We are so excited to welcome new staff member, Legna Lanza to the CPTLN team. She will be working in her area of greatest passion—-with youth! Throughout the CPTLN offices, we call our youth outreach Proyecto JOEL. Legna has 10 years experience working in the Tijuana mission field while working with Lutheran Border Concerns Ministry. (She is still working with LBCM half time) She is the daughter of a pastor who began ministry in Tijuana and is already with the Lord. Read Legna’s bio and her work plan.
If you feel called to support this new staff member, we need to raise $10,000 for the support of this staff position and the JOEL program. I received a check yesterday for $1600 for this new ministry. Only $8400 to go! Any amount you can contribute toward this exciting new program, will be a blessing to the city and people of Tijuana. Email me at mgsalomon@gmail.com for details on how to contribute to Proyecto JOEL.
The following was written by Legna. Pray for her, for work of Proyecto JOEL in Tijuana, for the CPTLN staff and ministry.
Biography
I was born into a Christian family in Venezuela, and grew up not knowing any other world than that of the Lutheran faith and ministry.
My father was a Lutheran pastor in Venezuela and he always taught me the importance of making people feel that they are special, and mainly that they were important to God.
I was a teenager when I lost my mother in a tragic car accident and for the first time I saw and felt directly the pain of living in a world with sin. Only four more years passed, and unexpectedly my father went to be with the Lord. Through this time I never felt alone, even when I did feel a deep pain. I somehow knew that God was with me.
Through those years of dealing with the loss and putting the pieces of my young adult life together, I completed a college education (Concordia University, Director of Christian Education, 2001) and later a master’s degree (IESDI, Psychology and Christian counseling, 2006). I could not have accomplished this without the support and care of Christian people who continuously reminded me that God’s grace surpasses our understanding.
My hope is to continue to show and teach the great love with which He has embraced me through the years and to be able to bless others as I have been blessed.
Vision/Mission
Living in the border city of Tijuana made me realize the power of establishing a bridge of relationships among people from both sides of the border.
God works in marvelous ways and is able to unify people who possess different languages and traditions to reach to people that are in need of hope for their lives.
This is a very important part of my life and ministry: to have the opportunity to testify that His love makes it possible to connect to people from different races without words, just by truly caring for a person.
This is something that I used everyday when working with at-risk adolescents in Tijuana. Adolescents cannot embrace God if there is not someone that will truly show that they care for him or her. In a city like Tijuana, the increasing violence and domestic and drug abuse makes it difficult for children and youth to understand that they are valuable and have a special purpose in life.
This is my passion: to connect teenagers to Christ and be able to offer opportunities where they can establish relationships with people (from Mexico and the United States) and situations where they can see and feel that God is the only way to a better life.
Proposed Work Plan
Our world is changing rapidly and youth want to keep up with those changes. They don’t want to tune out of the world, they want to be able to identify with it and feel that they belong. However, among all the change, they also desire stability and security and sometimes they don’t know where to find it.
How can we communicate to teens that there is stability in God, and still keep up with the radical changes in our world and growing city such as Tijuana?
This is one of the questions that I will address to establish an effective youth program with LHM and Proyecto Joel.
July / August 2008
Reality Day Retreat: How to tune into God?
Through research and effective communication with teens from diverse backgrounds, be able to start creating a curriculum/program that will have a strong foundation and will progressively and continuously motivate and change the way of thinking of the adolescents in the city of Tijuana.
Method —– Intense one-day retreat
The idea is to understand the preferences, opinions, feelings, happiness and fears of 10 adolescents from two different communities in Tijuana. Through this activity, be able to gather some ideas on how to reach out to non -Christian teens in Tijuana and also to find new and improved ways to motivate teens to want to learn about God.
Sports Day Camp
Establish a connection with teens from four different Lutheran churches in the area of Tijuana by joining youth leaders from the CPTLN office and other youth to spend a day together sharing in Bible class and playing sports.
Activities will include:
Bible Class
Rally with Prizes
Team Sport (soccer/flag football)
Time: 8:30 AM to 4: 00 PM
Place: Parque Morelos
Date: To be announced
Filed under: Uncategorized
