Supporting Their Vision

This month we ask for prayer for a training we will be doing in Mexico with Pastor Daniel. Pastor Daniel has a vision to plant 500 churches. In under 10 years he has raised up a great network of pastors and leaders and has planted over 40 churches (reaching over 1,000 people). When he found out about our church plant school he asked if we would come down and train some of his key leaders so that they could use our resources to equip and empower more leaders throughout Mexico and Latin America. They don’t have a lot of resources, but they do have a lot of heart and we are inspired that they see barriers more like hurdles to go over than something that stops them in their tracks.

On the other side of the US, in Miami, and the other side of Latin America, in Columbia, we are launching two more church plant schools with a couple that we trained last year, Javier and Martha. Please keep them in prayer as they prepare to train over 60 church planters. One team that is being trained in Miami has a vision to plant in Cuba, those in Columbia want to start new churches all throughout that country. Join us in praying for these laborers who so eagerly serve the Lord in the expansion of the Gospel and for fruitfulness in the harvest through their efforts.

This month we will also be training a core group of leaders at a local church that serves the community near where we live. Each of the pastors and key leaders will be going through our Trauma Training and once trained want to take everyone in their church through a Healing Group that deals with how to heal from all types of heart wounds from a Biblical perspective.

A huge thank you to everyone that has been praying with us about our housing issues and move. In just two weeks’ time we had a fire behind our house destroying the homeless encampment and a large portion of our neighbor’s fence and yard, 2 broken car windows, a break-in/things stollen from our minivan (different vehicle than broken windows), a broken washing machine, and the stove stopped working…and we still haven’t moved to the new house due to safety issues and other complications. Living out of boxes in a part of the city that just doesn’t play fair has been difficult, but we are thankful for what we do have – which when we sit and think about it is so much compared to many of our neighbors and people around the world.

 Please join us in praying for:

 

·        Pastor Daniel and our Evangel Dean School to train pastors that will train church planters in Mexico and beyond.

·        Pastor Javier’s two Evangel Schools of Urban Church Planting in Columbia and Miami.

·        Pastor Alex and Octavio and the team from La Viña as they go through the Trauma Training and beyond.

·        Our move to be a blessing and create a safe and comfortable space where our family and ministry can thrive.

 

Thank you so much for your prayers and financial support that make this ministry possible.

Exponential Expansion

Karen is a single mother from El Salvador who was invited to our church by a lady that found us herself looking for help for her child as she was adapting to a new life in the US. When our church offered a Trauma Healing Group offered through our work with World Impact, Karen was eager to attend with her friend. They both grew a lot in the following weeks – learning basic biblical and mental health principles related to trauma care. They also dug deeper in important topics like forgiveness and skills like active listening.

After eight weeks both women were feeling the change and renewed hope as well as the desire to share this training with others. So along with a group of 6 other people that we had gathered from other groups we have led we trained them to form and lead their own Healing Groups. Since then, this group has trained people in numerous cities, states and countries. One of the ladies that was in Karen’s first group is Maria and she is also taking what she has learned to share with others – she brainstormed 89 people to invite for her first few groups and since has expanded her list considerably.

Maria works with a group of international chaplains that minister in jails, hospitals, shelters, half-way houses, homes for women recovering from abuse, prostitution, addiction and more. We have partnered up to offer not only Healing Groups but Trauma Training for these chaplains so that they can bring practical tools to those most in need. As the reach multiplies and the testimonies come in, we are reminded of how being faithful with the little and loving the person that is in front of you is God’s wisdom for seeing lasting change in communities.

We appreciate your partnership more than you know because it allows us to love, serve, equip and empower women like Karen and Maria and countless others as they reach areas that none of us have access to – from the homeless on streets in Columbia to women leaving the sex trade in Florida and beyond.

 PRAY WITH US ABOUT:

 

·        Continued growth of the Trauma Healing program. We have been working almost single-handedly at building a network of trainers in Spanish (aside from what we do in English) so that our reach can continue to grow far and wide throughout the US and Latin America and beyond.

 

·        We mentioned the fires and other problems behind our home in the last letter.

Here is an LA Times article we were interviewed for (just a little bit at the end) related to the fires: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-05-12/surge-in-fires-at-la-homeless-encampments-growing-crisis

 

 

·        A strong start for our children at school this month. Rebecca enters her junior year. Angela will be at her high school IN PERSON for the first time as a sophomore (her school never opened during COVID). Justice is starting his high school career (freshman year). And Beniah continues growing as a 2^nd grader.

Church Planting Testimonies

As we stated in our last letter, we want to share some more details about the teams we have been training to lead church plant schools.

• Javier & Martha, who we mentioned last time, are working with us to start a school for church planters in Florida and then they want to do something in Ecuador, Columbia, and Honduras. Their goal is to have two schools per year (one in the US and one abroad).

• An international prison ministry who served nearly 350,000 prisoners in 2020 and is in prisons in 30 countries wants to plant churches inside the prisons all over the world. Our dean school is helping them launch into that work.

• Jean Pierre, a Haitian who lives in New Jersey, is planning on not only training church planters in NJ, but also going 4 or more times a year into his ravaged homeland to train church plant teams there. For years helping others plant churches has been on his heart and now the potential to see 10s, if not 100s of churches is real.

• Our team from Kenya had 8 church planters representing a diverse swath of their country all eager to learn how to help others plant more churches and reach more of their nation for Jesus.

• Sudipta's ministry in India is taking people "from hopeless end to endless hope" in what he says is "a nation where millions of people perish every day without knowing the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." He is thrilled to be able to equip more church planters to help move their vision forward in reaching India for Jesus. 

• Our US partners are in major cities from coast to coast where they are working with their networks to see more churches planted. They share our burden to reach out to and equip and empower under-resourced urban leaders so that these communities will be transformed by the Gospel. We are believing with them that areas that have been plagued by racial division and economic disparities can emerge as places where God’s Kingdom is advancing, and the flavors of heaven come to earth.

We are humbled to be able to train and equip so many wonderful leaders full of vision and heart through our Dean School and we can’t wait to see how many churches are planted in the coming years as a result.

Thank you for your prayers and generous financial support that helps us get affordable resources to these precious partners as well as be able to dedicate our time to put on these intensive trainings. We know that the message of God’s love, hope and restoration will continue to be multiplied throughout barrios, cities, prisons, and slums – the darkest edges and neediest corners – due to our combined efforts as we lean into and are led by the Holy Spirit. Thank you!

Lastly, would you lift up our community and housing situation. Throughout COVID the number of people without homes living behind our home has greatly increased. As a result, there have been 6 major fires (burning down trees, fences, trash, etc.). We are working with other city, and community leaders for solutions for people without homes looking for a place to stay warm and cook their meals and we appreciate your prayer covering for safety and guidance.

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.