Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  We can’t believe another year is coming to an end and 2018 is almost here!  We hope you are doing wonderful and enjoyed Thanksgiving with family and friends. 

God is so good!  We are so humbled when we think back upon this year and see how the Lord has been moving, changing hearts, bringing people to Him and allowing us to be a part of His purposes.  We love seeing lives changed by the love of Jesus and it is a true joy to be used by Him to reach the city around us! Whether through partnering with others to fight sex trafficking, equipping churches to reach Los Angeles or adoption/foster-care ministry—the need is so great.

A young 16 year old girl, Estelle, near us in Covina impacted our lives recently.  Estelle was living with her mom, who is addicted to drugs, and shared how her mom was faced with a decision.  Use the money they had to care for Estelle or use the money for drugs.  Estelle’s mom chose the drugs.  Estelle’s heart broke—she felt worthless and not cared for, she felt that the drugs meant more to her mom then she did—so she decided to commit suicide.  Estelle  swallowed a bottle of pills and closed her eyes.  Praise God her father ended up coming to the home soon after and found her.  He rushed her to the hospital and the doctors were able to save her.

Soon after, Estelle heard about an event we were helping with called “A Night With God” at a local church.  She came, heard the gospel and accepted the Lord into her life!  Estelle has hope now, was baptized and is going to church.  Estelle has a purpose for living and is experiencing the Lord’s presence and love within her.  Seeing lives changed for the Gospel is our greatest passion and we rejoice in Estelle coming to know Jesus this year ! Thank you for being a part of changing Estelle’s life… bringing her hope and peace and a purpose in her life to live for Jesus! Feel free to click on the link to hear Estelle share her testimony briefly.

 
https://youtu.be/aaQE0lZd6-o

We greatly appreciate the sacrifices you are making on our behalf through your prayers and financial gifts. We can not be a part of seeing lives change here in Los Angeles without you.  THANK YOU!

This year our financial support has fallen because all giving is voluntary and we understand when circumstances change and people are no longer able to give.  We recently have been receiving short paychecks and working hard in raising additional monthly support. If you are able and would prefer to make a contribution online please go to our secure Cru giving page at     https://give.cru.org/0487483 and follow the simple instructions.

We consider it a great privilege to share our prayer needs as well!  We are grateful and take comfort in knowing you are standing with us for the gospel and for lives like Estelle. Thank you!

Because we consider it a special privilege to seek the Lord on your behalf please respond to this email and let us know how we can be praying for you as well during this holiday season.  Thank you for considering and may you have a wonderful, blessed Christmas celebrating our Lord! 

In Christ’s Love,

Joseph, Michelle,  Luke, Daniel. Jessica and Aleeya Butlig

Una Noche Con Dios –  A Night with God

 In the beginning of October we had the opportunity to partner with a church in West Covina that was having an outreach to the community.

Joseph was part of the planning with Pastor Marco and it was exciting to see how the Lord moved through that evening.Joseph was part of a panel speaking about sex trafficking right here in Southern California and helping parents to know the signs of how to prevent trafficking from happening.

We were able to have a sex trafficking survivor we know come and share her story of her bravery, escaping from sex trafficking and how her life has been transformed by Jesus.  She now devotes her life to helping other women escape from trafficking.

We rejoiced in the 5 people who put their faith in Christ that evening after hearing her testimony and Pastor Marco share the gospel!   It was encouraging to see so many come to the event and also hear how Jesus is the God of Miracles!

Please pray for the upcoming Night With God events Joseph is helping Pastor Marco plan.  Pray that many people from Covina and beyond would attend and we would see many more people come to know the Lord!

If you would like to hear a testimony of a girl who came to know Jesus through one of these events check out this link!

https://youtu.be/aaQE0lZd6-o

Reaching the World through Partnerships

Joseph, Pastor Sati Adamu (Nigeria), Pastor Bernard Lobe (Cameroon) with white shirt, and Pastor Davis (Kenya) in blue shirt.

The partnership Joseph is on the leadership team for (LA Reaching LA) is partnering with International   Theological Seminary.  Pastors from overseas come to this seminary to receive theological training. LA Reaching LA is working with Pastor Sati from Nigeria to help him learn more about addiction recovery after Nigerians come to Jesus. Drugs are killing his villages and he needs help to know how to help his people in this way.  We have been taking him to a drug recovery ranch to learn how to implement this ministry back in Nigeria.

Pastor Bernard Lobe desires to start a seminary in Cameroon to train pastors working in church planting within Cameroon.  As he learns in the seminary we are also working with him to help plant Cameroon churches here in Los Angeles and mentoring him in church planting strategies to carry on to his country of Cameroon when he returns.

One of the church planting strategies we are helping these pastors learn is how to use the Jesus Film.  The Jesus Film is a ministry of Cru and shows the story of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke. This can be brought into villages and used as a tool to share the gospel.  We will be giving a Jesus Film Backpack to Pastor Sati,   Pastor Bernard and Pastor Davis to bring back to their countries. Please pray for these pastors.  That their time in seminary and with us would prepare them well to carry the gospel to the countries of Nigeria, Cameroon and Kenya and the Lord would do amazing work in and through them!

Family Update… Special Moments!

Luke’s Homecoming Dance as a Senior -growing up too fast! Jessica is loving her voice lessons and dance classes! Daniel has been improving his guitar through the Azusa Conservatory of Music and Aleeya is on her first soccer team and scored a goal last week!  Life is full and we are very thankful.

This summer Michelle and I celebrated 19 years on staff with Cru! 

We recently returned from our biennial U.S Staff Conference in    Colorado.  There were 4,819 staff (and 2,082 kids!) representing 49 countries present! It was a time that broadened our world vision, equipped us more in ministry and encouraged our souls through the various speakers and seminars. The theme of the conference was “With” and there was an emphasis on oneness and unity within Cru as well as the importance of partnerships with other organizations and  churches to help fulfill the Great Commission.

Jimmy McGee III (director of Impact Movement) shared about lamenting in light of recent social justice issues.

Cru President, Steve Douglass and Judy Douglass sharing with Cru staff

Andy Crouch sharing his heart

Experiencing Encouraging, Powerful Worship times together!

Pastor Eugene Cho talks about partnership and collaboration in the Luke 5:17-20 text.

Thank you so much for your continual prayers, encouragement and support to us. We are very thankful for our time in Colorado growing in our relationships with the Lord and becoming more equipped in ministry. We thank the Lord for you.

This summer Michelle and I will be celebrating 19 years on staff with Cru! There is nothing that brings us greater joy than seeing the Lord work in people’s lives and to see people fall in love with Jesus!  This past year we have been so blessed to celebrate many people coming to faith in Christ! 

One of the churches Joseph has been working with recently celebrated 6 new decisions for Christ on Easter Sunday and 12 baptisms!  Through equipping churches in leadership development, prayer and evangelism within Los Angeles we have been blessed to see these churches reaching the communities around them with the gospel of Jesus and lives are being transformed!

As Joseph helps lead a network of 82 churches, God has helped us to reach out into the many ethnic communities within LA.  These churches are reaching people groups from around the world living right here in Los Angeles: Iranians, Mexicans, Nepalese, Filipinos, Armenians, Koreans, Cambodians and Afghans. We have been blessed to see over 120 people come to Christ through these churches this past year, including 15 High School students from Northview High School—where Pastor Marco (Pastor of a Spanish church in Covina) had spoken at and we had the opportunity to do a sex trafficking  prevention presentation at!

It is hard to imagine that we have been serving with Cru for 19 years this summer!  God has so blessed us throughout these years and we truly believe that our best years of ministry are before us!  That’s one reason why we are so excited about our US Staff Conference in Fort Collins, Colorado this summer.

In addition to some of our ongoing ministry responsibilities we will be attending our required biennial U.S. Staff   Conference this summer, July 14-21, in Fort Collins, Colorado. As we gather with over 5,000 fellow U.S. staff and hear from our leadership, we anticipate that God will broaden our perspective for the world, equip us to be more effective in our ministry roles, and enable us to go forth to bear even more fruit.

We appreciate you prayers for our time traveling to and from Colorado, as well as our time there.  Thank you so very much for your continued prayers, encouragement and support to us as we minister to the communities of Los Angeles!

We pray you will have a wonderful summer as well!

Every day 35,000 children live without a stable family in LA County

Former Foster Youth sharing about their foster home experiences

58% of youth in foster care that will graduate from high school.

60-80% of sex-trafficking victims who have a history of foster care

“What made a Difference in Your Life?”   

– Someone took the time to care (former foster youth)

10 Christian foster care ministries have come together to form a coalition to equip churches to reach the foster care system! Joseph is part of an advisory council giving input to the coalition. This month we were part of the “Ambassador” training equipping 50 people from over 20 churches. To date there are a total of 50 churches that have been through the Ambassador Training.

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Reaching the City…by equipping churches to share the gospel

Of 10 Million people in LA County, roughly 8% are involved in an evangelical church.  That means that up to 9.2 million people are not involved in a gospel preaching church.

  Joseph is on the leadership team of  “LA Reaching LA” (LARLA).  LA Reaching LA is a collaboration of of 82 churches reaching out to 88 cities of Los Angeles County.  Many of the churches are reaching ethnic communities including: Iranians, Mexicans, Nepalese, Filipinos, Armenians, Koreans, Cambodians and Afghans.  God has blessed LARLA as well in helping to start 10 churches in Nepal and the 8 churches in the Philippines.

This past month Joseph was part of a training time for the pastors of many of these churches—leading them in evangelism training and how to lead their churches to share the gospel.

Los Angeles has 400 distinct people groups   residing within it’s borders. Over 100 languages spoken – making Los Angeles a strategic city to reach to fulfill the Great Commission. 

FAMILY UPDATE~

We now have a Senior in High School, a Sophmore, a 7th Grader and a Kindergartener!  From Senior to Kindergarten—our lives are full, but so wonderful.  The kids are excited to be in summer mode and relaxing more.  Luke is working throughout the summer and loves his job.  This past month we also had Aleeya  dedicated at church and were so blessed to have her former foster mom(Tori) and her fiancée join us for the dedication!  This summer Aleeya will be the flower girl in their  wedding!!

Thank you for your continual prayers and support to us.  We are so very thankful!

We praise God for the 6 new baptisms through Solid Rock Church in Claremont this Easter!  Joseph has been working with Pastor Ruben at Solid Rock for almost 2 years and it is such a praise to see this church not only growing but reaching their community around them with the gospel of Jesus!  The mission statement of Solid Rock is: We Make Disciples, Train Leaders and Plant Churches in the  Pomona Valley.  When Joseph first began meeting with Ruben to help him do leadership  development in his church there were 4 leaders and 30 members of the church.  Now  there are 40 leaders and about 150 members!  It is exciting to see the Lord moving in and through Solid Rock Church!  This Easter Sunday Pastor Ruben had the privilege of baptizing 6 new believers and saw 16 people who shared they were interested in learning more about  Jesus or rededicating their lives to the Lord!

Los Angeles has one of the highest rates of human trafficking of any city in the US. Churches across LA are coming together to do something about it!

Joseph is part of the leadership of an organization called FIAT.  Faith Initiative to Abolish Trafficking (FIAT) is a gathering of churches who have been called to fight human trafficking in LA. FIAT meets quarterly with members of the Southern CA faith community to host workshops for training, outreach and awareness.  Recently FIAT became part of the Los Angeles Human Trafficking Task Force. The LA Task Force now consists law enforcement, CAST (provides service providers for survivors of trafficking) and FIAT (training/outreach).

Just this past February a sting was done with 474 arrested and 28 sexually exploited children rescued during a statewide human trafficking operation done by the LA Human Trafficking task force.  Please pray for us as Joseph is part of the leadership of FIAT and FIAT is now under the LA Human Trafficking Task Force.  Pray the faith community would come together to serve and share the love of Jesus with those who are being trafficked.

Lead Sheriff for the LA Trafficking Task Force Sharing

Joseph on a panel at our recent FIAT gathering

FAMILY UPDATE~

We just celebrated One Year with Aleeya in our family!  It has gone by so fast and we praise God for the ways she has become a part of us and grown in knowing she is loved deeply by her family and Jesus!

Joseph and I also celebrated our 18 year Anniversary!  We are thankful for the years God has blessed us with and this amazing adventure He has called us to as we serve Him together!

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!  

Reaching the City…Through L.A Reaching L.A

 Joseph is on the leadership team of  “LA Reaching LA” (LARLA). In a little over a year LARLA has a network of 55 churches reaching out to 88 cities of Los Angeles County.  These are multi-ethnic churches reaching the inner city, Muslims, young professionals, hipsters and the  wealthy areas of LA.  The churches are also reaching people groups from around the world living right here in Los Angeles:  including: Iranians, Mexicans, Nepalese, Filipinos, Armenians, Koreans, Cambodians and Afghans.  God has blessed LARLA as well in helping to start churches internationally in Mexico, Guatemala, Nepal and the Philippines! Over 100 people have made decisions for Jesus this past year through the churches!   We  recently were a part of the one year celebration of “LA Reaching LA” and it was so encouraging to see the many churches celebrating how the Lord has been using them in their communities, as well as hearing testimonies of many who left the life of drugs and crime to come to Jesus! Please pray for many more to be reached as we provide training, resources and help to pastors reaching their community..  Here is a great video of one church worshipping the Lord  during the celebration dinner!     https://youtu.be/PdPkHYO71Nk

Reaching the City… Through Helping Churches Reach Their Community

ThriveLA is a new church in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. Joseph has been meeting with Pastor Andrew to encourage, pray over different neighborhoods with him, engage in spiritual conversations with people in the neighborhoods, and discuss leadership development, training in starting a church, church structure, evangelism and discipleship.  Silver Lake is an area with many unreached young professionals and millennials.  ThriveLA has been intentionally reaching out to the community and recently began a book club in a Café that has over 30 people attending that they are building  relationships with!  They also began a bible study on marriage and dating that is drawing many from the community.  Please pray for the many young professionals and millennials that do not have a desire for church—that they would come to know the Lord!

Reaching the City… Rescuing One Girl at a Time!

A young girl rescued from sex trafficking!  Our hearts are overflowing with thankfulness to see a young 16 year old girl rescued from the horrible world of sex trafficking right here in our city.  This January we partnered with EveryOne Free again to host our third clinic in the city of  Pomona reaching out to girls and women caught in the sex trafficking industry and desiring help.  There were different local organizations present with recovery resources, mental health services, Christian safe houses, as well as clothing, hygiene products and food. In-n-out burgers blessed the women with free food.  We praise God that at this past clinic one young girl from our area came seeking help and returned home and was reunited with her mother!

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

Another huge answer to prayers is how the Lord has opened so many doors for us 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 this past month 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! Praise God they were able to share at Claremont High School and Northview High School this month and have more schools lined up within Pasadena and Anaheim soon!

Family Update…

Finished up another season of Freshman and JV Basketball!

A good friend is teaching Jessica how to ride and she loves it!  We also just celebrated 10 months with this precious daughter of ours!

Thank you so much for your continual prayers and support to us as we reach out to Los Angeles with the life changing message of Jesus!

Reaching the City…through training pastors to reach their city

Joseph has recently partnered with an organization, LA reaching LA—that  focuses on training and encouraging pastors to reach out to their cities.  He  recently was a part their monthly connection roundtable time where he met with 3 various pastors in this area for prayer, training and sharing with one  another about how their churches were doing.  This roundtable time is in the San Gabriel Valley and there is another one focused in the Los Angeles, East Hollywood area as well.  The picture on the left is of Pastor Jose (West Covina), Pastor Marco (Covina) and Pastor Emmanuel (Pasadena).  Pastor Jose and Pastor Marco have a huge heart to reach the Spanish speaking population in their areas and their churches have both an English and now a Spanish speaking service.  Pastor Emmanuel is from Nigeria that has come to America to begin a multi-ethnic church in the Pasadena area.  Please pray for these pastors that Joseph is helping to encourage and train as they reach out to their cities.  Please also pray for his partnership with “LA reaching LA” as he is now a part of building up a training center for pastors here in Glendora.

Reaching the City…   through helping women come out of sex trafficking

This October we were able to be a part of     partnering with EveryOne Free Ministry to host our second clinic in the Pomona area for women in the trafficking industry desiring to get help.  Survivors of trafficking went out every day in the week prior handing out hand sanitizers with the information to our clinic, engaging in conversations with women and inviting them to come seek help.  On the day of we had representatives from many organizations and ministries available to serve the women.  These included: Celebrate Recovery, mental health services, APU nursing footcare, Medical care practitioners to care for the women and offer STD testing, Christian Safe Houses; as well as clothing, hygiene products and food for the women.  We saw about 10 people come throughout the day looking for help.  We are continuing to pray and seek God for the best way to reach out to these women here in the Pomona area.  We plan to host another clinic in January in the evening time to see if we can reach more women at that time.  Thank you for continuing to pray that the Lord would bring freedom to these women and into a relationship with Him!

Family Update!

We are loving the start of Fall!  It is so fun to see Aleeya’s “Firsts” as she experiences everything with us!  We had a fun trip to a pumpkin patch and choosing Halloween costumes. Daniel had his first experience being on the worship team for the main church services and did a great job! Luke is preparing for his Homecoming Dance (aaahhh!!) and continuing to practice driving.  Jessica continues to amaze us with her care for her little sister and gentle spirit and    Aleeya is attaching to us in amazing ways and beginning to construct more 4-5 word sentences! We are so thankful for the support and prayers of so many for the ministry and for our family.    Thank you!