Garcia Family Blog

Hello Friends and Family!

We pray you are all doing well. Thank you so much for taking the time to read our updates, pray for, and support us! It means the world to us.

I (Joel) returned from a fruitful trip to Israel a couple of weeks ago. It was great to learn from our trusted guide and my pastor, Trent, getting a better grounding on the locations where the Bible took place. There is new significance to every story we covered as we receive greater context for the stories of Scripture. I also had the privilege of leading a LOT of worship at various locations, as well as doing some teachings.

The best part of this trip, however, was doing missionary care. I got to room with a worker we sent to the Middle East about a year ago and we shared great fellowship and prayer together talking through how the past year has been for him. In addition, we were also joined by two couples who we had just sent to serve alongside of him about a week prior to the trip. I got to talk through a lot of things with them as well and offer them pastoral care.

On the family side, things are going well. We are all mourning the loss of Amy’s sweet, godly grandmother Jean, who is with the Lord now, free of pain, and having left a legacy of righteousness with all of us here. In the midst of that, we had reason for joy as well as we celebrated Jude and Clara’s birthdays, which are about a week apart. Maggie is in the initial stages of getting braces, so please pray for provision for that and for the Lord to be her strength, as that process can be intimidating for a kid. The kids have been enjoying art classes and swimming lessons, and the boys will be doing baseball through the city again soon.

We also continue to lead our Young Adults Ministry. Amy also helps lead and teach a monthly group for moms at our church called Inspired Motherhood. And Joel has taken up a volunteer position on the board for the kids’ charter school. Please pray for the Lord’s strength in all of these endeavors, that we would do all things well, for His glory, and only in the power of His Spirit! Thank you all for your prayers.

We also would love to keep you updated on our ministry via our newsletter email updates if you are interested. You can sign up for those by clicking the link below:

Email Updates

You can also become a one-time or ongoing financial partner with us by clicking the button below, or by mailing a check made out to SGWM with “Joel Garcia” in the memo line to 17451 Bastanchury Rd, Ste 203, Yorba Linda, CA, 92886. 

Love in Christ,
Joel, Amy, Maggie, Harrison, Jude, and Clara Garcia

Hello Friends & Family!

These last few months have been a sweet time of ministry. The Lord has really been confirming what I believe to be His main calling on my (Joel’s) life: to teach the Word of God! This specific calling plays into every role He has me in, from leading worship to being Director of Missionary Care here at SGWM.

The opportunities for me to teach have been plentiful. Right now, I am teaching our young adults group weekly through Romans. I was privileged to preach for three Sunday mornings at our church through the book of Jude recently. I am co-teaching a class at my church with our Senior Pastor through the prison epistles right now. In a couple of weeks, Amy and I will join a young adults group in northern California as I teach all of the sessions at their retreat; this group is led by Bond and Heather Gaona, who is a fellow SGWM board member with me! I will get to teach a session at my church’s youth camp in a few weeks, and I will also get to teach a Sunday morning at the church of a friend I met on my recent Nepal trip in just about a month. Notice that some of these teaching opportunities have come through missions connections! This has all taken a lot of hard work studying, but it is so awesome to walk in what God has called me to.

I’m so thankful to God for all of these opportunities, but for me, teaching goes so far beyond local church ministry. My role as Director of Missionary Care means that I get to meet often with our missionaries, and in that role God has called me to continually give them encouragement from His Word to help guide them and to help them persevere on the field. I also get to spend a lot of time teaching some of our missions interns who are heading to the field soon, to help prepare them for decades of ministry ahead of them!

An exciting new development for me has been that I get to go to Israel at the end of April with our church! The purpose of this trip is threefold:

1. I will help lead the team as my pastor is traveling separately, and I will help share the load of teaching at different sites there with him, as well as leading worship

2. This trip will serve to further educate me as a Bible teacher. I went to Israel on a short trip a couple of years ago (we actually got back to the U.S. from that trip just days before the COVID shutdown). That trip was kind of a “mini” trip tacked onto a Middle East vision tour, so this next trip I go on will be a deeper dive in the area of the world I spend so much time teaching about!

3. Finally, a number of our missions interns will be on this trip who are heading directly from there to establish their roots in the 10/40 window! That means this trip will serve as a sort of “send off” for them. I’ve grown really close to some of these young men and women, and actually was on the Israel trip with them back in 2020! So this feels really “full-circle” for our friendship. I am so excited that I get to send them off no longer as a leader in their internship, but now as their pastor and Director of Missionary Care for them! I wish I could post pictures from our last trip of them and tell you their names, but for security purposes and the sensitive nature of where they will be serving, I will have to refrain. Here’s a picture of me from Caesarea from 2020 instead 🙂

Our family is doing great. Our three oldest just finished their first “season” of basketball, which was awesome and made me so proud! Amy is also doing amazing home-schooling the kids and doing ministry, including co-leading a group for moms at our church called “Inspired Motherhood.” I’ve also taken on a role as a board member for the charter school my kids are enrolled in, so please be in prayer for all of those things!

Thank you all so much for your prayers! It means the world to us.

We also would love to keep you updated on our ministry via our newsletter email updates if you are interested. You can sign up for those by clicking the link below:

Email Updates

You can also become a one-time or ongoing financial partner with us by clicking the button below, or by mailing a check made out to SGWM with “Joel Garcia” in the memo line to 17451 Bastanchury Rd, Ste 203, Yorba Linda, CA, 92886. 

Love in Christ,
Joel, Amy, Maggie, Harrison, Jude, and Clara Garcia

Hello Friends & Family!

It is hard to explain how amazing the experience I had in Nepal last month was. I met the men I know and pray for constantly who are my modern-day heroes of the faith. They serve the Lord is South Asia and the Middle East, I read their stories, I pray with them on Zoom, I talk about them all the time, and I finally got to meet with them in person, many of them for the very first time. It was an incredible feat for my friends Bond and Heather to get all of these men to Nepal for a conference, but it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever gotten to be a part of.

Our 7-day trip was filled! I got to teach six times, saw beautiful views of the Himalayas, rode on a motorbike (a whole different experience in Nepal!), ate amazing food, and most importantly, got to fellowship with and encourage my South Asian and Middle Eastern brothers in Christ. This was missionary care at its finest. Here are some pictures for you all! I wish I could show you more, but for security purposes I have tried to keep our national workers out of the pictures as much as possible.

Thank you all so much for your prayers! It means the world to us.

We also would love to keep you updated on our ministry via our newsletter email updates if you are interested. You can sign up for those by clicking the link below:

Email Updates

You can also become a one-time or ongoing financial partner with us by clicking the button below, or by mailing a check made out to SGWM with “Joel Garcia” in the memo line to 17451 Bastanchury Rd, Ste 203, Yorba Linda, CA, 92886. 

Love in Christ,
Joel, Amy, Maggie, Harrison, Jude, and Clara Garcia

Hey Friends!

Thank you for taking the time to read this update! It has been awhile since I have sent out an update, and the Lord has been doing a lot in our lives and ministry, so below is a short video as well as some bullet points for you all to pray over. Thank you so much for your Gospel partnership!

• Praise God that He has given me new roles and increased responsibilities and opportunities to serve Him! I have taken on the role of Ministry Pastor here at our church, Calvary Chapel Saving Grace. Please pray for wisdom and vision as I oversee the ministries of our church!
• Praise God that He is giving me opportunities to teach! On top of teaching our Young Adults group weekly, I have the opportunity to teach at our upcoming Men’s Retreat, multiple times during an upcoming trip to Nepal, and a couple of Sunday mornings at the church after that filling the pulpit for our Senior Pastor while he is away on a trip to Peru. Pray for the anointing of the Spirit for those times and for the time and diligence to study.
• Praise God that He is opening doors to travel again! Along with one of our SGWM board members, Heather Gaona and her husband Bond, SGWM missionaries Aaron and Jena Garcia, and my friend and church’s Youth Director Isaac Douglass, I am traveling to Nepal in mid-October to represent SGWM, meet ALL of our national workers from South Asia and the Middle East, and put on a conference for all of them to encourage them in their ministries! Pray for strength, guidance, and the Spirit’s filling to represent Him and His Word well on that trip, and for Amy and the kids as they will be home without me for 10 days.

We also would love to keep you updated on our ministry via our newsletter email updates if you are interested. You can sign up for those by clicking the link below:

Email Updates

You can also become a one-time or ongoing financial partner with us by clicking the button below, or by mailing a check made out to SGWM with “Joel Garcia” in the memo line to 17451 Bastanchury Rd, Ste 203, Yorba Linda, CA, 92886. 

Love in Christ,
Joel, Amy, Maggie, Harrison, Jude, and Clara Garcia

Hello Friends and Family!

We have been provoked lately regarding the power of prayer in our lives and the lives of others. Prayer is so powerful, the most powerful weapon we have as believers. As various trials have popped up in the lives of loved ones, we have been reminded of this reality.

A few weeks ago, Amy’s dad was in a skiing accident that left him in critical condition. Through the prayers of many, he is on the road to recovery. Though things are coming along much more slowly than we’d like, we are so thankful the Lord saved him from an accident that could have been so much worse!

Just this past week, we also learned that missionary friends of ours in Turkey were in a terrible car accident that left their three-year-old son in critical condition with a fractured skull. Through the power of prayer, he is blowing the doctors away in that what they estimated to be 3 months’ worth of progress for him happened in only 3 days! Not only that, but our friends have been provided for radically and have been sharing the gospel with the doctors.

Finally, it has been amazing to see what the Lord is doing through the efforts of believers, and in our context, Calvary Chapels, in the Ukraine. Friends of SGWM are heavily involved on the ground there helping evacuate people and save lives. Praise God for how he moves in the worst of situations!

On the ministry side, Joel has helped hold the fort at SGWM headquarters in Yorba Linda while a large group was in central Mexico for two weeks. This past weekend, he had the privilege of both leading worship and preaching on one Sunday! It was busy, but a blessing to be used by the Lord in this way.

We also would love to keep you updated on our ministry via our newsletter email updates if you are interested. You can sign up for those by clicking the button below:

Email Updates

You can also become a one-time or ongoing financial partner with us by clicking the button below, or by mailing a check made out to SGWM with “Joel Garcia” in the memo line to 17451 Bastanchury Rd, Ste 203, Yorba Linda, CA, 92886. 

Love in Christ,
Joel, Amy, Maggie, Harrison, Jude, and Clara Garcia

Hello Friends and Family!

I put together a short video for this month’s update to re-introduce our ministry. A lot of people aren’t fully aware of my role as Director of Missionary Care with SGWM and what that entails, so this video gives a short glimpse of what that means and why it’s so important!

We also would love to keep you updated on our ministry via our newsletter email updates if you are interested. You can sign up for those by clicking the button below:

Email Updates

You can also become a one-time or ongoing financial partner with us by clicking the button below, or by mailing a check made out to SGWM with “Joel Garcia” in the memo line to 17451 Bastanchury Rd, Ste 203, Yorba Linda, CA, 92886. 

Love in Christ,
Joel, Amy, Maggie, Harrison, Jude, and Clara Garcia

Hello Friends & Family!

Sick-mas

I pray you are all doing well! As many of you know, for many this holiday season was a little different with Omicron sweeping through many communities, including our church community. This is the second year in a row that we didn’t get to see any extended family on Christmas due to COVID; I came down with COVID 3 days before Christmas! It was rough on the family as it spread through the house and kept us cooped up over holiday break, but fortunately symptoms were mild and everyone recovered quickly.

Back to Work!

Coming back to “the office” after being sick was difficult, but the Lord really renewed my strength and blessed a week of prayer and fasting that we had for our church. The first couple of weeks of the year are busy for missionary care, so I’ve been doing lots of meetings with missionaries and emails with missionaries and working with the new Financial Director the Lord has provided SGWM. There is SO MUCH administration behind giving missionaries all the tools they need to be successful, so pray that the Lord would continue to strengthen me and our amazing team for this task!

Discipleship

Through our School of Missions and internship program, the Lord has provided some amazing opportunities for Amy and I to disciple young people who feel called to vocational ministry, specifically toward the unreached. One of those young men is Bryan Reyes. Not only have I been able to disciple him, but he has become a great friend and ministry partner. I got to watch him walk for his Bible College graduation last month, he runs our sound ministry alongside me for our worship ministry, he leads worship for our young adults group and teaches them once a month, and I also get to be the best man in his wedding at the end of this month. Would you consider supporting him and his soon to be wife Andrea as they prepare to be sent to the Middle East as SGWM missionaries?

https://sgwm.com/blog/missionaries/bryan-reyes/

Prayer Requests

Please pray for strength and wisdom for Amy and I in homeschooling our four kids.

Please pray for when and where the Lord would have Joel to travel next; it has been a long time, and the process is more complicated now, but Joel really has a heart to go visit our missionaries on the ground to minister to them.

We also would love to keep you updated on our ministry via our newsletter email updates if you are interested. You can sign up for those by clicking the button below:

Email Updates

You can also become a one-time or ongoing financial partner with us by clicking the button below, or by mailing a check made out to SGWM with “Joel Garcia” in the memo line to 17451 Bastanchury Rd, Ste 203, Yorba Linda, CA, 92886. 

Love in Christ,
Joel, Amy, Maggie, Harrison, Jude, and Clara Garcia

Hello Friends and Family!

I pray that you are all doing well as we enter into one of my family’s favorite seasons: Fall!

These last few weeks, I’ve been reminded that the Lord is even in the “boring” stuff that I do as Director of Missionary Care for SGWM. Administrative duties are not always fun and exciting. As COVID has changed our ability to travel, and I have been very slow and careful in trying to decide when and where I should travel next for missionary care, our focus has been on trying to make sure our home base operations run really well. That means I’ve been on the phone and Zoom checking up on missionaries to pray for them, and helping with their practical needs.

Take today, for instance. I’m writing this update on a day that I’ve spent most of my time updating procedures and instructions for our purchase order system. Sounds thrilling, right? But when I think about it, it is SO vital that our missionaries are able to access the funds their supporters give to them to use for their ministry! Without an easy-to-use and functioning financial system, the work of our missionaries to reach people in their field would be greatly slowed and hindered.

So, even though I’ve spent all day in front of a computer and on the phone, I’m reminded that these small, mundane tasks are of the utmost importance for our missionaries. And for that I’m thankful to be a part of that process!

Zechariah 4:10 – “For who has despised the day of small things?” I won’t despise the small things, Lord!

In Christ,
Joel, Amy, Maggie, Harrison, Jude, & Clara Garcia

Hello Family and Friends!

We pray that you are all doing well. I’d love for you to take a few minutes to watch our latest video update on our family and ministry!

Please continue to pray that the Lord would open up doors and give direction on where He would like me to travel next. I take traveling seriously, as it costs money and precious time from my family, so I want to make sure that when I do travel, it is exactly where the Lord would have me to go to minister to missionaries. So far, I have not sensed open doors from Him to any specific area.

Please also pray for our new batch of interns, that the Lord would direct their paths and help us leaders at SGWM to disciple them well.

I love you all and thank you for your support and prayers!

We also would love to keep you updated on our ministry via our newsletter email updates if you are interested. You can sign up for those by clicking the button below:

Email Updates

You can also become a one-time or ongoing financial partner with us by clicking the button below, or by mailing a check made out to SGWM with “Joel Garcia” in the memo line to 17451 Bastanchury Rd, Ste 203, Yorba Linda, CA, 92886.

Love in Christ,
Joel, Amy, Maggie, Harrison, Jude, and Clara Garcia