The Center

The Center (CA)

Lord, The Center is in need of more workers! We pray that workers will listen and respond to Your call to bring Christ to the inner city of Stockton, California. Please send people who are committed to stay and make an impact on young lives. Amen.

Lisa Margaron, Missionary, The Center (Stockton, CA)

SPECIFIC NEEDS

Volunteer

Missionary

Bible Club Teacher

Bilingual Family Ministries Coordinator

Bookkeeper

Children and Youth Ministry Leaders

Sports Ministries Leader

Technology and Social Media Coordinator

God's Influence Showcased

Erin Curtis, Volunteer, with Bob Margaron, Missionary, The Center
The Call, October-December 2016

As a community outreach, The Center is catalyzing powerful shifts in the lives of people in Stockton, California. Evidence of God’s transforming power is touching many individuals and slowly replacing the brokenness of the multigenerational gang lifestyle. Recently, The Center held a special event that showcased God’s influence: the wedding of Ernesto “Daniel” and Becca De LaRosa, two community members who met at The Center as children.

Daniel and Becca met in 1997 as elementary students. Bob Margaron, director of The Center, fondly remembers Becca running up to him one day with tears streaming down her cheeks, saying, “Daniel won’t quit picking on me.” Knowing this to be uncharacteristic for Daniel, who was generally quiet and gentle-spirited, Bob asked, “Do you think he likes you?” Becca ran away, yelling, “Eww!” Little could anyone predict how Bob’s comment would foreshadow future events. 

Both Daniel and Becca came from broken households, and each family knew hardship and heartache well. Daniel grew up in a single-parent home, and Becca’s father was incarcerated for much of her childhood. Becca married a man in the Marine Corps and become a mother of two but left her husband and returned to Stockton after he became abusive. Daniel had remained unmarried and was working steadily. When Becca returned, they reconnected and moved in together. He embraced her two children as his own, and together they had a baby. 

As He grew their household, God also moved in Daniel and Becca’s hearts, burdening them with the desire to honor Him by being married. They sought Bob out. He agreed to officiate the wedding and walked with them through premarital counseling for three months. The couple also agreed to abstain from sex until they were married legally. 

Becca dreamed of marrying Daniel in the place where they’d met, so the Margarons joyfully opened The Center’s facilities for the wedding. The De LaRosas have been a testimony in Stockton. Together, they stood in front of the kids at The Center and spoke about their experience. At the wedding, friends and family witnessed their passion for glorifying God as they stepped away from sin and into His design for their lives. Bob hopes that those who see the De LaRosas will see “that God will be with them through any of their situations and that He carries them through.” 

PRAY: Pray for the missionary and volunteer staff who give selflessly to provide the children of this community stability and safety. Pray that Jesus will be lifted up and glorified in all the ongoing activities—Bible club, special events, tutoring, etc.—at The Center.

Serving in Stockton

And excerpt from...
Serving in Stockton

Missionary celebrates 20 years since turning his life around
By David Adams, Volunteer
July-September 2014


Bob Margaron began drinking with his mother at the age of 5. This experience would begin a tumultuous life that would be riddled with crime, sex, and drugs.

Bob eventually found little pleasure in the lifestyle. One day he overdosed on methamphetamine, intending to end his life. His heart was racing; he knew he was about to die. But in the silence of his California trailer, he heard a voice calling out.
“I knew that voice was God,” Bob said. He responded, “God, I’m gonna die or live for You.”

His recovery process began when God opened the door for Bob to leave southern California and check in at the Oakland Peniel Drug Treatment Center. Twenty years later he celebrates the new life God granted him while ministering at The Center in Stockton, California. He and his wife, Lisa, help children avoid the dark road Bob took that almost led to his death.

“God transformed my life in an amazing way,” Bob said of his time at the Oakland center. He experienced a transformation that was both physical (as his body recovered) and spiritual.

When he graduated from the rehabilitation program, Bob began working for the Oakland mission, through which he met Lisa. Although Bob had no plans for a relationship, God made it clear to both Bob and Lisa that they were meant for one another.
The two were married on October 28, 1995, and Bob began working on his education so that he could join WGM as a career missionary. He also needed to clear his past record, as he had discovered outstanding warrants in California. God provided a lawyer, and Bob continued his education as his lawyer helped clear his record.

Bob was accepted as a career missionary with WGM in 1996. He explained to the board how God had sanctified him, and he was “accepted with open arms.”
As he left the meeting, he received an urgent message to call his attorney. All but one charge against him had been dropped, his lawyer said, and the one remaining had been reduced to an infraction. Bob could finally close the book on his troubled past. In December 1998, Bob became an ordained minister.

For almost two decades, Bob and Lisa have ministered to over 75 students each day at The Center, where Bob serves as the field director for WGM. Bob also works as a Police School Resource Chaplain, serving in three schools and reaching out to over 1,900 students, staff, and administration. God had taken an “angry biker dope fiend” and made him an instrument of His service.

“Because of my willingness to be obedient to God and trust Him—because I had serious trust issues back in the day—He intervened for me,” Bob said. “I got the opportunity to serve Him in Stockton.”

PRAY: Transforming Bob’s heart was a work only God could do. How is God calling you to serve? If you have not yet submitted in obedience, now is the time to pray and ask God to inspire your heart with the ministry He has for you.

MORE: For ways to serve through WGM, visit www.wgm.org/serve.

Concert of Prayer: Children and Youth [April 13-19]

He was just 13 when he sought acceptance and security in a gang. Nappy came from a broken, dysfunctional home where drugs and alcohol were freely used. Violence was the norm in his neighborhood in south Stockton, California.

Now in prison, Nappy has had time to reflect on the one counter-cultural force that was present in his childhood: The Center. The seed of the gospel that was planted long ago by missionaries serving at The Center came to fruition when he accepted Christ as his Savior.

Now, Nappy’s life mission is to help kids who are going through the same circumstances he lived through.

ACT: Choose a month this year to dedicate time to the cause of children and youth by volunteering with the children’s or youth ministry at your church.

• Pray that the work of the Holy Spirit will be evident in those who are serving in children’s and youth ministries. May they be like Jesus to those they mentor.
• Ask God to help children’s and youth leaders to have creativity as they prepare Bible studies and lessons.
• Praise God for those like Nappy who remembered the seeds of their youth and have come to know Christ through evangelism to children. 

PODCAST: Enjoy interviews with missionaries who serve in key missions causes. Listen to this week’s podcast!

CALL: Call WGM’s Prayer Lifeline at 671.7232 (Marion, Indiana, area) or 1.800.426.0846 (toll free) to join other concert-goers in hearing this week’s recorded prayer.

SHARE: Invite others to pray with you during the concert. We depend on your prayers! Email us at thecall@wgm.org and tell us who you are praying with so we can encourage our staff.

The Blessing Is in the Backpack

An excerpt from...

The Blessing Is in the Backpack

By Lisa Blount, Program Coordinator for Blessings in a Backpack, Stockton, California
January-March 2014

I started Blessings in a Backpack through my church because I felt God placed it on my heart to do something that not only had impact, but also met a practical need. As a school volunteer, I saw the great needs of many of our children. While I couldn’t meet every need, I could meet a specific one: feed the children.

First I had to set up a program and find an educational site to support, and then raise funds. My church had a relationship with The Center, Peniel Mission in Stockton, California, that became our educational site choice. Although it is not a school, they run an after-school academic program that allowed us to serve them as we would a school. It also helped that Bob and Lisa Margaron, WGM missionaries and directors at The Center, were my neighbors.

The children who attend The Center are from schools with 100 percent participation in Federal Free Meal programs and are in the poorest parts of our city. Kids in this program are fed during the week, but many do not have enough to eat over the weekends.

Blessings in a Backpack provides elementary school children with a backpack of food to take home for 38 weekends during the school year. Items include easy-to-prepare, ready-to-eat foods, such as beans, mac and cheese, oatmeal, and fruit. Better test scores, improved reading skills, positive behavior, improved health, and increased attendance have all been attributed to the success of this program.

My church held a month-long fundraising campaign to raise enough to support 50 kids for a three-year commitment, the minimum the program requests. Teachers have determined it takes about three years to see the gains in students in the program. We now have raised funds to support an additional 10 kids for three years. One hundred percent of the funds raised goes to buy food.

We handed out the first backpacks in January 2013. I do the shopping, my team packs the bags and delivers them to the Margarons, and they distribute the bags every Friday afternoon of the school year.

Anyone can start a group to serve their community!

MORE: Blessings in a Backpack is a nonprofit organization currently feeding nearly 62,000 children in 437 schools in 42 U.S. states and three countries. For more information, go to www.blessingsinabackpack.org.

Others Before Me

An excerpt from Other Before Me
By Ryan Tyson, Volunteer, The Center

July-September 2012


Girls are not allowed outside without an adult male. Don’t sit near the windows, because they cannot stop a bullet. These were just a couple of our instructions given on the first day of my weeklong visit to The Center with my church youth group. This mission field in Stockton, California, is a safe haven for kids in the inner city.

The kids in Stockton have grown up in a society in which they are rarely shown options other than gangs, drugs, and violence. The kids at The Center have said “No” to all of that and have chosen to follow God. For them, this means a complete change in lifestyle. When I observed what a drastic change they had to go through, I realized that being a true disciple calls for me to change my whole persona as well.

Since the trip, I have been adjusting everything I do to focus on God. It is more than just following the rules; it means shifting my perspective. The biggest change is probably my selfishness. God calls us to be selfless, which I did not think I was. To this day, I still have to work very hard to put others’ needs before mine. This also means that I need to be more sympathetic and look at things from an objective view. From an outside perspective, these may seem like subtle changes, but from an inside perspective, the difference is enormous. This is not just a part of my life; it is my life.

PRAY: Is God calling you to make drastic changes in your life? Take time right now to pray that God will lead you to a change in perspective.

Regional Update from the USA and West Indies

An excerpt from Regional Update: USA and West Indies
By Tim Rickel, Vice President of International Ministries
January–March 2012

In August, our missionaries on the American Indian Field were excited to start construction on a multipurpose building on the Peoria, Arizona, campus of Southwest Indian Ministries Center. This will allow them to expand their Bible camp ministry to Native American children and their outreach to the whole community. Missionaries are also living on the Tohono O’odham reservation in Sells, Arizona, and near the Navajo Reservation in Farmington, New Mexico. Working as bivocational missionaries, a number of AIF missionaries are impacting Native American families in the reservation communities where they live. These are exciting days for the American Indian Field.

Stockton, California, has seen an upswing in gang-related violence, with 39 dead and over 150 wounded in what is being called a gang war. Bob Margaron is involved with community leaders, speaking in “town hall” meetings about community-wide intervention. One shooting in which an innocent bystander was killed happened just half a block from The Center, WGM’s community center in Stockton. Bob is working directly with the intended victim’s family to provide safety and resources.

To read more about what is happening in this WGM region read the complete article at www.wgm.org/call.

Successful Ministry

An excerpt from Do You Believe…In Successful Ministry?
By Bob Margaron, The Center (Stockton, California)
October–December 2011

I think Jesus gauges His success through relationships. From His birth, to His death on the cross, to His resurrection, and even today, the life of Jesus is about building relationships.

Approximately 13 years ago, a young lady and her siblings started coming to The Center in Stockton, California. I remember they began attending during the week of Thanksgiving because when I was trying to get to know one of her brothers, he told me all they had to eat for Thanksgiving dinner was cereal.

As years went by, little Margie continued to go to school and get good grades. She graduated from high school and went on to college. Recently, Margie (not so little anymore) came to The Center to share with Lisa and me that she is graduating from college with her AA degree.

After serving God for well over a decade, I have had many people ask how I gauge success in ministry. Then I am reminded of little Margie.

ACT: When you reach for a cereal bowl in the morning, remember to pray for The Center ministry in Stockton, California. The little Margies in attendance that day will be grateful.