July 2020 Newsletter
Greeting to all!
I hope these difficult days have not gotten the best of you! Let’s keep our eyes on the Lord Jesus, the author of our faith! Stay strong, be brave and courageous, remembering God has said that He will be with us and not leave nor forsake us! I don’t know about you, but this is all I need to know! We will continue to fight the good fight, swimming against the currant and living for Christ!
Shelter Update!
Our shelter remains open, carefully observing all requirements! We did close our doors to new people wanting to come in! But we are now slowly reopening our doors to new people but requiring a medical certificate for every new person wanting to come into our shelter! Thirty new men have complied with our new requirements, bringing our new total to 108 residents! Leaving 2 beds left, out of the new total of 110. We have decided to only have 110 residents compared to the 180 we had before! This helps us now provide more space between the bunk beds giving the men more room to move around and have safer living quarters! To make this possible we had to remove the mattresses off the floor!
Please keep us in your prayers as we move forward during these critical times in which we are living! We are doing our very best, offering the best services while trying to survive! But we know who has our back and who will sustain us during these trying times! Thanks for your prayers and your generous support! There is no words to express our gratitude for each one of you during these crazy days!
I want to share a testimony! Violeta is 58 years old and the mother of our administrator Anahi! Violeta has been struggling with cancer for years and going through chemo therapy on and off! What we all feared most came to be, she tested positive of covid-19.
Let me tell you what happened. She was taken to the hospital for her cancer checkup and in the process was told she had covid-19, without any testing! All the covid-19 patients were on the third floor, this is where they took her! Alex and Anahi, were in strong disagreement and kept requesting her release so she can return home!
Finally, after hours of demanding her release, they let her come home, but they first did the test for corvid-19! The hospital said they would regret their decision, but the most important thing was she was home being taken care of by her family!
The hospital called to tell them that she tested positive! We all prayed for healing and God’s will!
Violeta is a women of faith and has a very positive attitude! She always goes around giving thanks to God while struggling with cancer! Violeta and family maintained their faith and good attitude during these difficult days!
Violeta has now tested negative and is clear of any infection with the covid-19!
This is a very strong praise report because of all the people who are vulnerable to dying from this crazy disease, was Violeta! But thanks to God, she was able to pull out in victory! Please keep her in your prayers as she continues to flight her colon cancer! With our God, nothing is impossible, Amen!
Update from the ranch
Many of you may know we are now are raising chickens. We now have 3 generations of chickens! The second generation is almost ready to start laying eggs. We are already getting 10 to 12 eggs per day and expecting more soon! We need about 120 eggs per week to cover our weekly expense!
We have also begun planting cactus and tomatoes so we can have good healthy food! We will soon have goats for the production of milk and cheese! We have a good start. Thanks to Ricardo who took the initiative. He also has the know-how of making this work. Pray for our ranch as we move toward making it self-sustaining.
Rossy, my family and I have begun visiting the ranch once a week. Our plans are to enter the ranch more often focusing on making the ranch more self-supporting! We will be using the upstairs apartment space as an overnight accommodation. We are in the process of repairing and updating this apartment space. Please pray as we move forward in this decision!
Our new interns at the ranch have to go through observation periods of 3 to 4 weeks! This, of course, is nothing new. Our men need this time to go through their withdrawal recovery. But now we can only place 2 or 3 men together at a time and no one else can enter their space until their observation is completed.
This imposes a much more difficult hardship on new men coming into our program. Most men want to go in on the spur of the moment, not wanting to wait for any screening period! But in these days, we have no choice. A waiting period is required to protect those who are in the observation room as well as others coming in from any chance of infection! So please keep this in your prayers!
House of Grace!
We have been busy keeping up with birthday celebration for all our children and teens from the House of Grace! Just this week we celebrated Emily who turned 14 years old and Jesus who turned 16 years old! We all had a great time with games and good food. They all loved a ride on my motorcycle! Thank you for your prayers for all the needs and safety concerns of our children. Pray we are able to handle them all!
Also, school will start in August, but it will be on-line only! We need lab tops for our students! We need at least 8 more lab tops! Would you please consider giving us your older one or a small donation to help us comply with this new need!
Finally, our dear brother Francisco, who was with us many years ago and went through our recovery program. He left Tijuana many years ago, to be with his family and did well! He became an ambulance driver and also became certified for search and rescue. He married Martha and they had a son, Eliu who is now 10 years old. Francisco and his family have been flown back into Tijuana because he fell once again into addictions and was in desperate need.
We spoke together and came to an agreement with his family that Francisco would return to La Roca Ranch where he first came to know the Lord! And then we would find a way to send for the family! La Roca has been able to help his family to come to Tijuana where they are all together again! We are hoping to put Francisco’s skills to work at the ranch. Martha is a children’s teacher so we are hoping to use her skills as well.
So, as you see, we are keeping quite busy and lots of things are still ongoing! There is no slowing down for this ministry! La Roca ministries continues on the move until the Lord comes back for His church, Amen!
In His Love, Carlos Rossy and the rest of La Roca team!
