Port Loyola Calvary Chapel

I. God’s wonderful hand on the girl’s home
II. Crazy road trip to El Salvador
III. Online content and online giving
IV. Prayer requests

Strong Tower- PLCC Girls Home
Let me start by saying that I have been so blessed and humbled by everyone’s response to the prayer request for the girl’s home. We are calling the home “Strong Tower”. The inspiration for that name comes from Psalms 61:3 “For You have been a shelter for me, A strong tower from the enemy.”
I sent out the prayer request and almost immediately I had people committing to help set up and support Strong Tower. The need for a safe place for these young ladies seems to have struck a chord in the hearts of many. So far we are about half way through getting the place furnished and are nearly done cleaning and painting the building. It has been a blessing seeing the body come together and work towards getting the house up and running. We are hoping to have the doors open within the next two weeks. We are currently in the process of setting up the structure, guidelines and rules for the program.
On the business side of things, I want to give a quick reminder to those who have committed to help support Strong Tower. Please send your financial contributions to

Calvary Eastside
5126 164th Ave SE,
Bellevue WA 98006
Please note that it is for Strong Tower.
Many of you have asked specifically what we need, so I am going to break it down for you a little. You can commit to supporting the following

an individual girl  50.00 a month
electric bill  100.00 a month
water bill    50.00 a month
internet bill    50.00 a month

We also still need the following to get the house set up.

Laptop computer
Desktop computer
TV, DVD player for video teaching series
Stove
Couch set

Down the road we will also be needed a vehicle for Strong Tower. If you feel led to contribute to any of these items, let me know.

II. Another crazy road trip

Every October Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa puts on a Central American Pastor’s Conference. This year the conference was held at the Calvary Chapel in San Salvador, El Salvador. Altogether 8 of us from PLCC set out on a road trip from Belize City, through Guatemala, to San Salvador. For some reason I seem to be a magnet for misadventure and sadly, this trip was no different. I will spare some of the details since I am writing a newsletter not a book, but in short here is what happened.
The night before we left I was going through my checklist of things to get ready. I realized that the registration for the church van was nowhere to be found. I stayed up all night looking for it to no avail. We were leaving at 3:30 AM so the upside was I didn’t have to get up early in the morning since I never went to bed. We made a decision to head to the border anyway, knowing that someone from church could get a copy of the registration in the morning and simply fax it to us. Let me just say up front that that was the wrong decision. We got to the Belize/Guatemala border and had to wait for a couple hours, and we finally were able to get the registration faxed to us without any real problems, and we got underway. As soon as you cross into Guatemala, there is about 50 kilometers of dirt road before you get to pavement. As it happens there had been a lot of raining and flooding in the area, so the road was more of a mud pit than a dirt road. It was actually pretty fun navigating through all that, but in the end we found that we had bent a wheel on the van and were losing air. We ended up borrowing a hammer and beating the wheel back into shape. Again we were on our way……. For a while. About 3 hours into Guatemala we came to a spot where the road was flooded and there was a line of cars that was miles long. Through some “creative driving” we managed to get to the front of the line in just a couple hours. When we got there we found that water was about 3 and a half feet over the road. There were big rigs that were towing vans and trucks through the water, so we hooked up to a gas tanker and he started to tow us through. About half way through, the tanker suddenly slowed down, and the water began to pour into the church can. Outside the van the water was nearly up to the windows, and it was shooting in anywhere there was a gap. When we finally got to the other side, we opened all the doors and the water came pouring out. It was like something you would see in a cartoon.
Shortly after that we got stuck for in a cattle drive, if you can believe that. We were at a complete stop and this herd of cattle was running straight at us. The herd of cattle parted at the last possible second and went around both sides of the van. It was a little scary, but unbelievably comical at the same time, we just got out of a flood, and got stuck in a cattle drive. What else could happen to us? Plenty as it turns out.
When we finally got to the Guatemala/Salvador border, they wouldn’t let us take the van across because we didn’t have the original registration. They would only accept the original. This was the most stressful point in the trip. We are two hours away from our final destination, it is midnight, and there didn’t seem to be any recourse for us. There were no buses or taxis to take us anywhere, we didn’t have anyone we could contact, and there was no one else around at the border. After several hours of trying to reason with the border guard and trying to figure out what to do, someone else pulled up to the crossing. As it happens, he was from the Calvary in San Salvador, and was heading that way. Nine of us ended up cramming into his car and he took us right to our hotel there in San Salvador. What are the chances of that? The only guy around, just happens to be from the church we were going to and just happens to have room in his car, and just happens to see the Calvary sticker on our car and asks to see if we need any help. We serve such an amazing God, who chooses to reveal His majesty and glory to us in the most unique and comical of ways. The 11 hour trip ended up taking 25 hours. That might seem terrible, but it actually ended up being a great time of fellowship for all of us who went.

Oh, and the conference was good too. Actually it was amazing. It was an absolutely wonderful time of teaching, worship and fellowship. All the guys who went with us were totally blessed and encouraged in their faith. We all left with a new excitement about the things the Lord is doing in Belize and the rest of Central America. The whole trip home (which went very smoothly by the way) the guys were talking about what the Lord had shown them at the conference. I would like to give a big thanks to Dave Eason and all the guys who made that trip possible.
On a side note, when I got home and started cleaning up the mess I had made looking for the registration the night I left, guess what I found? That’s right, the registration for the van. When you finish laughing at me, take a second and praise the Lord that He is at work in the lives of His foolish servants

III. Online content and Online giving

For all you YouTube fans out there, you can view our 7 minute Belize video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0UjfuxHoG0  . The video contains some footage from around Belize City, from around PLCC and a couple short interviews from the church body. Feel free to add feedback and comments after you watch it.

We were blessed to have the Calvary Magazine do a short story on our trip to Dolores last year. You can view a portion of the article at http://www.calvarymagazine.org/article_10.htm

After several years of people asking, I finally set up a way for people to be able to support the ministry online. Sorry it took so long. We have set up a PayPal account for Port Loyola Calvary Chapel. You can either use this link-  https://www.paypal.com/us/cgibin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=9Hn1QEeLCPF_AhXgCck7UDZj5p3KcokjJKDTaoI1yf884UQ_tpknuKGB7R0&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1f38432c9462fe73137
  or go to www.calvarychapelbelizecity.com and click on the Donate link. You can send a onetime donation or set it up to support the ministry monthly. Please note that this is NOT for the Strong Tower girls home, so if you want to give this way to support Strong Tower, you need to note that specifically

Thanks for your prayers and support
Joel, Denise and Elias

I am very excited to say that Strong Tower is totally up and running and has been for about a month. It has actually been tremendously difficult for me personally. Logistically everything went well. It was a lot of work to get setup, painting, cleaning and physically getting the house set up, but we have all moved, and know what it takes to set up a home. What I wasn’t totally prepared for were the spiritual attacks that were going to come along with it. Through a series of events I was reminded that we have an enemy, and that our enemy hates us, and he doesn’t want to see Strong Tower taking in girls that used to belong to him. Please continue to pray for the girls coming in as they have a lot of baggage that they are bringing in and each young lady will have a lot of issues to deal with. I love that verse in Jeremiah where the Lord says “For I know the plans I have for you, they are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11) It is my prayer that each young lady that passes through these doors will cling to that verse, and let the Lord have His way in their lives. We have one girl and one staff at this point. There is another girl who will be starting the interview process this week. It is our plan to add a girl a month over the next 5 or 6 months, and then see how things go. Again please keep this new ministry in prayer. Pray for everything from wisdom and direction to financial support to all the girls getting along, and especially for Sheena as she oversees this ministry. I’m receiving questions about donations for strong tower and online giving. At the end of the letter I will post the link and instructions again. On Friday the 14th of November we were having a youth outreach/bbq in the church yard. A little after 7:00 PM we heard a huge explosion, then a second or two later I felt the shockwave hit my chest. For those who have been down to visit, you remember that there is a soccer field right in front of the church. The explosion came from about half way up the field on the left hand side of the field. This was the 3rd such attack this year, but the first that I have been so close to. It was definitely sketchy being so close to something like that, but I was reminded of that verse in Isaiah 61 where it says “To all who mourn in Israel, he will give beauty for ashes, joy instead of mourning, praise instead of despair.” There are certainly things to mourn for, there are people’s lives that are in ashes, there are people who are in despair, but the Lord can change those things. It is my prayer that the Lord will give His people beauty for ashes, that He will use these terrible things going to open the eyes of the people and to restore them to Him. Here is another thing to keep lifted up in prayer; over the last couple years, one of the ladies in church has been bringing her neighbor’s children to Sunday school. Last week the mother of those children died very suddenly of breast cancer. She left behind 8 very young kids with no one really to care for them. I understand that they are staying with an aunt right now, but it isn’t a very good situation. I have no idea what will happen with them, but pray that the Lord’s will will be done and that we will be able to minister to the kids. Over the last few years, we have been putting together Christmas Dinner baskets (well cardboard boxes actually) for single moms and families in need. The boxes go both to families in the church and in the community around the church. Many of you have sponsored a basket in the past. If you would like to do so again this year, please let me know ASAP as time is getting short. The cost is about 30 USD per basket. Praise the Lord for His goodness, Denise’s dad has been declared to be in remission. His cancer appears to be totally gone. Initially the doctor told us that his lung cancer was terminal, but the Lord had different plans. Denise has been in Puyallup WA. caring for him since summer, and the church is looking forward to her and Elias returning to Belize next month. Here is the link to make online donations through PayPal. www.calvarychapelbelizecity.com/donations.htm In the “instructions to seller” link please specify if the donation if for Strong Tower, Christmas Baskets, or a general donation. For those new to the mailing list, you can see some more info on the ministry at www.calvarychapelbelizecity.com www.myspace.com/portloyolacalvarychapel www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0UjfuxHoG0 Here is one more link about Belize, but let me preface it before you watch it. It is an English “documentary” on Belize. I use the word documentary loosely though. It is more like a “hard copy/current affair” type thing. They don’t lie or anything, but they tend to sensationalize the truth a bit and add a very “dramatic” soundtrack. There is also some graphic language, but it does give a picture of the situation in the south side of Belize City and has some great footage of the city. A lot of the footage was shot in the immediate vicinity of the church www.youtube.com/watch?v=80BvD0n3PP8 Thanks for your prayers and support Joel, Denise and Elias