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We are continuing our series on getting to know your church leaders a little bit better. Read along to learn more about Ashley Marquez, who just joined our Deacon Council. 

Where were you born, and do you still consider that home, or somewhere else?

I was born in Raton, NM but moved to Rio Rancho when I was very young. I consider Tijeras as my home now.

What did you want to be when you grew up – and is that still a dream?

I wanted to be a psychologist. That is definitely not still a dream of mine. God had other plans!

What or who was your earliest spiritual influence?

My friend, Amy Grebe who I met at Calvary when I was visiting there. Shortly after I became saved and moved in with her. God definitely brought her into my life, being a new Christian who needed a mature believer to encourage me in the faith.

How and when did Christ call you to Himself?

I had been questioning my purpose in life and the Lord used someone at my work to share the gospel with me. Although I was skeptical, I decided I would go to church. God gave me eyes to see and ears to hear from His Word. He awoke me from my dead state and called me to Himself in 2003 and my life completely changed after that.

What is a scripture you often read or share with others?

John 14:6 always comes to mind. It was the first verse ever shared with me so I love sharing it as well. I am always encouraged by Hebrews 4:16, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

What is a special answered prayer you’ve received from the Lord?

I made some dating mistakes as a Christian, and I prayed that I would marry the next person that I dated. That is when He brought Gabe into my life.

What is a blessing and what is a challenge you see will come from serving as a deacon?

A blessing will be to serve along my brothers and sisters on behalf of the body and be used by God as He sees fit. A challenge will be feeling inadequate for the job but I am encouraged that He will enable me through His Spirit to do what He calls me to do!

What are your hobbies and how did you get into them?

I enjoy hiking, camping, baking, making sourdough, and going to the gym. My husband was a big influence in my love for the outdoors.

What is your favorite family tradition?

Every year right after Thanksgiving, we take a drive to cut down a Christmas tree for the kids and spend the day in the mountains. They get to decorate it however they like when we get it home.

How do you enjoy spending a day off?

Taking my time in the morning drinking my coffee and reading the Bible, then going to the gym and afterwards having lunch with my husband and kids or catching up with a friend.

What is the perfect meal?

Street tacos with all the fixings. And chocolate cake!

Who or what never fails to make you laugh?

My husband 😀

We asked Gabe: 

What is your favorite trait of Ashley's?

Ashley is such a hospitable person, and always goes out of her way to make people feel comfortable and welcomed. I love that it makes her happy to make others feel loved and cared for.

What does Ashley do that can always make you smile?

We have a great relationship because we can go from having a very deep conversation one minute to laughing until our jaws hurt the next. I love her sense of humor. Her humility and light hearted nature to even laugh at herself ant times is contagious.

For over 15 years, the East Mountain Wood Ministry has been helping to warm homes, make new connections, and encourage them in their God-given dignity.

The ministry is designed to encourage those who need help to seek relationships with people around them that can help stack wood, deliver wood, or help in whatever capacity they can. The ministry also helps them identify what brought them to this place of need.

Those who volunteer to help are often church members, but we also have people who have received wood in the past help with current needs. And working alongside people from the community has other  advantages! Since we always pray before a work event, it is such a witness to those who may or may not go to church. As we talk to clients about their needs and how we can help, we often ask how we can pray for them. 

I love that this ministry has many people helping. As we work together to get to know one another, we form bonds and can have relationship with people we may not have had an opportunity to get to know otherwise.  Building relationships with both clients and those volunteering are a huge part of the ministry. Our focus is to honor God.

I think the most challenging part of this ministry is finding a time that works for everyone and their schedules. The other challenge I see is being able to connect with clients without them feeling like we are intruding on their space. I love connecting with people and sitting down with them over a cup of coffee, but find people are hesitant to do this in this new era we find ourselves in. I think this is a challenge for people in general. I find people today don’t want connection and are extremely uncomfortable with it. But Christ CALLS us to connection, that is His design for us….so in this culture of cell phones, laptops, computers, and isolation we must work past that to find connection with each other. More importantly, to find connection with those who need Jesus - those who are feeling isolated. This is a hard and uncomfortable balance that we must work through in a loving supportive way.      

If you are interested in helping with the Wood Ministry, we look forward to seeing you. This is a great way for families to come alongside each other to serve not only the body of Christ, but also the community around them. Please be on the lookout in your bulletin for upcoming Wood Ministry opportunities! Coming soon!                

“But You, O Lord, are a shield about me, My glory, and the One who lifts my head.” Psalm 3:3

The goal of the Shield Ministry is to honor and glorify God by being prayer warriors for our First Responders and their families. Day after day and night after night, law enforcement officers, fire fighters, paramedics, and EMTs say goodbye to their families and put their lives on the line to keep us safe. Day after day, they put on the full armor of God Paul spoke of in Ephesians 6:10-18.

We provide spiritual back-up for these heroes with prayer and words of encouragement. This may look like birthday cards, anniversary cards, notes of encouragement, scripture verses, or however the Lord leads.  We commit to praying for their safety, courage, strength, and integrity.  Sometimes we receive specific prayer requests and join our First Responders in bringing them before the throne of grace.  

We encourage everyone to pray for First Responders. If you are a First Responder or are interested in becoming a Shield Ministry Prayer Warrior and receive specific prayer requests, contact Pete Feldner at (505) 350-0399 or Cathy Feldner at (505) 362-8048.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”  Thessalonians 5:16-18

Last week Kellie shared the first part of their adoption journey. Here is the rest of the story...

About four weeks later, I got a call from a caseworker I’d never met. She said, “I’ve read your home study and I think I’ve found a really good match for you and your husband.” I was so excited… tell me more! She began talking and I was immediately floored! She began, “It’s a sibling pair, a girl and a boy. The boy is 16 and the girl is 10.” I stopped her there and said, “I know exactly who you are talking about.” She was speechless when I said, “Is it Felix and Ashley?” She hadn’t even realized that Sean and I had been at the slide show night. She had no idea that we’d been discussing them.

It was absolutely clear in that moment that God was opening a door for us and making it crystal clear that this was His plan for us and for these kiddos. Every fear I had of adopting, of their age, of the unknown, completely vanished. I told her, “YES!” She tried to tell me more, making it clear to me that if we said yes we had to mean it because these kids had just been through an adoption that had fallen through and they didn’t want to take a chance that it would happen again. I continued to just tell her, “Yes, yes yes!” I couldn’t wait to go home and tell Sean.

When I got home, Sean was in the garage working on his motorcycle. I told him the news and he got immediately choked up and was in complete agreement. It was completely evident to us that God had heard our prayers.

Our next step was to put together a family book that CYFD could share with Felix. Because he was 16, he had a say in his adoption. I quickly gathered photos, bought a DIY scrapbook at Hobby Lobby, and whipped up that family book! When they presented it to Felix and he said, “Yes!”, we were thrilled.

At that point, we were given full disclosure of their past, CYFD reports, police reports, medical records, school records, etc. AND, we got pictures of them! Big 11 x 16 photos! I loved them immediately! We hung them proudly in the kitchen and shared them with our family and closest friends.

This was late October. We found out soon after that we would meet them for the first time on January 1.

We went home to Washington for Christmas that year and flew back to New Mexico a few days before the New Year. While we were in the Seattle-Tacoma airport, heading back to New Mexico, we got a call from the social worker telling us that Felix had run away. She told us that he had a pregnant girlfriend who had recently moved out of state and that they believed that was where he had gone. I felt like I had been hit by a semi-truck! I literally almost threw up. They still wanted us to come and meet Ashley and move forward. We were grateful for that and more than willing… but, it was such a shock! Sean was really looking forward to a teenage son and a boy he could mentor and help grow. A boy who wanted to fly in the Air Force. A boy who wanted a motorcycle. It seemed too perfect.

On New Years Day, the drive three hours south was long and silent. Each of us wrapped up in so many thoughts and emotions. We arrived at the foster home, knocked on the door, and that little girl answered. She was hiding behind the door so we couldn’t see her. She slowly came out from behind the door and the love I immediately felt was beyond anything I can truly explain. I have no doubt that God gave me the love for Ashley Nicole days, weeks, months, years before I actually got to meet her! She was part of me. She was mine. It was something I thought a woman could only feel/have by giving birth to her own child. I was SO wrong. Though I’ve never experienced that, I can only imagine it was exactly the same. God is so gracious. God is so faithful.

These last four years have been nothing short of a tremendously rich and blessed experience. We feel so extremely fortunate to have this amazing little girl join our family. She is a light and so amazingly full of joy. She is funny and gracious and beautiful and sweet and loving and awesome! She is the perfect addition to our family.   

(P.S. This was written in 2014- most of you know Ashley now and have witnessed our blessed journey! She is our absolute pride and joy! We continue to feel like the luckiest parents there are- though we know there was really no luck involved. God had a plan and we are so thankful we listened.)

Sean and I had tried for years to conceive and eventually went through the whole fertility testing process. We were told that we were able to get pregnant, but that it was unlikely. It was heartbreaking news. It took a couple of years before we decided that we were ready to adopt. We had discussed it many times and were both “open” to it, but I think we were always hopeful that I would get pregnant in the meantime!

Once we actually decided to start the adoption process, we looked first at the international avenues of adoption and the adoption of a baby through a private agency. At the same time, as I met with God daily, I felt him stirring in my heart the idea that He wanted us to adopt an older child. I easily dismissed this feeling because I WANTED A BABY. I fought it for months and then one night Sean came to me and told me that he felt God was prodding him (us) to consider adopting an older child(ren). Wow! It was clear from that point on that this is what we would do and we began the process of becoming licensed as foster parents so we could adopt through the State.

As we went through the training, classes, home study, etc., we still talked of adopting an older child in terms of a child age 2-5’ish. We had decided on a boy because the trainers scared Sean when they spoke about all the things that can happen when you adopt a girl. They warn of adoptive fathers having trouble with girls accusing them of different kinds of abuse (many because of what they’ve endured in the past). They warn fathers to keep journals of any time a touch or a hug may have taken place and been misconstrued as inappropriate, etc. Sean felt strongly that we should adopt a boy and I couldn’t blame him.

We completed our training and home study and became officially licensed foster parents. We had chosen to only accept “waiting children”, meaning that they were ready for adoption (parental rights had already been terminated). I was too scared to have a child in my home for any length of time only to have them taken away. I felt I had already endured so much heartache and did not think I was capable of that kind of situation. We told CYFD that we preferred a toddler boy because they highly encourage you to narrow it down to a specific sex, age, etc. I think they thought we were crazy because we kept telling them that we had NO idea what God had planned and we were mostly just willing to be obedient to whatever He laid in front of us. Still, to me, in my heart this meant a young boy and just one child (while Sean was open to a sibling group).

Shortly after our home study was finished, Sean got orders to deploy to Afghanistan for one year, putting everything on hold.

When he returned, we made sure everything was up-to-date with CYFD and a few months later told them that we were ready to be considered again. We went to a “slide show night” where the caseworkers show pictures of their kiddos and give little bios on them. At the end of the night, prospective parents turn in a list of kids they are interested in. We submitted the name of one little boy, Ezekiel, about age 5. About a week later, they notified us that he already had a prospective forever family. At that same slide show, a caseworker had spoken about a brother and sister who had just come up for adoption. She had no pictures and just a little bit of information about them. The boy was 16 and the girl was 10. Something about them sparked Sean’s interest. He mentioned it to me and I abruptly dismissed it. What in the world would I do with a 16-year old boy? It seemed, to me, more than I could handle!

After the prospect of Ezekiel fell through, Sean again mentioned this brother and sister duo. I really didn’t say anything, I just let him talk and then I let it go. After all, we had told CYFD that we wanted a toddler boy and so they would never even consider our home study for this pair of children. I didn’t need to worry about it. He brought them up a few other times, but it never went further than just casual conversation.

Come back next week to find out the rest of the story…..