Brother and Sister (*Walt & *Annie)

Abused Verbally & Physically by their mother.

Watching their mom sell herself to make money.

Is there hope for this brother and sister?

We recently hosted a Foster Care Info Fair with the Foster Care Coalition that we are a part of.  This brother and sister shared their story and how others made a difference in their lives growing up.  They shared how a believer sponsored Annie to go to a “Royal Family Kid Camp” where she began to find hope.  She then went on to become a Christian in High School .  Another believer invited her to church and Annie began to experience a new family for her and her brother.  Walt worked hard ever since he was young and paid for his sister’s cross-country fees (she ran to relieve the stress and abuse she felt at home).  He also paid for her college at Cal State Fullerton—and she went to graduate with a child development degree. 

Only 3% of foster youth graduate college and only 50% graduate from High School. 

These foster youth have risen above their circumstances.  Because people cared to get involved and love them they came to know Jesus! They experienced a new family of believers in their lives, graduated high school and college and are leading healthy lives now. 

We are thankful to be able to be a part of helping foster children find hope. Because of your faithful prayers and support to us we are able to serve full-time and share the love of Jesus here in Los Angeles.   To see lives changed. 

This gives us great anticipation for all the Lord will do in 2022! He continues to provide opportunities for greater impact and broader scope, and we continue to trust Him for the resources to match that vision. As you may know, year-end giving is significant to our overall budget for our family and ministry here in Los Angeles. This year, we are trusting the Lord for an additional $6,000 in year-end gifts.

We are humbled to continually experience God’s provisions and care for us for these past 23 years in ministry!  If you are able to help – you can go to: http://give.cru.org/0487483 and follow the instructions. Or you can text “Joseph Butlig” to 71326 for a link to give online.  If you prefer to write a check, please make it payable to ‘Cru’ with our account number #0487483 and mail it to our home. However, the Lord may lead you to respond, we are grateful for all your prayers and support.  Thank you! 

We hope you have a wonderful Christmas Season celebrating Jesus!

RIGHT NOW…THERE ARE 30,000 CHILDREN IN FOSTER CARE IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY

This November we will be hosting a Foster Care Info Fair in the Los Angeles area.  We are excited to be able to hold these once again in person—as they had been on hold due to Covid the past year.  We are a part of the Foster Care Coalition here in Los Angeles and Joseph has been meeting and planning with the other leaders for this Info Fair and Ambassador training ! The Mission of the Coalition is: to connect the family of Christ in Los Angeles with the children in foster care who desperately need them. We work to awaken churches and individual Christians to the needs of these kids, and to educate them about the many opportunities to make a difference. Our “Info Fairs” provide an overview of the foster care system, and bring together ministries and agencies that offer a variety of ways to get involved. We also provide a list of local opportunities on our website. In addition, we train interested individuals to be “Foster Care Ambassadors” for their church — designated point people equipped to be a resource for their church, able to provide information and guidance to anyone with a heart for kids living in foster care.  

https://www.fostercarecoalition.com

Joseph and members of the coalition planning meeting via zoom for the Info Fair this November

Please pray for this Info Fair and Ambassador Training the beginning of November.  That many people would come and gain a heart for these children in Foster Care and desire to be a part of their lives, even in some small way.

Michelle was recently asked to become the Case Manager for sex trafficking survivors for EveryOne Free here in Pomona.  We have partnered with EveryOne Free over the years in helping to fight against sex trafficking in LA through the public school trafficking awareness classes Joseph would lead, as well as helping to open up a Justice Center here in Pomona for trafficked women to seek help at.  Michelle will now be part of their Diversion Program as their case manager—meeting with survivors to provide resources and help.

Michelle has also recently been part of a six week Case Manager Certification program through the state of California that provides in depth training, analysis, and discussion of the needs of victims and survivors of sex trafficking.  It was an intense 6 weeks covering topics such as: public policy/legislation, pimp culture, law enforcement collaboration, history of human trafficking, community referrals, rape trauma and healing, trauma informed care, working with families of victims of child abuse, a survival panel and so much more. We are excited for this new partnership with Michelle as their case manager as it allows her to walk in her passions of ministering to women in pain and helping them to find freedom from sex trafficking and healing through Jesus.

Thank you for your prayers, support & encouragement to us! We appreciate you so very much.  Please let us know if we can be praying for you in anyway as well. We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.  Psalm 107:1

Joseph recently helped serve locally with the NAMB (North American Mission Board) Assessments. This is a time where church planters are assessed in their church planting readiness in nine essential areas.  These are: calling, emotional and spiritual health, family dynamics, vision, leadership, preaching, missional engagement, disciple-making and social skills. Joseph served as a coach for the assessors who are evaluating the qualifications for the church planters. There were 8 couples that we assessed this Fall located throughout Southern California.

Restructure of Cru Church Movements

As a part of the National Leadership Team Joseph is helping our ministry, Cru Church Movements, restructure into regions throughout the United States.  Because we are growing in size it will serve us better to care for the staff by regions.  Joseph and another staff member on the National Leadership Team, Todd, will be the Regional Directors for the West Coast and South Coast regions.  They will be overseeing the Cru staff in these regions, shepherding them and partnering with different organizations and  denominations to expand the mission.  Please pray for this restructure—pray for the staff members who will be challenged to new roles and for more in-person  relationships to be developed and a sense of teaming since we will operate in more regional ways.  Pray also for wisdom in the complexity of navigating this national restructure. 

Everyone is back in school!  We moved Daniel into his dorms this past month—a sophomore now but this will be his first year living in the dorms (because of Covid last year).  We are so excited for him and he is loving his roommates and college so far!  Jessica has also started driving with a permit!  How do these kids grow up so fast?

We covet your prayers for our kiddos as they  continue to journey into adulthood.  Please pray for them to love the Lord deeply and desire to follow Him in all areas of their lives.

Recently Joseph met with Pastor Tommy and Daniel (an intern) from Epiphany Church of LA to plan 4 trainings for the core leaders of Epiphany Church.  They are planning to do one training a month. The first training is to assess the leaders to make sure they are utilizing their spiritual gifts, passions and experience.  This was done with the S.H.A.P.E Assessment tool.  It is an assessment tool to help leaders serve in the ways the Lord has created them and called them to.  They look at 5 ways that God has shaped them to be so they are able to best serve God and his kingdom within their passions. These areas are:

S – Spiritual Gifts – What has God supernaturally gifted me to do?        

H – Heart – What do I have passion for and love to do?                          

A – Abilities – What natural talents and skills do I have?                       

P – Personality – Where does my personality best suit me to serve?        

E – Experiences – What spiritual experiences have I had? What painful experiences have I had? What educational experiences have I had? What ministry experiences have I had?

Please continue to pray for Joseph, as he goes through this 5 month training time with Epiphany Church as they develop their leaders in order to reach their community with the love of Jesus.

Institute for Biblical Studies

Working for Cru we are able to take seminary classes designed to equip us for a lifetime of ministry. Joseph just completed his 11 core classes and received his IBS certificate! He has been blessed to take and grow in these classes:

· Intro to Christian Theology

· Biblical Interpretation

· Biblical Communication

· Apologetics

· Bible Study Methods

· New Testament Survey

· Humanity/Christ/Salvation

· Christian Worldview & Ethics

· Global Church History

· Old Testament Survey

· God/Bible/Holy Spirit

We recently were blessed with Dodger tickets from a ministry—CarePortal. Joseph is connected with the CarePortal coordinator of LA through the Foster Care Coalition he serves with—training churches within LA to begin foster care ministry. https://www.fostercarecoalition.com

They had a night where they invited people involved in fostercare to enjoy some Dodgers together!  It was a fun evening with our girls watching baseball.

CarePortal is a technology connecting platform that brings the needs of hurting children and families in your community to your attention. Caseworkers uncover the needs. CarePortal makes local churches and community members aware, giving them a real-time opportunity to respond. https://www.careportal.org/about-us

Thank you for your prayers, support & encouragement to us! We appreciate you so very much.  Please pray for our family as we all transition back to school!  Luke began his senior year at Cal Poly Pomona last week.  Daniel will begin his second year at CBU in a couple weeks, Jessica begins her Junior Year of High School in a few days as well as Aleeya with homeschooling of 4th grade!

Matthew 17:20: Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Reaching the Cities with the Gospel.  Our heart’s desire is to partner with churches in evangelism and discipleship to reach the city with the gospel.  Recently Cru sent a videographer to Los Angeles to film Joseph on how the Lord is using him as a Partnering Church Planter and they created a couple videos to share at our Cru staff conferences. One video is about our partnership with Pastor Marco. Joseph connected with Pastor Marco from Christ First Espanol in Covina and they began to work together to share the love of Jesus with the Covina area. They began hosting Night With God outreaches together and over the years have done evenings focused on   substance abuse, trafficking, religions, depression/suicide, physical abuse and many more topics. Over 20 people came to Christ through the Suicide Night With God and since then 3 support groups have been formed focusing on anxiety and depression.  Another life changed is the life of Martha. Martha shared her testimony at our most recent Night With God and we praise God for her story and how the Lord is moving in her and her families life.  Martha was involved in a very    abusive relationship where she feared for her life. After escaping a near death experience, a friend recommended Pastor Marco’s church to her. She needed community service hours and went to the church for help.  Pastor Marco offered to help and asked her if she had a relationship with the Lord.  She began to cry and asked if she could begin a relationship with the Lord. Her and her whole family came to Christ and were baptized and their lives are changed dramatically. 

Please watch the story Cru created on our partnership and Martha’s life changed here:

We rejoice in seeing lives truly change with the love of Jesus!  Seeing deep healing happen in hearts and families transformed.  Thank you for praying and please continue to pray for Martha and her husband and children as they grow in their relationship with Jesus.

Partnering Together—Business as Mission

By God’s grace we have been able to help establish the first self-sustaining sewing center in Bardia, Nepal through our partnership with Pastor Krishna here in LA! About 5,000-6,000 women and children every year are trafficked from Nepal to India.  These sewing centers are allowing women to start their own business and rise above poverty to avoid being trafficked.

At this Bardia Sewing Center 18 people have come to Christ and 7 women became entrepreneurs and began their own garment making businesses and 20 additional women were fully trained and are able to be employed by a tailoring company to earn income. When they graduate the program they are either given a sewing machine to start their own business or immediately employed at a tailoring company.

Our next desire is to establish another sewing center in Chitwan, Nepal.  Our prayer is that we are able to help establish a new sewing center every year within various cities of Nepal.  We recently partnered with a good friend, Mindy, to make this a reality.  Mindy was a former student when we were serving in campus ministry at USC. She now works as a business consultant and has a huge heart for missions and using Business as a mission.  She has been using her expertise and passion to help another non-profit empower women in Ghana and we were thankful she desired to partner with us as well to serve the women of Nepal.  

· Please Pray for the women of Nepal. Pray for the trainers within these training centers as they train new    women.

· Pray for the sewing centers to gain traction in the communities as a business and to become self-sustaining.

· Pray for many people to come to Christ as they become part of the sewing center.

· Pray the Lord would use this business to prevent traffickers from luring victims because of poverty.

· Please pray for Covid in this area.  Pastor Krishna had to cancel his trip in May to Nepal and many people are sick and dying within Nepal.

Here is the other video Cru created highlighting our partnership in Claremont as well.

Thank you for your prayers, support & encouragement to us!  We hope you are having a wonderful summer thus far.                                             

Cru 21 Staff Conference—Partnering to Build Spiritual Movements Everywhere so that Everyone Knows Someone who Truly Follows Jesus

This is Cru’s vision. It’s what we are trusting God to do by the   power of His Holy Spirit as we make Jesus known, multiply the Church, and serve the city. Recently Cru sent a videographer to Los Angeles to film Joseph for a highlight video at our Cru 21 Staff Conference to share how the Lord has been moving here in LA!  One   video that was created was on our partnership with Solid Rock Church in Claremont.  Our heart has always been to create movements of evangelism and discipleship within churches to reach the city with the Gospel.  Pastor Ruben, of Solid Rock, and  Joseph have been working together the past few years to develop leaders within Solid Rock. Not only seeing people come to know the Lord—but to also be discipled and trained to become leaders!  One woman, Candice, learned about Solid Rock from social   media.  She was curious and decided to try Solid Rock to see what it was about.  The Lord was moving in her heart and she put her trust in the Lord, was soon baptized on Easter… then after Easter her husband began coming and soon her children as well.  A year later her husband, Peter, was baptized and they both went through the leadership development program Joseph and Pastor Ruben had created.  “Why did God choose me? I want to help people, I want to be a leader one day…but I don’t have the skills… then I took the class and learned…. He has  given me a deep, deep love for others to help them.” (Candice)  Candice now has her business as a vendor which is a      ministry as well for others.  She created a pop-up vendor business that comes to the church campus twice a month as a  ministry to the community!    Candice loves to share the love of Jesus with everyone she comes in contact with.

We are so grateful and humbled to be a small part of how the Lord is moving in lives here within Los Angeles.  Please check out the 3 minute video that was created that shares more!

Here is also our Cru Church Movement website: https://www.churchmovements.com/

The Justice Center

The past few years we have partnered with EveryOne Free (a ministry out of Purpose Church in Pomona) that is dedicated to eliminating human trafficking through awareness, prevention and serving survivors.       https://www.everyonefree.org EveryOne Free has been reaching out to survivors through their Diversion Program this past year and have seen women go through their online program “Ending the Game” this past year.  They then offer the women a financial scholarship to attend college or a trade school.  There is also a Street Outreach team that goes out on “The Track” here in Pomona to talk to and build relationships with the women they see on the streets.  They give each person a gift which includes a pepper spray and chapstick with the EveryOne Free hotline number on it. 

These past couple months we have been serving weekly with Tamiko (who oversees the ministry) to remodel an area that will become a Justice Center.  The Justice Center will be a place for women to be helped through resources, counseling, mentoring, and a place for them to come the feel safe and learn about the Lord’s great love for them. Please pray for this Justice Center. 

Family Update!

Summer is approaching! Everyone has or is finishing up classes and we are looking forward to the change of pace. Luke’s foot is continuing to heal and he will begin physical therapy in the next couple weeks.  There is still very little motion he can do with it, but we are hopefully for his recovery (being 20 years old is a great advantage to healing!) Daniel completed his Freshman year of college and received recognition for being on the President’s List for his academics. He is looking forward to being in person in the Fall and living in the dorms! Jessica is in the midst of  finals for her sophomore year and it is so hard to believe she will be a Junior next year in High School. And we completed 3rd grade for Aleeya—are so proud of her perseverance this year with online therapies and hearing struggles with talking to others wearing masks. With so much loss this year we are trying to treasure the days, family times and friendships around us and we are so thankful to look back upon this school year and see how the Lord provided in so many ways for our family emotionally, physically and spiritually.

Thank you for your prayers, support &  encouragement to us! 

SUMMER INTERNSHIPS!

Connecting church plants with college students!  This year we have been partnering with college campuses within Los Angeles and the church plants that we currently work with to begin a summer internship program! Our desire is to help churches reach the communities around them with the Gospel and to do this they need people who know how to share their faith and how to disciple others. Our heart is also for these college students to grow and learn how to reach beyond the college campuses into the communities around them—so that when they graduate they will be involved in the local church and be leaders sharing their faith and discipling others in their communities. 

“While 69% say they were attending at age 17, that fell to 58% at age 18 and 40% at age 19. Once they reach their 20s, around 1 in 3 say they are attending church regularly.” (Lifeway Research)

Joseph has been sharing at various Cru colleges via zoom about this opportunity for the summer.  He recently spoke on the Image of God and invited students to join this summer internship program.  Please pray for this new internship.  That students would desire to serve this summer, grow in their leadership and learn how to reach the communities around them through the church.  Pray that it would be a blessing to the church plants as well, as they accept students who will help them reach their communities, provide outreaches to the neighborhoods, and disciple others.

EASTER!

Celebrating with Solid Rock Church Baptisms for Easter! It was encouraging to hear of the baptisms Solid Rock had this past Easter during their service.  We are continuing to partner with Solid Rock to build leaders and reach the communities of Pomona Valley with the gospel!

Family Update

Spring has begun!  We recently celebrated our 22nd year Anniversary! Friends graciously gave us the gift of their cabin near Lake Arrowhead and it was wonderful to get away and      reflect on all the Lord has done in our marriage these past 22 years.

We also celebrated Easter all together and it was wonderful being back in church this Easter and then enjoying family games and dinner at home. 

Please pray for the kids as they wrap up school.  Daniel finishes in about a week and everyone else the end of May/beginning of June.  Time does go by fast and we are traying to treasure these days and moments.  We will be celebrating Aleeya’s 5 year Forever Family Day this coming week—celebrating Gods goodness to our family. 

Thank you for your prayers, support and continual encouragement to us! 

Joseph has been partnering and serving with Pastor Marco for the past 3-4 years.  They meet regularly to pray, talk, and connect and we have been so encouraged to watch the Lord use him and his church to reach the city of Covina through his outreaches, such as Night With God (which we have shared about over the years). Recently Pastor Marco and his church have begun a weekly Food Drive with Tacos for his community. We have had such the blessing of serving alongside him to bring the love of Jesus to the community through providing food to those in need, having spiritual conversations, praying for each    person that comes and inviting them to church.

Please pray for these times every Thursday in the community.  Pray for those who come—that they would feel cared for by the love of Jesus and for conversations about the Lord and prayers. Pray many would come to the Easter service this week as well.  Pray for Joseph and Pastor Marco as they are also planning and praying about their next Night With God Outreach in April on the topic of Life After Death. 

“I prayed that prayer for the first time tonight. Now what?”

Our vision is that every man, woman and child know the gospel and experience the love of Jesus! Given the current missional reality in the U.S., that means the gospel must be shared and demonstrated to 160 million people who identify as non-Christian. We must partner with other leaders to reach this scope. Last month, the national team Joseph serves on with Cru Church movements partnered with the Jesus Film Project and a Cru Campus ministry to host Story of the Soul — a virtual coffeehouse where we discover stories the soul is telling through art, film, poetry, music and classic literature. Together we  explored this theme: I think I matter. Sometimes I’m not sure. I’m here, do you see me? Can you take me as I am, whoever I am? 

 80 students and staff attended from 12 campuses and six cities. 4 students indicated that they placed their trust in Christ, and another 12 want to talk further about Jesus and their spiritual journey!

Here is what some of the students said immediately after the event:

· “I have never experienced an event that moved me as much as this one in a time of need.”

· “I am trying to get god.”

· “This was a comfortable, safe space to be vulnerable in community.”

·  “It really made me think about my feelings & relationship with God.”

·  “Sometime, I’d like to share about my spiritual journey., I’m curious about Jesus. I’d be open to talking about this more.”

· “This was not at all what I was expecting to do tonight but I really enjoyed the conversation!” 

· “I prayed that prayer for the first time tonight. Now what?”

Family Update:

Happy Resurrection Day!  We pray each one of you are experiencing the presence of the Lord in 2021 and especially as we reflect and rejoice in how He has carried us through 2020 and we now celebrate Easter. 

Thank you for all your prayers, encouragement and support to us over the years!

Joseph has been meeting regularly with the staff of a local church to discuss how to help the church grow, increase the quality and quantity of leaders within the church and to see more people reached with the gospel.

Joseph has been helping the staff create a discipleship and leadership development process over the past year. Last month the church kicked off a sermon series called “ReImagining Church.” This shared the vision of decentralizing the leadership of the church and multiplying leaders and disciples within the church.  This will develop leaders who will    direct multiple locations of the church (micro-sites) that will foster the components of Worship, Mission and Community.  This will be done in 3 phases: Discernment, Development and Deployment.

We are now finishing up the first phase and are starting the development of the micro-sites and the leadership teams, who will direct each location.  This is a super exciting process and post-Covid we envision sending out more teams into locations that need the Gospel.  We would appreciate your prayers for wisdom and God’s continued leading in phase 2.

Why Church Movements?

Similar to when we were in Campus Ministry and our heart’s desire was to start movements where college students would regularly share their faith; our desire now is to help churches create movements where  members would regularly share their faith. This is why we are now part of Cru Church Movements in the U.S.

Joseph is part of the Cru Church Movements National Leadership Team  and they meet regularly to help give vision, direction and shepherd the 90 staff within 35 cities around the United States. Last month the leadership team met again for an extended time together.

In their hearts humans plan their course,
    but the Lord establishes their steps. Proverbs 16:9

Unlike in August when the leadership team met to set goals for the year, these meetings were more about praying, reflecting and evaluating. As humans we can plan and make goals but sometimes a mid-course  correction is helpful to align ourselves to God and allow Him to establish our steps. Please continue to pray for God’s leading and wisdom for this leadership team as they lead the staff nationally and work with national partners to see more missional movements within churches reach people with the Gospel.

Family Update:

As February comes to a close we continue to marvel how time moves by so quickly.  The beginning of 2021 has brought us many ups and downs.    Jessica recently joined the worship team at our local church and is loving being able to use her passions to help others enter into worship.  Daniel continues to amaze us with his hard work as a Freshman in college (persevering virtually) and working almost full-time at Chick-fil-A as he takes classes.  Luke continue to heal—the diagnosis so far is at least 6 weeks of no pressure on his foot and 3-4 months before he can try to turn his ankle. He is becoming very mobile on his crutches and knee scooter.  And Aleeya continue to grow by leaps and bounds in her schooling, speech and height!

Thank you for all your prayers, encouragement and support to us over the years.  We know all the praises we have are because of the prayers of so many!

This past Christmas we partnered with Fuente para las Naciones, a church in South LA that Joseph has been helping develop processes and training to plant 10 bilingual Spanish speaking churches.  We joined with them to help provide a Christmas toy drive for their community.

The church desired to pass out gifts as a way to not only care for the families within the church, but also as an outreach.  Each child received a gift for themselves and also a gift for a friend as an opportunity to share the love of Jesus with them as well.  We were able to help Pastor Chad and his wife raise the funds, through our local church, to provide these gifts.

It went wonderful as the leaders of Fuente para las Naciones were also able to talk with the children within their church and their families about sharing their faith and the meaning of Christmas with others in need.  They were able to bless and talk with several families after the service that were walking down the street in front of the church. 

New Staff Training for Cru Church Movements!

We recently welcomed 15 new people into the Church Movements ministry and Joseph was able to be a part of their initial training.  Joseph is on the national team of Church Movements with 10 other men/women who set the direction of the ministry.  They also oversee 85 staff—in their development and care.

For the New Staff Training they talked about the mission and vision of church movements, understanding the roles and the teams they are a part of, the tools and processes of church movements and the structure.  The 4 main objectives are: Connecting to Jesus, Developing Missional Leaders, Multiplying the Church, and Partnering to Serve. Joseph led the time on multiplying the church.

Please pray for them as they partner with local churches in one of the 35 cities nationally we have ministry in.  Pray for them as they develop community and gain connections with their teams so they feel supported as they do ministry.  And please pray they would be effective as they partner with churches to help churches share the Gospel and see many more come to believe in Christ.

Family Update:

As we reflected on 2020 and began 2021 we are thankful for so much the Lord has been doing.  Even though 2020 was hard in so many ways the Lord has always been faithful to draw us closer to Him and we saw  many blessings throughout 2020 within our family.  Slowing down, having all 4 kids home again, family games & laughter, talking with our neighbors more, appreciating the little things, our health, deeper friendships, and processing life in 2020 as a family have been highlights. 2021 has now begun and Luke has moved back into his college apartment finishing up his Junior year.  Daniel is home for virtual college and we are continuing to be virtual in most of our life (schooling, small groups at church, meetings, therapies, etc..) but we are hopeful for change!

We would like to ask for prayer also for our oldest, Luke.  About 2 weeks ago we were hiking in the   Malibu area as a family and he jumped off a rock and landed in a random position on his foot that caused tremendous damage.  He tore ligaments badly, bruised bones deeply, and a small bone with ligaments attached to it broke off.  He is unable to move anything at all and is in a lot of pain.  After x-rays, MRIs, CT-Scans and talking to a specialist and surgeon it was decided he will have surgery in a week to reattach the bone.  He has a long road of recovery ahead of him.  Please pray for him as he loves his sports and is so active with working out and hiking and sports. Pray for his healing and his spirits during this time.  We know God has him and has a plan through all of this.  Thank you for praying and loving our family.