Russ & Meredith Martin

Hacking for Jesus

How is the Great Commission accelerated when 1,235 hackers get together to code for Jesus?
- A digital outreach campaign for the World Cup was developed.
- Experimental strategies of starting churches for the next generation were piloted.
- The reporting of online exploitation was expedited.
- Prayer was mobilized.
- Refugees were welcomed and given an opportunity to discover Jesus.
- Believers working in tech discovered how to use their skills for God's kingdom.
- The use of data enabled more effective outreach.

We just released our #HACK2022 impact report and are excited to share 43 stories of God at work all around the world.
1,235 participants
56 cities
29 countries
3 global partners

It's a privilege to lead and steward this effort.

WBC Friends, this (^) is the fruit of your prayers and giving. Without your faithful partnership this global collaboration would not have happened. Thank you for the part you play in leading the next generation of missions in a digital age.

Recent Highlights
A. Quality time with Grandparents in and around Singapore
B. Meredith was her parents' travel guide to visit missionary friends in Cambodia. 
C. Women's Bible study kick-off. Meredith has been giving leadership at our church plant in this area.

Raul & Jessenia Espinoza

Espinozas in Ecuador

“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!” 
1 Chronicles 16:34

Dear Wallenstein Family, 

Happy 2023! We are now two months in! We hope you are all doing well and looking forward to all this year has to offer. As this new year begins, we like to take a look back and see all the ways God was faithful in 2022 and we can say from experience, “God is good and His love is faithful”.  

One of the ways He has continuously shown us His care is through your faithful, monthly financial support. We are so grateful: we love our life in Ecuador and the work God has given us to do and so we are glad we get to keep on doing it. We hope that you too can be encouraged by what you have been a part of this past year.

What was new this year: 
The above photos represent the two major novelties in our life this past year. 

• Danilo! Our new baby arrived in May making us the happy parents of two sweet, funny boys. They keep us busy but we have been adjusting to parenting two little ones and have seen God’s faithful hand in giving us wisdom as we grow in our parenting skills. Tiago is a careful, friendly little fellow whose imagination keeps us smiling. Danilo is our little "bull-dozer" who is eager to be on the move and keep up with his big brother.

• School Board at Hope of Bastion School: Also in the spring of 2022, Raul stepped out of his teaching position at the school to concentrate on his new role as president of the school board. We had 3 Salvadorian women join us as consultants as Raul and the school board worked to formalize many school processes and rework the organizational structure of the school to better fit the school’s size and current realities. This new role has been stretching for Raul and sometimes exhausting, but we have felt God’s leading and  are encouraged with the progress made so far at the school. Please pray for wisdom for him and the school board as they are looking for a new principal as the current one (who served there for the last 20 years) is retiring. It is no easy feat to fill this position with someone with both the qualifications and the vision needed to guide the school.

What has continued:

• Youth: We are grateful to continue to be involved in the youth group at the local church. This year we were able to go back to many of our pre-pandemic activities and so we were able to have our yearly Christmas party without restrictions!  Since camp last year, there have been a handful of youth who have attended discipleship Bible studies regularly and these youth have become involved in helping out with Sunday school. It has been evident to us that these youth have grown in leadership skills, friendship with each other, and faithfulness in serving throughout this past year. We feel a continuous hope and pride in how they are making decisions that is at the same time tempered by the knowledge (build on experience) of how fast they can turn away to other things. Please pray for these youth as they are right in the years of forming their identity and deciding if that identity will revolve around Christ. 

• Sponsorship: Jessie continues to be involved as she can with sponsorship work at the school. This year we were able to find quite a few new sponsors and currently have the highest number of sponsored children ever!  Please pray that we would find sponsors for those without and that each student would come to a saving knowledge of Christ through their Christian education, and interactions with teachers and sponsors.

Again, thank you for being a part of our ministry this past year. We would not be here without people like you participating in the ministry. May God bless you greatly as you continue to serve Him. 

With love in Christ,

Raul, Jessenia, Tiago and Danilo

Charlotte Martin (Power to Change)

The Start of 2023

Wallenstein, I always find the beginning of a new year brings me fresh energy and renewed motivation. This has been true for me this year and it is a gift. As I started this year, one verse that came up in my Bible reading is Nehemiah 8:10 - "the joy of the Lord is your strength." The Lord has been placing it on my heart to grow in contentment this year and I want joy in him to be my strength. 

We are one month into 2023 and already there have been ups and downs, joys and challenges. Let me share a few:

1) A loss - 2023 started off with the passing of my last grandparent. Grandma Martin had a deep trust in God's sovereignty and a sincere interest and care for people. As she aged and her eyesight failed, she would spend a lot of time on the phone checking in and talking with people. I hope to emulate her trust in God, and her love/care for people in my own life.

2) A hope - In December we had our first Canadian staff member, Derek, move to Vietnam as we continue to develop and cultivate a new partnership there. He is getting settled in, making connections, and sorting out visa issues. As well, we have a good number of students interested in our Vietnam mission trip for 2023.

3) A joy - As we start to process mission trip applications for our 2023 trips, it was encouraging to get an application from Asher. Asher's family is Muslim, but in the past few months he made a decision to follow Jesus. Asher is eager and excited to grow in his faith and sees a mission trip as a great opportunity to help him do that. We have accepted him to our Praxis Ottawa mission trip and we are excited to see how God will use this experience in his life. Pray for more than 50 students to go on mission trips this May/June. Currently we have 3 students accepted and another 43 who have started applications.

4) An opportunity - For the next 5 weeks I will be taking part in a course about soul care. Proverbs 4:23 says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." As a leader I want to care well for my heart and my soul so that God can bear fruit through my life. This course is an opportunity for me to develop some habits and rhythms that will help me do better at caring for my soul. As I engage in this experience I am looking for a handful of people to pray for me. If you would like to intentionally pray for me throughout this journey, please respond to this email and I'll send you more specifics of how you can be praying. 

One of our last Sunday afternoons with Grandma Martin.

In person meetings in Guelph last week with the National Leadership Team.

Russ & Meredith Martin

How God Worked in 2022

Over 200 young people from dozens of churches, supported and endorsed by elderly church leadership and all unified by one passion, to bring the gospel to new people, places and spaces. The above photo from the Indigitous #HACK event in Bangkok, Thailand embodies how we saw God at work in 2022.

Our logo isn't prominent and our team is hard to spot, but through our prayers, coaching and the global platform we steward, we are empowering indigenous leaders in their context to pioneer new ways of bringing the gospel where it's needed most. Thailand is one of the least reached places on the planet, where less than 1 in 200 people know and follow Jesus, and yet the tools and equipping our team provides enabled 48 hours of the most effective missional collaboration the local churches in Bangkok have participated in.

This is just one city and one moment from our #HACK 2022 event which had 1000+ participants in 64 cities and 35 countries.

WBC Friends, without your faithful partnership this special moment in Thailand would not have happened. Thank you for the part you play in leading the next generation of missions in a digital age.

Photos below: 2022 Family Highlights
A. Games, exploring, travel, sports, creating.
B. Two kid-free weekends this year. 
C. Settled into our new neighborhood and enjoyed building friendships over the Christmas holiday.

Trevor & Hannah Martin - Power to Change

A Life Changing Flight

A UK echange student named Clay got involved in our community at UBCO (University of British Columbia - Okanagan) this past semester. Even though he said wasn't that interested in faith at first, the more he got involved, the more intrigued he became. And he enjoyed the community so much that he was sad his exchange was only six weeks. He was also dissappointed that he was going to miss Summit (our annual fall retreat), which was taking place a week after his flight home. Not wanting to miss out, he decided to fly from the UK back to Kelowna the next week so that he could partake in Summit. He could have flown to Vancouver, which would have been closer to the retreat location, but he wanted to ride together with the other students from UBCO. To cap this all off, at Summit, Clay made a decision to follow Jesus! Please pray for him to keep growing in his faith and get connected to a local church in the UK. Trevor has done some background work for our ministry at UBCO and for the BC summit, so it was exciting to hear this story from the front lines!
 

Thank You and Updates

THANK YOU for playing your part in helping students like Clay to discover Jesus. Without your prayers, giving and encouragement we couldn't do what we do. We are sincerely grateful for your  partnership. Hannah has finished her maternity leave and will be returning to campus ministry with the Waterloo team in January. She will likely be focusing on helping the Laurier ministry and discipling women. Trevor continues to support our campus ministries nation-wide administratively.

A few months ago, we asked for your prayers for our daughter Amelia's emotional health. She was having frequent (daily) meltdowns and some were quite extreme. So, in the last couple of months, she has been getting some help from an occupational therapist. These sessions have helped her and us as parents to have common language for the challenges and emotional phases/zones (i.e. red/yellow/green) that Amelia experiences. The sessions have also helped to suggest coping mechanisms that Amelia can use for sensory challenges. (i.e Amelia is very noise sensitive). There are still meltdowns, but they have been less frequent, so we thank God for her improvement and for those of you who have been praying for us. Merry Christmas and enjoy the below pictures! Please send us a picture or an update from your world if you can!

2022 in Pictures

Avery

Amelia

Family

TOP: A picture from our Martin family photo shoot this summer
ML: Enjoying some sushi which Amelia realized is one of her favourite foods
MR: Hannah's parents visited a few times this year and helped with baby Avery
BL: Our Martin family vacation at a cottage in Ontario's cottage country
BR: One of our last visits with Trevor's Grandma who passed away in July