Happy New Year! We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. 2023 definitely was a challenging year for us but we are thankful for all the ways the Lord held us close, provided all we needed and continued to move in our lives and in the healing of Joseph. Thank you for all your continual prayers and support to us.
One recent praise was being a part of seeing a family come to Christ through an outreach we had in partnership with Pastor Marco at Christ First Espanol! A woman in the community, Pilar, saw a video Pastor Marco had created, which advertised an outreach Joseph and him had designed and planned. Pilar and her entire family came to the outreach, heard the gospel and all of them accepted Christ! The whole family was recently baptized and now Pilar and her family are actively involved at Christ First Church. She and her husband are going through marriage counseling with Pastor Marco and Pilar is serving faithfully every Sunday on the hospitality team serving coffee to those coming to church. She is involved in a woman’s small group and her family is eager to grow in Christ together. Lives forever changed are the lives of Pilar and her family! Pilar also served at our most recent Christmas outreach at Christ First, participating in the drama skit.
Pastor Marco and Joseph planned a Christmas play outreach where they adapted the Scrooge Christmas story. In this play the main character is an unbeliever. He is visited each night by 2 different ghosts, who encourage him to be selfish, greedy and mean-hearted to his family and employees. One the third night he is visited by an angel, who brings him face to face with God. In this conversation God asks him to repent and believe in His Son, Jesus. The main character wakes up from his dream with a chance to repent and ask for forgiveness.
We had a full house of people from the church and community. We know of three new families who were there and heard the gospel through the play for the first time. Please pray for them to continue to learn about Jesus and to give their lives to him like Pilar and her family recently have! Please also pray for the upcoming Valentines outreach Joseph and Pastor Marco have begun to plan for the Spanish community surrounding the church.
January is National Human Trafficking Awareness Month.
Human trafficking is the exploitation of human beings through force, fraud, or coercion for the purposes of commercial sex or forced labor for the benefit of their traffickers. Within the United States, California ranks 1st in reported sex trafficking cases, with Los Angeles County being one of, if not the largest, area of this reality occurring sadly.
As we partner with EveryOne Free here in Pomona, Michelle serves as a case manager reaching out to numerous trafficked women continually and managing 20-30 women’s cases. The numbers are so great and the need for help is so high. It has been such a gift to be able to walk alongside survivors, help them see their true worth in Jesus and find resources they need to take next steps towards healing, safety and growth. Serving survivors can take an emotional toll as well for the pain is so deep and it is an uphill battle at times—but the Lord has been so good to give us glimpses of hope and recovery as we see lives changed. Here is one email Michelle recently received from a young woman she served the past couple years who is now thriving.
Hi Michelle! I would like to say that EveryOne Free staff are some of the best ladies I have ever met in my life. The affirmation sheet you gave me I keep up on my wall and it is super useful. In that alone, I was helped in finding self-value. The classes were super informational, the facilitators were understanding, sympathetic, and compassionate. I learned a lot from each class and each person, and I will remember this experience forever.
Besides that, you ladies provided value and continuous healing when I moved across the country and was searching for help. I was going to have to go back home but my case manager, Michelle, helped me find resources to ground and land safely beyond my expectations. I can’t thank her enough and I’m happy that there is a program out there such as this. I felt valued, I felt heard, I felt helped. Thank you again!
*Leslie is now working in management at Target after completing her GED and starting college classes for business!
Thank you also so much for your continual prayers and financial support for us and the ministry here in Los Angeles. We are truly grateful for each of you and are blessed.
Cru City Los Angeles 