Good morning everyone! We just wanted to how appreciative we are of Jay & Jody Freeland, and all of those who got the idea, planned, prayed, gave, and worked so hard to make the MusicFest on Saturday at Alpine Lake an “unqualified success” in spite of snow and bad weather! We also received an amazing $2850 from the donation box, all of which is going straight towards the launch of our Santa Cruz church. Thanks to all! God is GREAT!

I wanted to let everyone know that WE MADE OUR GOAL!!! I have been wanting to write up a longer letter, but I've been covered up with work here, so I haven't yet. I will within the next few days. God is GOOD! Our goal was $36,000 and we are currently at $37,165.55! As I mentioned before, $36,000 was our minimum goal, so we definitely could use more, but WOW. Thanks so much to EVERYONE who has been a part of this, supporting us spiritually, emotionally & financially. May God Bless you RICHLY!

— Jason Skipper 2009/11/13 08:09

Good Morning everyone! It's been a week since I've sent an update, so I figured that you'd be interested in knowing all that's happening here.

It's been two weeks since I've been back, and I think that I've finally acclimated to the climate differences. Once again I'm 'enjoying' the heat & humidity. It's been a great two weeks, being with the family again and getting back to life as usual. By life as usual, I mean that I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get about 1344 different things done at the same time!

We have been trying to get a few more quotes on different types of roof structures for the church. My hope was to begin construction as soon as I got back, but since my trip to the states, I've been a little uncomfortable with the canvas top that we were going to put on top of the metal structure. Returning here, I talked to several people in the church, and we decided to get some other ideas & quotes before we finally contract someone to do it. So that's what we've been doing. We hope to finally get someone working on it by early next week.

Next week we will be starting several new small groups around the city. In one of those we will begin a study of the book “The Love Dare”. There is SUCH A NEED here for healing in the family.

On Wednesday evening we had a meeting with a couple who sadly is a clear example of the “norm” here. The couple has two small children (both under 2), and the wife wants a divorce. He doesn't. BUT… he is running around on her. He works all day, many times doesn't come home at night and has at least one other child with another woman. He says that it is impossible to be faithful in Santa Cruz, but he does love her (he says), and doesn't want a divorce. She shared that she can't stand it anymore, and that she has done several things to try to get back at him. She even went out two weeks ago to try to find someone to cheat on with, but she couldn't go through with it. Just a complete mess. We finally asked them… “What do you truly want.” Both of them stated that they would like to make it work, so we began working with them from there. Of course, these things happen everywhere, but the thing is that this seems to be normal here in Santa Cruz. I have heard the same thing from THREE different sources in the past two weeks… “It is impossible to be faithful to you spouse in Santa Cruz.” Even so, God is doing great things. We now have TWO weddings lined up for next few months here in Santa Cruz, so there is much hope!

We are going to have to work with this a lot… and we have decided to start right away. In that group, along with others that we will be starting, we hope to keep all of those who we have reached throughout the last half year involved, and as soon as the roof is done, we can begin having our monthly “preview services”. Please read our Santa Cruz Church Plant Proposal, where we explain those services more clearly.

Tomorrow, I (Jason) will be traveling to Sucre for a baptismal service in the evening where over twenty will be baptized. The church is doing very well there. They had a large evangelistic event on October 26th, where over 40 people received the Lord in their lives. They are also preparing for another one on November 29th. They have been working hard on these events, preparing, renting the venues, advertising, etc. I'll be meeting on Saturday afternoon with Joel & Veronica, the couple who we have left in charge of the church. Later we'll have the baptism. Sunday morning I'll meet with the leadership team early, then I'll be meeting individually with people all day until the service in the evening, where I'll be challenging the church to really reach out in the next event. (I'm not really happy about meeting with people all afternoon… I'll miss listening to the Steelers game!!!) I'll be returning to Santa Cruz on Monday to hopefully get things moving early next week on the roof.

We haven't started buying everything that we need for the new church plant, because we want to be ABSOLUTELY SURE of how much we have to work with. It has been amazing seeing God's hand move during this time. What so many of you have given to further this church in Santa Cruz has been powerful. When we first made out our budget, seeing that we would need $36,000 as a MINIMUM to truly get things started in Santa Cruz scared us. Where were we going to get that? We had no other option but to do our best to let everyone know the need and then trust in God and to let Him do what he does best. It didn't look very hopeful at first, but… when does it? If we can say something about God… he really does like to make us do some soul searching. But HE IS FAITHFUL.

So far, we have raised $32,228.22 out of the minimum of $36,000 that we need to raise. That means that we are exactly $3,771.78 short! PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY and if you haven't become a part of what God is doing here in Santa Cruz… PLEASE DO! HE WILL BLESS YOU, and HE WILL BLESS THIS WORK. We believe that with all of our hearts. (Please read this post that I wrote back in February, and trust that this word is for you also! http://www.hohnet.com/home?first=10#god.s.promise)

We Love you all and Pray that God will bless you always! Have a great weekend!

Love,

— Jason Skipper 2009/11/03 06:40

Good Morning Everyone!

Here I am, 4 days after arriving in Santa Cruz, and I can't believe that I haven't melted yet! It has been HOT here. It finally dropped down to a decent 78 degrees last night (84 in our bedroom), but since I've arrived, it's been up above 100 in the daytime and around 85 at night. I don't mind, although I do have to get used to it again after spending six seeks back in Garrett County.

The trip was fine, everything went smoothly until I arrived here in Santa Cruz. None of my bags made it here. The plane that was originally supposed to bring us was being repaired, so they ended up sending a much smaller one to pick us up in Miami. When we got here we were told that the plane was overweight and that they left our bags in Miami. They would bring them on the next flight supposedly scheduled to arrive on Sunday morning. Here it is Tuesday morning, and I haven't received my bags yet. Oh well, what can a person do? Just be patient I guess. That's Bolivia for you. What matters is that I'm here and with my wonderful family! (They could care less about the bags… except maybe the gifts that haven't come yet )

So far, we are 80% of the way to our goal! We are currently at $29,078.22. I shared the progress with the team that we have in Santa Cruz on Saturday evening. They were astounded. One thing that touched my heart and theirs was the sacrifice that so many are making in giving towards this church. One of them stated that evening…

We still need to raise at least $7,000. As I mentioned before, $36,000 was the MINIMUM needed to truly be able to take off. The original budget was at $55,000! To get the budget to a reachable level, we took out all but the absolute necessary things. (Read our Church Plant Proposal for more info.) So PLEASE continue to pray, and if you haven't yet, please give towards this! Be a part of what God wants to do in this city that HE LOVES so much!

We love you all! Have a great day! We'll keep you updated on all that is happening here & with the fundraising.

— Jason Skipper 2009/10/29 06:52

Good Morning Everyone!

What a great trip this has been. I'm heading back home (Santa Cruz) today. I'll leave from Pittsburgh at 3:00 PM, arriving in Bolivia at 5:30am tomorrow morning after a layover in Miami. Santa Cruz sure seems closer than Sucre always has! This is definitely a very short trip.

I've learned something important during this trip. Many times we have felt so alone in this work that we do there. Almost as if nobody really cares. Well, I WAS WRONG. It's true that many have been disconnected because they are busy, and I wish that I could somehow get them interested in what we are doing. At the same time I have found that SO MANY here really do care about winning the lost in a faraway land, and they do care about us and our work. It's been such a joy seeing some people work harder than I probably did to raise support for us. We've seen people give sacrificially, even to the point of some considering getting a loan to help more. I consider these people “God's Heroes”. It's been and continues to be a humbling experience.

As I return today, we are at $28,008.22 as of right now, but we WILL reach our goal. I have that promise (and more) from God. You can continue to send. Remember that the Hand of Hur, our sending organization is a non-profit 501©(3) tax deductible institution. All gifts can be sent to:

The Hand of Hur, Inc.
293 Bray Hill Lane
Oakland, MD 21550

You can also give online through our website… http://www.hohnet.com (We prefer that larger gifts come through check because of the percentage that paypal takes off of the gift).

Our goal is $36,000, and we are very close! If you haven't been able to help yet, please do! Also, don't worry if we go OVER our goal… for two reasons. 1) Our original budget was over $50,000, but I ended up having to take many many things off of the list to make it a truly reachable goal. The budget that we have now is MINIMUM for us to really be able to get things going there. 2) We were behind paying several things, having to send in payroll taxes and salaries out of the first several thousand that came in. That was not budgeted in this money, but it was an urgent need at the time, so we had to use it. Sooooo…. I've asked God for a little bit more. No need to worry about going over.

Please pray for my trip home. Keep in touch by writing or calling! Remember that we have a Vonage phone number, so you can call us locally, and it'll ring down there. It is not an international call. The phone number is: 301-859-4401. We'll answer in English… don't worry . We love you all, and we thank you for loving us! Have a great day and GOD BLESS!