dmartinez@fourthstreet.org

I grew up in a small home here in Madera with my mother, father, and sister.  My grandmother brought my mom and her brothers and sisters here to California from Texas to work.  God’s wonderful plan and a broken car caused them to settle here in Madera. From my earliest memories I can remember being in church every Sunday morning at Community Bible Church on Central street.  

Even though I went to church as a kid, I always felt like God’s blessings were skipping over my family.  I would watch our other relatives who were more well off and feel like God cared less about us because we didn’t have the material blessings they did.  My mother lost the ability to read and write through a sickness at the age of 10 and my father only made it to the 10th grade.  I was so focused on material possessions that I became very bitter toward Christians and even my own family.

Heading into my teenage years I began to withdraw from church.  I would stay home on Sunday’s with friends while my family went without me.  On my 15th birthday a family member introduced me to alcohol and the next 2 and a half years was dominated by addiction.  I missed more than half of the school year during that time and was causing a lot of trouble for my parents. My life was spiraling out of control quickly.  

My mother may not be able to read and write but she has a heart of gold.  My mother would consistently pray for me to change and I would even at times mock her for this. Well, God has given her the last laugh.  On March 29th 2001 after an afternoon of drinking I woke up at night with an overwhelming sense that the God who I grew up hearing about was calling me to follow him.  The sense was so strong I dumped out a case of beer that I had and that night with my grandmother, I surrendered my life to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It has been 17 years since that day and I have never taken another drink.  I fell in love with God and I stand in amazement at where he has me at in my life.  I realize now that my mom passed something on to me that money could not buy me: Her Faith.  

1 Corinthians 2:9 However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”-

dhawes@fourthstreet.org

Jesus is so inviting and compelling. 

My passion is for people to experience and enjoy Jesus more than anything else in this life by learning to practice His loving presence everyday throughout the day. 

Because Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Abundant Life, I am compelled to use the gift of teaching to see the Spirit and Truth set people free and fill them with the life, love and joy of Jesus as they are formed into His beautiful image. 

I want to belong to a family-like community who loyally loves the Father, Son and Spirit single-mindedly and wholeheartedly, daily growing in our affectionate love for Him and our sacrificially generous love for one another, compelled by a compassionate love for the lost in our city and beyond. 

By helping create Acts 2-like pockets of teaching and training, belonging to Christ and one another, breaking of bread and prayerful worship, I want to see a people whose lives are completely reoriented and reordered around:

1. Being with Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30; Acts 4:12) 
2. Becoming like Jesus (Luke 6:40; 2 Corinthians 3:18)
3. Bearing the fruit of Jesus (John 15:5; Galatians 5:22-25)