Blanco Family Notes: April 2012

Lucas loves kissing "his baby"

It's hard to believe that we are already in the month of April. Well, I suppose my very pregnant belly makes it believable! Many people have asked us how we all have been adapting being here. Well, it has been quite the culture shock for us (reverse culture shock in my case). After Christmas and New Years passed, 'vacation' time over, it was time to really think about settling for the long term. The Lord provided us a home to rent fairly close to downtown and we are walking distance from Tulare First Baptist Church (also where Lucas goes to Day Care), from the very nice library, the trail that runs through town on the old railroad, a RiteAid Pharmacy, a small grocery store, and more. So I can't complain about location (especially since we can walk). We would also like to thank many of you who have donated furniture, things for our home, clothes, and everything we need for the new baby! What a blessing!

Taking the shortcut to preschool,

the alley behind the house,

Lucas likes to pretend

he's Buzz Lightyear

There are things we miss of course in El Salvador, the friends, and our little place in the mountains. Lucas frequently asks to go back and see his friends, and it has been interesting observing how he has processed this drastic change. For example, one day it dawned on him, "mommy we live here now, and El Salvador is far away." We've taken a few trips to L.A. and every time we go, he asks to go to the airport so we can fly back.

I never imagined that I would be moving back to my hometown, but God is always full of surprises and knows best! So, I am looking at Tulare in a different light, as a mission field focusing on the growing Hispanic community.

Pastor Daniel Elias translating for

Camilo's "launch message" at

Growing Healthy Churches Discovery Center.

In January we attended Growing Healthy Churches Network Discovery Center. It was a Church planting assessment process that was a four day intensive program in Elk Grove. Well, we were approved as Church Planters and we had to go through this process if there was going to be a possibility to church plant within the American Baptist Denomination. In seeking God's will for this process we began investigating planting a Hispanic Church with different denominations and were seriously talking with two when Tulare First Baptist expressed interest in having us work with them. After proposals and meetings, we are excited to share that Tulare First Baptist Church has officially approved starting a Hispanic Church and has hired Camilo as Pastor as of this month. This is an exciting time for the church as it seeks to reach out to its local community with the gospel!

Here’s a little update about what has been going on with our family and we appreciate your prayers for us…

Starting in February, we began the 40 Days in the Word Bible Study (a study that the whole church was doing).

Members of our Spanish Bible Study

Ours was in Spanish and the people have now formed our core group that we will begin the church with!
April 12- scheduled C-section, time to welcome Camila! (in our next blog, we hope to share photos!)
April 15- Lucas will be 4 years old. His English has improved so much since we arrived. He continues to attend Wee Care Day Care and loves walking to the library on Fridays for story time.
Camilo continues taking ESL classes at the Adult School. Through his contacts there, we have a new member of our church, Maria

Members of our Spanish Bible Study

Cortez. He is also teaching guitar lessons to a few guys from the class and sharing God’s word with them.
On Wednesday nights Camilo travels to Tipton to teach music lessons (keyboard, guitar, bass and drums) to members of a local Hispanic church to help them form their praise band.
We are grateful to Dan Olson for allowing Camilo to work a few days out in the walnut nursery, it was a good experience for him and he enjoyed the hard work!

Please pray as we seek His will in starting this church. The people that come to our home Bible study have the same need in common, a solid Biblically based Hispanic church that reach out to its community. Many share frustrating experiences with Hispanic churches. They have shared that they are not the only ones, and many people they know are not attending churches because of problems. The same story is repeated in the case of many, and this has just been even more of a confirmation of the need to plant a church starting here in Tulare with a vision to reach out to our surrounding communities as the Lord leads.

We'd like to thank so many of you who have helped us in this transition time. Every prayer, offering, encouraging word, and helpful hand has been what has sustained us during this time of change and adjustment.

A few more photos...