Navigate / search

Meet the Ferrer Family

Ferrer Family 2013
Ferrer Family 2013

Grant Ferrer was a 21-year-old college student in Florida, studying to be a pilot, when he became a Christian. He obtained all his pilot licenses and became a gliding instructor when God called him to be a missionary. In 1980 he worked with Operation Mobilization for a summer, then he was in a discipleship intern program at Fairhaven Bible Chapel in San Leandro, California, under Gene Gibson and Bill MacDonald.

In 1981, Grant and Kandy were married, and in 1982, Fairhaven sent them to Cataluña, Spain where they worked with Daniel Gonzalez (Cursos Biblicos, Barcelona), planting two churches in Figueres and Rosas, Spain. While Grant and Kandy were home on furlough in 1991, Grant was asked to replace his former mentor Gene Gibson, who had suffered a heart attack, on a trip to Honduras. During his three-week trip, Grant preached 75 times, giving his own messages and interpreting for Jim McCarthy, author of The Gospel According to Rome and other Christian books. Grant was invited to return to Honduras, and after much prayer, he moved there in 1992 with Kandy and their three little girls.

After living in Tegucigalpa for two years, God led the Ferrers to plant a church in Valle de Angeles with a Honduran couple. After eight years there, the church sent them to Managua, Nicaragua in 2003, to work with Helen Goatley to start a church in the capital city.

Honduras Map

Last year, Grant and Kandy returned to Valle de Angeles just as the church was about to start another church in Santa Lucia. God has greatly prospered those efforts asthere is now a church planting effort in the nearby villages of Sauce and Macueliso, and the church in Nicaragua is still going strong with good leadership. Grant trains men to minister in their local churches and provides discipleship and evangelism training. Since 1997 (the year the Ferrers’ son Joshua was born), there have been 95 graduates of the Bible Modules discipleship program, which trains men to be leaders in their local churches.

When Kandy was 17, she gave her life to the Lord, and moving to Garden Valley, California, the believers there helped her to grow spiritually. When a missionary visited Garden Valley Chapel, giving a stirring message and an invitation to serve the Lord overseas, Kandy felt called to be a missionary. She attended Prairie Bible Institute in Alberta, Canada, and later she served with Operation Mobilization (OM) for two-and-a-half years in Europe and Asia. She met Grant at OM headquarters in Belgium. Because Kandy had attended monthly missionary prayer meetings at Fairhaven Bible Chapel in San Leandro, Grant had already been praying for her while she was in Asia with OM, as had the believers at Garden Valley Chapel and Contra Costa Christian Community Fellowship. Those three churches are still faithfully supporting Grant and Kandy in their ministry 31 years later.

The Ferrers’ oldest daughter Jessica and her husband Robert Campbell have two children, Robby (5) and Cali (1 1/2), and their family is in fellowship with Fairhaven Bible Chapel. Their middle daughter Susana has been studying at Trinity Seminary for two years and is planning to transfer to Fuller to finish her Master’s degree in intercultural studies. Their youngest daughter Melodi is studying at San Jose State and will graduate in May with a Master’s degree in speech pathology. All three girls were homeschooled through high school. Joshua, 15, went to a Christian school in Managua, then he was homeschooled for two years. He now attends a private high school and carries six subjects in Spanish and six subjects in English. He was baptized about a month ago.

2012 Year End Show

With the close of every year, it has become a custom of ours at GVC to highlight the year in a “Year End Show.” 2012 is the longest and most uplifting one yet as it recounts God’s faithfulness and goodness.

Here are the songs used in this slideshow:
1) “Oh, How Good It Is” by Keith & Kristyn Getty (Hymns for the Christian Life, 2012)
2) “This Good Day” by Fernando Ortega (Home, 2000)
3) “Arrived” by Enfield (O for that day, 2008)
4) “In the Night” by Andrew Peterson (Counting Stars, 2010)

Also I could not have put this slideshow together without the help of some photographers. Thank you Nathan Chilton, Joseph Friedrich, Sarah Macias, Hope Pelster and my lovely bride, Angie, who gathered and organized all 248 photos.

Commending a fellow shepherd to the Lord

We read in Acts 14:23 –

23 When they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Here “elders” refer to the godly men responsible to lead the church as mentioned in Scripture in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9.

To “commend” is to entrust the appointed elders to the care of someone else.  And who is that someone else?  The Lord.

This is the same word our Lord used in Luke 23:46 –

46 And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” Having said this, He breathed His last.

In the same way our Lord committed Himself, His spirit, His soul to God the Father, so do we commit/entrust/commend Randy to the Lord whom this flock have believed.

Randy, I want to ask you a few questions.  Know that as you answer them you are answering the Lord in whom we are entrusting you to.

  1. Will you, as a shepherd of this flock, continually seek to demonstrate sacrificial servanthood – being selfless in service and a servant to others?
  2. Will you, as a shepherd of this flock, continually seek to demonstrate a genuine care for the flock of God here at Garden Valley Chapel?
  3. Will you, as a shepherd of this flock, continually seek to demonstrate a man who is above reproach?
  4. Will you, as a shepherd of this flock, step down from this spiritual leadership role if at any moment you are not qualified/fit for the biblical standard placed on you in 1 Tim. 3:1-7?

 

Now to the flock, a few words.

Scripture tells us in 1 Thess 5:12-13 –

12 But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction,

13 and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another.

We are to know our leaders well enough to have an intimate appreciation for them and to respect them because of their value.

Randy is being entrusted with laboring/working in the ministry (to the point of exhaustion), with overseeing the flock (leading them in the way of righteousness), and is being entrusted with the task of admonishing (instructing in the truths of God’s Word).

Because of this we are called to think rightly and lovingly of our shepherds, not because of their charm or personality, but because of the fact that they work for the Chief Shepherd as His special servants (cf. 1 Pet. 5:2-4).

We are also called to submit to our leadership so that “peace” prevails in the church.  In fact these are the words given by the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 13:17 –

17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

I want to ask you a few questions.  Know that as you answer them you are answering the Lord in whom we have believed.

  1. Will you, appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction as commanded in Scripture in 1 Thess. 5:12-13?
  2. Will you, esteem them very highly in love because of their work?
  3. Will you lovingly obey and submit to them as commanded in Scripture in Hebrews 13:17?

Before we pray, I believe an appropriate and fitting prayer request we as under-shepherds would ask of the church body comes from the writer of Hebrews in Heb. 13:18 –
18 Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things.

Let us Pray.