The men of Crossroads completed Leadership Journey Training and hosted a retreat for three sister churches. They will be guiding those men through the training. They are witnessing and inviting friends to church with a fresh passion.

The ladies completed a two-year theology intensive and will be doing the Grove Training this year. TWELVE ladies from Crossroads attended the CARBC ladies’ retreat. They grew spiritually and have committed to hosting a future retreat.

God brought the Kafunga family to Crossroads. They are In the US on asylum from the Congo, where they ministered for 30 years before being forced out by the government. Pastor and Celestine have a heart for international ministry and are partnering with Crossroads to reach French and Swahili with the gospel.

We have prayed for a strong inroads into the Indian Community. Paul and Prahba came from India this year, coming from a long-standing Baptist Church, with a heart for their friends.

On Thanksgiving, we read scripture in 11 heart languages and shared a meal with food from all the cultures represented at Crossroads. These families do not attend Crossroads because the culture is familiar. They attend because all cultures are equal just like the gospel is equal for all. We are learning from each other’s traditions and are unified by a love of God and love for people. Our worship is multi-generation, multi-cultural, and inclusive. We are learning the beautiful traditions of many Christian cultures and working to blend them into our worship services.

And, WOW, we are really having to work on our communication skills!!

In a joint outreach with the Spanish church that meets on our campus, we built and presented a Live Nativity Float in the Tracy Holiday Lights Parade. One of our young men, when asked if he was going to participate, texted a friend “What is a parade??”  The family that played the part of Mary and Joseph had also never seen an American parade. They kept thanking us for the privilege. But the best story is the random angel. A lady and her daughter walked up to Susan as the parade was about to start. She clearly only spoke Spanish, no English. Susan quickly put an angel costume on the little girl and helped the mom onto the float. During the parade, people on the float started to converse with her in Spanish. We were surprised to find out that she was not part of the Spanish church. She had moved to the US from Peru two weeks earlier, saw the parade forming, thought our float looked interesting and picked it to ride on. We are praying that the Spanish Church will be able to minister to her. It’s the first time in thirty years that we have had a random person join a parade float!