged property.

Our neighbors all got out our garden hoses to try to keep our property safe while we waited for the fire department to arrive. They can shoot water down from the freeway at the brush. 

The accumulation of trash behind our house.

In these pictures (above and below) you can see the part of 3 little homes and a fire burning at the homeless encampment. 

A few weeks ago, we gathered a group of neighbors together to clean-up the area behind our homes. This space has always been used by the homeless as it is a small, sheltered, green strip of land between the I-10 freeway and our homes, but since Covid-19 it has become a dangerous encampment full of human waste, rodents, drug paraphernalia and maybe most concerning fires. We have gotten to know some of our ‘neighbors’ with mostly positive interactions, but there is more and more traffic and harder to find ways to minister and still keep a healthy boundary for our family.

 

Over the last year you never know when you will have to run out and fight a fire…these fires burn down fences, trees, bushes, and garbage. We have had to go out with fire extinguishers and hoses to fight back the flames. The fire department knows us well.

 

We were part of an effort to get the local and state government representatives and other agencies response (i.e., the land belongs to Caltrans). We were able to get the local councilman to help and are working on more permanent solutions. We are very sympathetic to the needs of those without homes, but also want to make sure our homes are safe.

 

We had a workday to clean up some of the mess and quickly filled a large dumpster and 3 dump truck hauls. We had the LA Times out taking pictures and interviewing us. If you are interested in reading the article you can see it here: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-05-12/surge-in-fires-at-la-homeless-encampments-growing-crisis (mention of our clean up and a small quote are at the very end of the article). 

The LA Times article paints the picture of the larger problem affecting all of Los Angeles. There are something like 24 fires a day caused by the homeless (usually for cooking or to stay warm). That smoke daily comes into our home. The article states that 54% of the fires the fire department responds to are caused by homeless. This article stirred up coverage both on our local TV news channels and public radio. 

L.A. Times reporter interviews some of the people at our clean-up.

L.A. Time photographer captures some of the clean-up effort as detailed in the article.

While we don't have any easy solutions, we are continuing to search for God's heart on how we can love our neighbors on 'both sides of the fence'. Helping to organize clean-up efforts blessed both those with and those without homes (and was a good opportunity to meet more of our neighbors). Now we ask you to join us in praying for continued safety, wisdom and favor as well as for creativity in ways we can truly help those without homes to find places for them to thrive and connect with our God who dearly loves them. 

Lastly, THANK YOU so much to those who have helped us with our children's tuition! They are all excited and humbled by the outpouring of help. We are almost halfway to our goal, so if you haven't given yet there is still a need and opportunity. Let us know. Thanks.

Spring 2021

We hope you are doing well as we begin to peek our heads out after such a crazy season. We wanted to share some ministry highlights and ask for some specific prayer and support (with a special letter from Justice at the end).

Highlights…

 

CHURCH PLANTING

 

Evangel School of Urban Church Planting: Training pastors, leaders and their teams to plant churches.

• We are currently leading 7 teams through a 5-week course to help them start new churches.
• We have 28 in attendance from all over Southern California and a group from Indianapolis. 

Dean School: Training ministry leaders how to use Evangel to train-up and send out more church planters.

 

While we love leading the Evangel School we can only run 2-4 or these school per year and so we are beginning to do more training of trainers.

 

·       We gathered 25 teams of movement and denominational leaders and trained them how to run their own church planting schools (so they can each run 2-4 schools per year).

 

It was inspiring to see all parts of the US represented. There are such diverse challenges in urban ministry related to poverty, racial injustices, political and social dynamics of city life, immigration issues and so much more that each city and ministry is learning to respond to in their own way. Our focus is the Bible and church planting which touch on all these issues in some way. It is great to ‘sit in the room’ with folks as they wrestle through practical and spiritual ways to transform communities and reach more people for Jesus. 

[Pictured some of the individuals and teams present at our last Dean School]

• There were also at least 6 countries represented (Bangladesh, Canada, Haiti, India, Kenya and Liberia).

This is especially exciting because while we responded to a call to the urban poor and the cities of the US twelve years ago when we moved to Los Angeles, we have never lost our heart and passion for the nations and still believe – and are starting to see this more and more – that we can reach the nations and make an impact on the world through this ministry. 

TRAUMA TRAINING

Healing Groups: Leading small groups of people through groups and even mini classes to help Biblically equip them to move through trauma to healing.

• We began leading these groups online during COVID and this has expanded our reach across state and national lines.
• We have led groups with people in at least 4 different countries recently.
• We have taken people from our children’s school, our church, pastors, and churches we know and people that have been referred to us all over the US.

Initial & Advanced Trainings: Training trainers to lead healing groups in their own context.

Expanding our efforts to help more people we continue to train the trainer.

Using this wonderful tool, we have trained:

·       ministry leaders,

·       pastors,

·       counselors,

·       therapists,

·       missionaries and

·       many others

helping them launch this powerful ministry in their church, ministry or practice.

It is so rewarding for me to cheer others on and provide support as they go through their process of training. For example, there are two ladies that I trained (from Los Angeles) a few months back that I was able to pair up with another lady from Pennsylvania so that they could put on their first Trauma Healing Group. I helped them prepare their materials, schedules, invitations, etc. and have been cheering them on this last month as they come back with great testimonies of what God is doing through them in this group. They now have people in their group that see the power and potential of these groups and want to be trained to be facilitators too.

FUENTE LOS ANGELES (our church)

Fabiola has been very busy and has started 5 community groups (Bible studies) reaching out to the families, youth and women of the church. From that we have seen several new decisions (salvations) and some baptisms that we celebrated on Easter. 

Financial Support Needs…

 

SCHOOLING

We are so thankful and excited that Justice will be joining his sister at her high school next year. This school has been so life giving for her and we know Justice will flourish there too. Scholarships and financial aid make this possible cutting the price way down, but they both need to make up another $3,270 to be fully funded for the year. Please let us know if God puts it on your heart to bless one or both of them.

 

Also, the school that Beniah (our youngest) goes to just became independent of World Impact so we will no longer get the same benefit that we have had all these years as missionaries. That additional and unplanned cost will be $2,795 for this coming school year.

 

Justice will be graduating from 8^th grade on June 10^th and is his classes valedictorian! We couldn’t be prouder. He has written you a letter below:

 

Dear Friends and Family, 

Hello! I wanted to thank those of you who have cheered me and my family on over the last 12 years we’ve been in Los Angeles helping people. I’m 13 now and almost ready to graduate from 8^th grade. I am excited that I got into my first choice high school which is pretty hard to get into. I had to go to a professional interview and answer tough questions. They were similar to the ones I practiced for a month and a half as I worked on getting ready. I also worked really hard on an essay and applied for a scholarship.

 

Even though I got some great help through the scholarship I have learned that it is good (but hard) to be willing to share my need with others to help complete the costs of my first year. My new school has so much more technology, a huge campus, exciting classes and many more opportunities than I have had before at my old school or throughout my life. Next year I can’t wait to try out some of the electives they offer. I am signing up for Drama and also Filmmaking this year. This high school is really focused on helping us get ready for college and beyond and will help me continue my Christian education. We learn New Testament in the first year and then Old Testament after that and then I’m not sure what happens yet.

 

So, maybe you can tell I’m excited. I’ll be on campus with my sister too so I can keep an eye on her. I wanted to let you know because some of you were praying, but also so you can celebrate and maybe give towards my education. Thank you!

 

With Care,

Justice

 

It does my heart good to hear and watch (and help) Justice grow up – especially as he now gets to experience new things and enter new places to expand his horizons and opportunities.

Would you be willing to give to help us off-set some of our extra schooling costs?

All of our children have maintained straight A’s through the last crazy year of online learning and hybrid school. We believe this would be a great investment into the future!

 Justice    $3,270

Rebecca  $3,270

Beniah   $2,795

 

If you would be willing to give any amount towards this extra cost to help us give Justice a great start to his high school and future or help Rebecca and Beniah continue their schooling, please send a check to:

 

Chad & Fabiola Wolyn

2001 S. Vermont Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90007

 

(Note that if giving for our schooling need this is not tax-deductible. If it is more convenient to give online through Venmo, Paypal or Zelle let us know. Thank you!) 

[Justice, when presented with balloons and the news that he was accepted to the high school of his choice.]

[Pictures of Beniah’s class coming back to school for in person learning and receiving Student of the Quarter at the awards ceremony online.]

Thank you for reading and walking with us. Please let us know if there are ways we can pray for you or expand our partnership. We want to continue empowering, teaching, training and raising up “the least of these” to make a lasting Kingdom impact on the world.

God’s richest blessings to you,

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca, Angela, Justice and Beniah

Adaptability

It feels great to help solve complex problems when you see positive results. You have actually helped us do just that! Together as we partner prayerfully and financially, we are able to bring programs that equip urban leaders all over the world to plant healthy churches. It is crazy to think that 95% of urban pastors have not been trained. But we are changing that! On April 10^th we will be commissioning 25 teams of pastors, many whom are movement and denominational leaders, as deans to go train up 100s of new church planters.

Over 7 weeks of intense learning we have equipped and empowered these men and women to host their very own church planting schools, where 100s of churches will be birthed. In the past we have always had everyone fly into a location and go through our Evangel Dean School, but due to COVID restrictions we hosted our very first online school. We have representation from 9 different states (California, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Virginia and Washington) and 5 countries outside of the US (Bangladesh, Canada, India, Kenya and Liberia).

Meeting with these diverse groups over so many time zones and hearing their hearts to help others plant churches has been inspiring and convicting. One team that we have been working with, led by Pastor Javier, is taking winning the nations for the Lord seriously. We had to make some accommodations and reschedule one of our coaching and planning sessions with them because in the middle of the school they were hosting meetings with potential church planters in Ecuador that they want to be a part of their upcoming school. One of the denominational leaders attending the class from Kenya brought a large team representing various segments of their country each with a burning passion to reach the lost and plant more churches.

Every time you give your support it helps enable us to provide accessible, high value programs like the Dean School. Your support allows us to offer these programs at very affordable prices for pastors and leaders working in the cities of the US or throughout the world in countries among many of the unreached or underreached people groups. We empower urban leaders and partner with local churches to reach their city with the Gospel. We hope to be able to share many more stories in the coming months and years as these leaders begin launching their own schools and training more people ready to reach their communities for Jesus Christ. 

Thank you for lifting us up in prayer and making this ministry possible.

Contagious

We have 32 churches and growing in the Long Beach (California) area that are lining up to go through our Trauma Training. It is so exciting to walk pastors and ministry leaders through this material for their own emotional health, but also to empower them with great materials that can help them do a better job taking care of their congregations and communities. Please join us in prayer this month for these groups and the pastors and churches participating.

After doing nearly a year worth of dozens of trainings it is rewarding to be able to have a group of leaders that we can work with that we have trained up to lead these classes, meaning we can continue to expand and don’t have to lead every class or group. One lady came with significant trauma in her life but was touched and progressed in her healing. Later she inquired about being able to help others and now is proving to be one of our most compassionate facilitators – always willing to listen and leave room for God to do His work in the group.

We also ask for your prayers for our Evangel School of Church Planting that we launch again this month with a handful of teams who are excited to learn and grow as a team in the area of urban church planting. It has taken us some time to get all our materials online and other things translated into Spanish, but we are finally launching our first Spanish online school this month! (We launched our first online English school last October and November and worked with two churches working to relaunch their churches through challenging times with the COVID pandemic). Please pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, protection, and fruit for these various churches as they evangelize the lost, make disciples and train-up leaders.

Lastly, please continue to keep our family in your prayers. Rebecca (15) and Angela (15) are now in the ‘learning to drive’ phase of life; not sure if you should pray more for them or for us. 😊 Justice (13) just put his finishing touches on his high school admissions and scholarship applications. Beniah (almost 7) continues to remind us what child-like faith looks like as he believes in God being able to do anything and loves others just as they are. May we all learn to lean into the childlikeness a bit more.

Thank you for your partnership as we lift the arms of the weary and support, train and empower these amazing people doing some of the hardest work in the darkest parts of their cities.

Merry Christmas!

What a year. While this year was nothing like what we anticipated, there is no doubt God is able to use bad situations and hard times and turn them into good and beautiful things.

We continue to be as busy as ever, but like most of the world we are learning to connect with people in different ways. We’d like to share just 5 highlights of this season and ask for you to prayerfully give to this ministry.

1.      Empowering the local church and reaching the nations through Trauma Healing Groups

God wants to heal people’s hurts. In the city we see some deep and dark pains. Some are self-inflicted, many are not. Regardless of the source we know the church has the answer. We have been training facilitators to lead groups all over the US and world. We’ve all been through a lot this year; facilitators learn how to guide groups to Biblically address these hurts.

If you would like to know more or be trained with a group from your church reach out to us. We’ve trained people in a handful of countries and dozens of different well-known ministries, missions agencies and churches.

 

2.      Sharing our passion for church planting and empowering pastors

There is no denying the burning in our hearts to walk with and encourage other pastors and ministry leaders. We love seeing new churches birthed and struggling churches get the wind in their sails to become all that they can be. We just helped two churches, one in the San Diego area and one in the Portland area, relaunch. This year we have trained and coached and encouraged (lifting up weary arms) dozens of other pastors and look forward to launching several more schools in 2021. 

 

3.     A voice and advocate for Spanish ministry

We’ve been working tirelessly to get the same quality materials that we have in English into the hands of those ministering in Spanish. While the amount and quality of resources available in Spanish is increasing it is not even half of what is made available in English. We have a heart and have been working hard to give the same quality of materials, trainings and resources into the under-resourced Spanish churches and ministries.

  

4.     Celebrating 10 years as an inner-city church and mission

While we had to cancel nearly all our typical outreaches, we have worked hard like many ministries to ‘go to the people’ digitally. This meant raising funds for technology to give out to our people who had no or limited access online. This also has meant partnering with different organizations to hand out 1,000s of pounds of food to hundreds of individuals.

We had a powerful Trauma Healing Group with a dozen women that we hosted at our church and have two ladies now trained as facilitators to continue this ministry. After meeting only online for many months we were able to celebrate our 10-year anniversary and continue to meet outdoors every week following all the safety protocols.

While we decided not to host our annual Christmas Banquet and Toy Store because of COVID-19, we are empowering and blessing the children of our church this Sunday as we hand out toys to each one of them along with an additional toy that they will be given (along with a Gospel book and some other goodies) to give to a friend of theirs that does not attend a church.

One of the most beautiful stories that has emerged during the pandemic at our church is how when 60-70% of our church lost their jobs at the outset of the quarantine families literally sacrificed their own bread and food to share with other families in need. They also willingly invited those without jobs to come work alongside them at their job so that they could share their own paycheck and have something to bring home each week. The sacrificial giving and love in action has really humbled our hearts and given us a desire to give even more to this community.

 

5.     Family

Each one of the kids is doing amazing in school, but it hasn’t been easy being stuck at home, especially for our more social kids. Having our church meet on Sundays has helped some and each one of the kids help with some aspect of the set-up and ministry.

Rebecca hopes to be able to get back to softball in early February – she is doing great in school and especially loves her art class.

Angela started high school this year and has yet to be on campus but is doing wonderfully and started a Hip Hop class (online).

Justice is working on High School applications and scholarships and doing great in 8^th grade and continues to produce very creative stop motion Lego videos.

Beniah is in 1^st grade and has proven to be really good at watching the clock and making sure we all get to our different Zoom classes and meetings at the right time.

Fabiola continues to do way more than is humanly possible as she provides support in all the different ministries and somehow keep the kids and house flourishing.

 

Opportunity to give

Would you consider partnering with us monthly or sending a special gift for Christmas/end of the year as we continue working towards a healthy church for every community of poverty? We could really use your support!

Please send financial support to: World Impact / 2001 S. Vermont Ave. / Los Angeles, CA 90007  (Please make check payable to “World Impact” and designate “WOLYN SUPPORT” on the memo)  OR  

You may also GIVE ONLINE HERE.

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

From our family to yours, we wish you a very merry, healthy and blessed Christmas,

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca, Angela, Justice and Beniah

Blessings in Disguise

What are some of the highlights for you during this COVID season? Oh, we know there are plenty of challenges and bad things happening, but as we come out of Thanksgiving and move into Christmas, we wanted to take a few moments to share some of the good things happening:

 

Expansion of our reach.

Between Trauma Healing Trainings and Evangel: School of Church Planting Chad has led online trainings and worked with people representing some 30 people groups and nations. Previously the focus was Los Angeles metro area, but now the focus is truly global.

 

Opportunity to reset and refocus.

We have realigned our priorities better during this season, letting go of some good things that were not as fruitful to allow us to focus on more important things. This season has also been a great teacher for us in balancing self-care and looking outward towards so many big needs socially, spiritually, relationally, and emotionally. It is great to hear and be led by God on when to engage and when to be patient.

 

New ministries and new churches.

This season brought the renewal of a key partnership and the launching of a food ministry which has put us in front of a great problem: ‘How can we effectively reach out to hundreds of Spanish speakers in the community and not only meet their physical needs, but their spiritual needs as well?’ It has been so fun to be part of this ministry both on the ground (distributing the food and praying for 100s of people in their cars during the weekend) and as a coach/consultant (on strategies on how to follow-up and move those hungry for God into a Gospel-community). Please pray for a church to be birthed through this effort!

 

Seeing God’s healing and provision.

Many people around us have had COVID and thankfully the majority have gotten over it, but sadly not all. God’s grace, provision, wisdom, and comfort have been on display throughout. At our church, easily half of the people lost their jobs. It has been beautiful how church members with very little have made sacrifices to provide jobs or resources for their brothers and sisters in Christ even when that meant less food on their own tables. Our family has been taken care of both physically and financially during this time too enabling us to be on the front lines to help with spiritual, emotional, physical, and financial needs.

 

Growing as a family.

We have had more time to engage in the lives of our children in their schooling and create some fun family moments together as we spend more time together at the house.

 

Thank you for your continued support – financially and through prayer and encouragement.

 

We wish your family a wonderful and blessed Christmas celebrating the birth of our amazing King!

Ministry Through Our Kid's Eyes

We wanted to share a little bit about what ministry looks like through the eyes of our children:

Rebecca (14 years old, living on the mission field since age 3)

“Life in ministry in the city can be very busy, but we get to help lots of people. Sometimes it is hard to adapt from one culture to another and always be ready and willing to help everyone, but it has been a good experience.”

Justice (12 years old, living on the mission field since age 1)

“I feel very fortunate. Whenever I have questions about God, I can just ask my dad or mom and they can help me. I like to do things like make videos for church and earn extra money for helping with things. I feel like the church is my second home and second family.”

Beniah (6 years old, born on the mission field)

“I don’t know. I like going to the beach.”

Angela (14 years old, brought into the mission field at age 13)

“You [Chad & Fabiola] help so many people and I see you pray for them. Where I use to live it was very different, people didn’t really pray for me or for anyone. We get to help people be better people and bless them. I don’t see anything bad, just lots of good because we are helping so much.”

This month please lift our family up in prayer. We strongly believe that ministry is about relationships. We also believe that our first ministry is to God and then our family. When these relationships are strong and healthy then we will be able to truly pour out blessing and be that needed light in darkness. We are doing well but see burn out and moral failure and brokenness all around us and want to be a model family, sustained by God’s love and grace so that we can reach more for Him.

Normally in these letters we ask for prayer for leaders or pastors we are working with, some ministry event that is coming up (i.e. church plant school) or for the big issues facing people in poverty in the city. No doubt these prayers are still desperately needed, but this month we want to ask for concentrated prayer over our children, marriage, schooling, friendships, health, relationship with God and anything else that God brings to your mind for us…so that we can continue to pour out and give the very best to those that usually only get left overs and crumbs.

Thank you! Be well and know you are loved!