Situated in the heart of Central Valley in California, the Presbytery of San Joaquin’s members worship and serve the counties of Fresno, Kern, King, Madera and Tulare. Together they are committed to nurturing and creating leadership, empowering and supporting ministries, reaching out in mission across cultural diversities, and promoting healthy and effective communications and relationships.
Goal: We are called to serve as a witness to the love of Jesus Christ, so that lives can be changed.
Calvin Crest has served as a mission and ministry since 1954. Tens of thousands of children, youth and adults have made life-changing decisions to give their lives to the Lord during camps, conferences and retreats. Calvin Crest also nurtures tomorrow's leaders. Thousands of pastors, youth leaders, and missionaries have responded to the call to servant leadership as campers of staff at Calvin Crest.
Goal: Lift more gang members from the streets to the American mainstream.
Begun by the Rev. Roger Minassian, Hope Now For Youth targets gang members who have criminal records and are school dropouts. Working out of churches, the Hope Now staff share their faith in Christ and offer work site and after hours Bible studies, as well as marriage, family, and parenting classes. Hope Now has worked to place at-risk and gang youth into permanent jobs with 210 businesses with an 85% success rate and only an 8% recidivism rate. Hope Now has won national and state awards. Contributions help to pay salaries for the Hope Now staff, such as Rev. Roger Feenstra, the current director.
Goal: Provide clean water systems around the world.
Clean Water U (CWU) is the training school of Living Waters for the World. Located high in the Sierra Nevada mountains a Calvin Crest Camp and Conference Center in Oakhurst, California, Clean Water U is a simulation experience designed to equip mission teams with the skills necessary to form partnerships with communities in need of clean water, equip local leaders to lead ongoing health, hygiene and spiritual education and install the Living Waters for the World clean water system.
In their fifth year as a new church development in Bakersfield, Nuevo Amanecer ("New Hope") is led by Rev. Arcesio Cruz, an ordained Presbyterian pastor originally from Colombia This congregation works "diligently," confident that God blesses their outreach and service in the community. Their dream of a place to grow and expand and to build their own identity as a congregation was helped this year by being honored with the Walton Award. The $50,000 adds to their building fund, while they keep looking for a place they can afford.
Goal: More healthy children
Nuevo Amanecer a New Church Development helps to provide health insurance for the children of poor farm workers, in their congregation, who cannot afford it on their own. When these children become sick, they often go without medical care, sometimes leading to serious and life-long complications.
Goal: Minister to Southeast Asian and other refugees.
FIRM mobilizes churches to minister to Southeast Asian and other refugees in Fresno through a variety of programs.
