Author Archive for admin

Meet Rudy Martinez, Director of Discipleship Ranch

Growing Up. Rudy Martinez was abandoned by his parents as a young child. He was raised by his grandmother in Northern California. Rudy grew up very poor and began getting involved in violence at a young age. He stabbed his first person on a basketball court when he was 12 years old. Rudy was incarcerated in various juvenile detention centers in Northern California.

Gangs, Prison, Violence. When he was released, Rudy continued getting into trouble, and was involved in narcotics, gang activity, and violence. He continued to be incarcerated throughout Northern California. He spent years at San Quentin, Folsom, Corcoran, and Pelican Bay Prison. He moved up in the prison gang, and was given authority over other gang members. He was involved in numerous violent assaults on other inmates of rival gangs. This eventually landed him in the “SHOE” for three years. He was locked up in a cell for 23 hours of every day. The only time he left the cell was to do some exercise by himself in a cage.

Ministry at the New Dump

The new dump is located north east going towards Tecate; it’s a little over one hour from the old dump site. Many miles of dirt road from the highway and with very little transportation, many have to hitchhike. For the same reason many build sheds of cardboard to stay night’s at a time to save on travel time and bus fares.
We know this first hand, since we have a couple of members from our church working there. There are 300 to 500 workers working at a time. All work for themselves but they all have to recycle at the only recycling center available.

Medical Center at Dump Expanding

We are seeking help expanding the medical facilities by the old dump. We have been working there since 1996, doing different kinds of outreaches. One of them of course is the medical outreach that started with Dr. Kevin Lake, his wife, his two nurses and my wife and I. We would see 200 to 300 people each day.

Things have grown over the years. Now there is a plethora of doctors and medical students that come down from USC and UCSD, seeing over 500 people per day. The Facilities are too small and are getting run down. We need at least another examining room and bathrooms.

Family Housing Project Vision Realized with your Help

The Family Project Vision. This has been the long awaited vision and perhaps one could say destiny for La Roca Ministries. This ¨Family housing¨ project has been part of our grand objective and goal from the beginning, with the aim to bring families together, instead of separating them. We want to build 6 houses, each unit costing $8,000. Each house built will give an opportunity for a family to start over again.  To not only live in some house, but a home built with the love of Christ.  They will receive counseling as a family and the husband will be allowed to live with family after his first three months are up. This will give them a chance to heal from past hurts and move on to a brighter future with Christ together.

Unlike most programs and recovery centers now-a-days, which use the individualistic, medical/disease model to address problems that originate with the sin and the psyche (i.e. the soul), we here at La Roca have the idea that people and their problems are not purely dealt with on an individualistic manner, but as communities.

La Roca Church is Overflowing and We Need Your Help

Church Service

God is blessing us abundantly. After being able to secure our current building with an affordable lease we began refurbishing the bottom floor of our two story building. Opening day was more than we expected and since then God continues to bring new people and members. Now in less than six months we have max’ed-out our bottom floor ministry capacity and we need to refurbish our top floor. We desperately need space for youth meetings, Sunday School classes, and ministry meetings. Please, please consider helping us expand our top floor. Contact us as soon as you can to discuss what you can do. The people of Tijuana need Jesus and He is bringing them at a rapid pace. Please partner with us.