Ground Zero Ministries, Ellwood City, PA (2026)

04/24/2026

03/19/2026

Are you a disciple of Jesus?

If you are, then your end goal should be to grow and mature into the kind of person who can say and do all the things that Jesus said and did. ALL the things.

Chew on that for a minute.

And let me ask again … are you a disciple of Jesus?

02/23/2026

Please pray for our friends in Mexico this morning. Many areas in Mexico have erupted in violence after the killing of the head of the CJNG cartel leader by the Mexican government yesterday. Roads are blocked, things are burning.

Many of the people we minister to in San Luis must travel to Mexicali or Tijuana for medical care and surgeries. This affects them and their well being a great deal if roads remain unpassable and conditions unsafe.

But we serve a God that’s greater than the circumstances so pray for peace, pray for law and order to restored and pray for the safety of the Mexican people. 🇲🇽

02/13/2026

Some jobs are just challenging, on an emotional, physical and spiritual level. I think of our first responders, our medical professionals … and yes, our teachers.

Teachers aren’t just teaching reading and writing and arithmetic and enjoying summers off. They’re in the trenches with our young people every single day, and dealing with students struggling with next level anxiety, depression, brokenness, addiction, behaviors and traumas.

We’re losing good teachers everyday, in no small part because they are often unseen and under supported.

It was our absolute honor and privilege to love on and encourage the teachers of Lincoln High School in Ellwood City today.

I wish bagels and devotionals could eliminate the challenges they face, they definitely don’t. But we do hope that we provided some light and joy.

Teachers, we see you. We appreciate you. We pray blessings, provision, strength and encouragement for you. Both on and off the job.

And we hope our social media followers will join us in doing the same.

💙🤍

02/11/2026

Let’s talk about village/community/street ministry. San Luis, for the most part, is flat and square, so a certain number of what we would call ‘city blocks’ constitutes a village.

We take some tables, play some upbeat music and set up right there on the streets. Rice and beans are big staples in Mexico, every household needs them and uses them and they’re sold in the market in like 50lb bags. So we buy those and then break them down into smaller portions and give those out along with more clothing donations that we gathered, personal hygiene items, and a bunch of dulce (sweets, aka CANDY, it’s the first thing to disappear lol) and soccer balls for the kids. It’s an ‘if you need it, please take it’ opportunity.

It really is amazing to interact with people right in their own neighborhoods. We were able to bless them and pray over them and it’s one of my favorite things.

This is something that our ministry wants to translate over into our own neighborhoods here at home (that’s Ellwood and New Castle to start). Perhaps not rice and beans but to be able to offer staples, clothing … PRAYER. I especially have single moms and young families in mind in this regard.

SO … if this is something that interests you, come to Mexico with us next January. Our first interest meeting is in April of this year.

If this kind of ministry at home interests you, please reach out to me. We are always looking to grow our outreach team right here in PA.
💙🤍💚

01/31/2026

Spanish worship in action, so grateful for these folks 💚

01/31/2026

Check out Shekina’s story!

In October 2019, it was discovered that Shekina and her sisters were living with their father in the city dump. It was a dangerous and unsanitary situation ...

01/31/2026

One of the things we do every time we travel to San Luis is to visit the city dump.

A few things to know about this dump:

1. It’s vast, like the pictures don’t do it justice, vast. You stand in the middle of this thing (on basically flat land except for the piles of trash) and it’s garbage as far as your eyes can see.

2. It’s located approximately one mile south of the city on the edge of the dessert (see my Google earth pic below, just for scope). It’s way over capacity and causing environmental hazards including fires and gas emissions … and then there’s the odor.

3. On any given day, there are a ton of people at the dump, for one of two reasons; they are either daily scavenging for usable goods to sell in an attempt to earn money in order to sustain an income for living outside of the dump or, they actually reside there, in make shift shelters but are also scavenging … so they can eat.

There are men, women and yes children living at this dump (not to mention more stray dogs than can be counted). In fact, Caring Hearts, the organization we partner with that’s runs so many of these ministries in San Luis, has actually rescued teenage girls from this place and put them in safe living conditions in their girls home.

You can sponsor some of these young women, who I can assure you are very real and very much in need of help. Please check out the sponsorship link below, it’s a fantastic way to plant seed in the life of a young person. Caring Hearts is also building a brand new Oasis Girls Student Residence. I’m going to post a video about one of the young women that was rescued from the dump and how God has radically changed her life trajectory through Caring Hearts immediately after this post. Please check that out!

Back to the dump … we were able to visit with some of these folks one afternoon and provide them with:

1. A message of hope and an invitation to walk with Jesus (and for many of them a reminder that the God they once knew, still loves them unconditionally and more than they can imagine)

2. Clothing and personal hygiene items (which we gathered ahead of time and flew to Phoenix with us, so if you were one of the people that helped us with these items on our Amazon list, THANK YOU, this is where those goods went)

3. A hot lunch, safe drinks and we even bought out the ice cream guy who works his cart in the dump so everyone could have a sweet treat.

4. And last but certainly not least, our incredible worship team kept an atmosphere of praise and worship (in Spanish, and I can’t say enough about our team members for their willingness to step out and learn music in a language that none of them speak, amazing) that I know blessed the hearts of every person there. We often underestimate the value of a song that gets stuck in your head that actually feeds your spirit days after outreaches like this one are over.

For most of our team, this wasn’t their first trip to this dump, but it only takes one time for it to change your perspective and your life, for the better. That’s how ministry works, you do the work by being the hands and feet of Jesus and the return on that … is a heart full of passion and purpose, and that friends, will change the world.

I hope that you’ll consider joining us on a future trip and I also hope that you’ll consider supporting Caring Hearts and Ground Zero in the work that we’ll continue to do here.

https://www.caringheartsmexico.org/sponsor-girl/

01/29/2026

Navigating a time change, an extreme climate change and a 16 hour travel day took a little longer to recover from than we expected 😂😂

I really want to start highlighting some different areas of ministry we participated in on our trip to share with everyone. I’m working on that.

In the meantime … let’s start with two non ministry things that brought us so much joy. Little Jefe, our team mascot, who along with his mama got a can of tuna from the corner market nearly everyday that we were there and Isabel, our cook, chef really … she’s amazing and talented and makes us never want to eat American Mexican food ever again. 🙂🇲🇽🌮

01/27/2026

Now that the holidays are in the rear view and life is returning to normal … considering cleaning out those closets and donating to a good cause!!

Donations can be made at the Holy Redeemer Offices and Ellwood Ice during business hours and we’re working on getting a rack at Smokin’ Steer BBQ this week as well!

Help us help the kids and families in our communities!

Ground Zero Ministries

04/24/2026

03/19/2026

02/23/2026

02/13/2026

02/11/2026

01/31/2026

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01/29/2026

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