September 2017

Posted on September 20, 2017 by mb

Sex and Success Doubt Night Outreach!

Joseph helped plant Epiphany LA Church and has been helping Pastor Tommy get ready for their first Doubt Night. The vision behind this event was to create a space where members of the community could come and voice their opinions on sex and success and how the church interacts with these topics. It was encouraging to see people from the area gather at the KAOS Theatre in South LA to hear from spoken word artists, singers, and rappers expressing themselves through their art. Panel discussions also took place addressing questions on sex and success from a biblical perspective.

Please continue to pray for Epiphany LA Church as they follow up on those who came to the outreach. Please pray for Joseph as he continues to partner with them to do evangelism and leadership training to help them reach the community around them. If you would like to hear from one of the artists click this link to see some from the outreach! Doubt Night Video

Reaching the World through Partnerships

Being in leadership with LA Reaching LA, Joseph not only helps train pastors here but also partners with pastors who reach out overseas. Pastor Krishna, who is also on leadership with Joseph, was given a Cru Jesus Film backpack. He travels to Nepal multiple times a year to share the gospel, deliver mosquito nets to prevent malaria, help women who have escaped sex trafficking begin microbusinesses of chicken farms to support themselves, show the Jesus Film to the villages, and bring relief from natural disasters.

Pastor Krishna returned from 3 weeks in West Nepal and shared with us that he saw 162 people come to know the Lord and 5 churches started utilizing the Jesus Film from Cru in the area! A week after he returned a terrible Monsoon flooded the area. Homes and churches were destroyed. 134 people died. Please pray for them as they recover. We are grateful to be part of LA Reaching LA, a movement of churches, pastors and church planters sharing the gospel in LA and around the world.

This is a chart Pastor Krishna showed Joseph after returning from Nepal. This Leadership Building chart is Amazing! It shows the regions of Nepal, the number of churches per region, number of believers and baptisms per region and internships for raising up more pastors! 6 Regions, 25 Pastors, 12 Lay Pastors, 25 Churches, 12 House Churches, 860 Believers and 529 Baptisms! And 48 Internships! God is doing some amazing work in Nepal!

Thank you for all your support and prayers to us as we continue to reach out here in Los Angeles! Please pray for us as we know have a Kindergartner and a Senior, with 7th and 10th grade in between! Life is full and we are so thankful for all the Lord is doing in our lives and through the ministry.

Ethiopia Update

Posted on February 2, 2014 by mb

Ethiopia

Thank you so much for praying!

Thank you so much for praying for the future of adoption in Ethiopia. As we shared in our last email update the officials in Ethiopia were meeting and discussing the possibility of ending all international adoptions from Ethiopia. Ethiopia is a country with of the largest populations of orphans in the world: 13 percent of children throughout the country are missing one or both parents. This represents an estimated 4.6 million children – 800,000 of whom were orphaned by HIV/AIDS. (UNICEF)

With millions of orphans in Ethiopia alone our hearts were breaking with the possibility that they may no longer allow international adoptions. But, we are so happy to report that ET has decided to continue with adoptions! Here is the update from our agency!

“This week, a meeting was held by the Adoption Network (collection of agency representatives around the world working in Ethiopia) and MOWA (Ministry of Women, Youth and Children’s Affairs). The Network and MOWA meet fairly regularly but what made this particular meeting newsworthy is that Minister Zenebu and other high level MOWA officials went on record saying that there is no plan to stop adoptions.

Instead of closing or decreasing adoptions, they are focused on continued efforts to eliminate bad practices in Ethiopia. The rest of the news indicated that the Minister expected work to continue “as normal.” So, this is WONDERFUL NEWS! And we are THRILLED! Here is the announcement that has been broadcast all over this week:

Very positive news coming from Ethiopia. Yesterday Minister Zenebu, along with other high level MOWCYA officials, met with agency network representatives. In this meeting it was clearly expressed from Minister Zenebu that she does not plan to work to stop adoptions, but desires to focus on eliminating bad practice in Ethiopian adoptions and focus on good practice. She stated that both MOWCYA and the Ethiopian Government do not plan to shut down adoptions within Ethiopia. She encouraged agencies to continue their work as normal.”

Thank you so much for praying with us as we await our adoption from Ethiopia as well.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

Cru Conference in Colorado!

Posted on August 12, 2013 by mb

We recently returned from our trip to Colorado for our biennial Cru staff conference. It was a wonderful time of hearing from our national leadership, hearing stories of how the Lord is working around the world, amazing worship. challenging seminars and connecting with friends from all over the U.S! Joseph and I also enjoyed a Heritage Night – celebrating 15 years on staff with Cru. Click here: cru-at-csu-newsletter to see what the conference was all about!

Serving with Cru in Los Angeles

Posted on July 2, 2013 by mb

Welcome to our home page where we hope you can learn more about us and the ministry we are involved with here in LA. Our ministry relates to what God is doing in Los Angeles, California and how we are blessed to play a role in God’s purposes. We will share with you some encouraging stories as well as some of the challenges and disappointments that we all experience.

It is our desire that this would be a place where you could be kept updated on our lives here in Los Angeles, see pictures on how our children are growing and hear all the Lord is doing through our ministry here in Los Angeles. We hope you enjoy your time looking around!!

Cru City Los Angeles

Make Jesus known – Multiply the Church – Serve the City

Category Archives: Family