Reaching the City…through bringing the Gospel to Foster Children

 “Every day 21,000 children live without a stable family in LA County.  Their desperation and God’s clear call to care for them, is our motivation.  These precious children and youth need mentors.  They need friends.  They need advocates.  They need prayer warriors.  They need parents.  They need hope.  They need Jesus.”  (Coalition of Christian Foster Care Ministries) We are very thankful to be a part of a coalition of foster care ministries focused on reaching out and caring for the thousands of children in the foster care system here in Los Angeles.  The goal is to engage and equip pastors/church leaders (ambassadors) to help them start a foster care/adoption ministry at their church.  The coalition then equips these ambassadors to empower the congregation to participate in foster care ministry, connects them with opportunities through Info Fairs to serve the foster youth of LA and offers ongoing support to ambassadors and churches as needed.   Joseph is part of the Advisory Counsel for the coalition advising the various ministries in strategy, how to work together, effectiveness and problem solving.  As of now there are 30 churches and 65 people within LA County who have been trained as ambassadors!

Daniel Svedas—division chief of LA County Dept of Children and Family Service (DCFS) sharing with the Coalition of his desires for the gov’t and churches to work together.  How the city needs community partners to help the foster care youth of Los Angeles.

Coalition Partners!

Covenant for Kids (helping foster youth be a part of local churches)
Finally Home (equipping foster care families)
Fostering Hope LA (equipping foster youth aging out of the system)
Home Forever (supports children and families in the foster care system)
Impacting Hearts (youth clubs for the foster youth)
KidBridge (equipping foster care families)
1 Life 1 Child (providing basic necessities for children and families)
Royal Family Kids (provides camps and mentors for children from abuse situations)
Teen Leadership Foundation (mobilizing the church to mentor/help teens in foster care)
Olive Crest (foster care agency)

Reaching the City…by empowering teens to be advocates to fight sex trafficking!

This month Joseph had the opportunity to continue to do sex trafficking prevention in the public junior high and high schools of high risk areas throughout Los Angeles County! Joseph and EveryOne Free ministry have been sharing at numerous schools these past few months and teachers and principals are eager to have them come and share.  California accounts for nearly 20% of all sex trafficking cases being reported in the United States.  Sex Trafficking cases have increased 300% since 2012.  The average age of a girl to be trafficked is 12-14 and a boy is 11-13 years old.  Prevention is so important!  This month they were able to share at Pasadena High School and Dale Junior High in Anaheim!  It continues to humble and amaze us to see students and teachers desire to be a part of fighting trafficking as the teacher in Anaheim came up to us after the presentation and was so eager to share how she is going to begin an Anti-Trafficking Club at the Junior High to make sure all kids are aware of trafficking and will not be lured into it.  We also had the privilege of having the leader of a survivor outreach team, Kelly, share with the students her powerful testimony and a group of APU students from the “Free the Captives” club perform a skit “You’re Beautiful” on trafficking and how kids are lured into it.  https://youtu.be/ZqPQDB9uX3Y

SUsan (history teacher) who now is starting a anti-trafficking club at the junior high and the students of the Junior High we were able to share with!

Family Update…

Some new milestones in the Family!

We recently celebrated Jessica’s 12th birthday!!  Luke is now driving—it is a whole new world for him. Aleeya continues to grow in her speech and keeps us laughing all the time!  Daniel has been  enjoying more time with his music now that basketball is over—we love hearing him play and compose!