Church Planting Legend ‘Loved Everyone No Matter What’

Don approached Joseph about 2 years ago and asked him to help lead a church planting organization called LARLA (Los Angeles Reaching Los Angeles).  Little did we know that through our partnership with LARLA our ministry would be so blessed and our lives so touched by the founder, Don Overstreet.  Don quickly became a friend and mentor to Joseph as a man who loved Jesus deeply and had given his entire life to serve Him in Los Angeles and around the world.  He was a part of launching more than 500 churches worldwide in his 50 years of ministry and his heart’s cry was to love everyone no matter what.  To share the love of Jesus with all.  Don passed away in December and we were blessed to share in his Celebration of Life and saw hundreds of lives he had touched right here in LA. Please pray for, LARLA, that Don had founded.  It is continuing with our leadership team and we are praying the Lord would continue to use it to saturate Los Angeles with the love of Jesus through the churches. What God has done in a little over 2 years is incredible and God is still moving powerfully ! We wanted to share some amazing praises of what the Lord has done through LARLA these past 2 years and through our leadership team (pictured below) pouring into the lives of pastors throughout LA.

We are currently working with 115 new churches! 62 in LA County and 50 all over the world. We have helped start indigenous churches all over LA.

• 20 Spanish Speaking Churches
• 7 Iranian-Armenian Churches
• 2 Nepali Churches
• 1 Nigerian Church
• 1 Kenyan Church
• 31 Multi-Cultural Churches
• And around the world in: Nepal, Philippines, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Tanzania, Cameroon, Kenya, Northern India, and Thailand.
• We have  Provided 35 Jesus Film backpacks, 4 sets of puppets (to India and Cameroon) and a motor scooter for a church planter in the Philippines.

Gospel Changes Lives from Slavery to Hope

I praise you, for I am fearfully and  wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. –  Psalm 139:14

Michelle has had the blessing of being able to be a  spiritual mentor to women in a trafficking ministry (Redeeming Love) that we are partnered with.  Redeeming Love has a safe house where women are rescued from trafficking and find peace, trauma therapy, education or job skills training, healing and experience the love of Jesus.  Each week she is part of a Bible Study with these women for exploring the faith and she also meets weekly with the ladies for spiritual mentorship.  *M and *S are 2 women in the program who recently gave their lives over to Jesus and were baptized!  God is so good! Please pray for their love for Jesus and desire to follow Him.  Please pray for these ladies as they heal from so much intense trauma, finish their high school diploma, gain job skills and begin college, and allow the Lord to heal the deep pains in their lives.  Please pray for Michelle as she loves on them and helps them seek the Lord with their questions, process life and help them to continue to grow in their relationships with the Lord.

As we do believe that every past can be redeemed, repurposed and made new.

Family Update…

Luke is awaiting college news and continuing to pray about his next steps.  Daniel is now doing track at the High School as well as recently competed in a Skills USA competition in videotech. He did a great job scoring 14th out of 65.  Aleeya has begun a jazz dance class and loves it and Jess continues to love her dance classes.  Life is full! Thank you for your encouragement, prayers and support to us and the ministry here in Los Angeles!