Cosmetic Overhaul
Feb 10th
Good Morning everyone! I just got done cosmetically overhauling the website. I’m still working on getting all of the blog a page picture links updated. Other than that, please let me know if you have problems with anything. Thanks!
MusicFest “Unqualified Success”!
Feb 1st
Good morning everyone! We just wanted to say 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!
Newsletter 1-11-2010
Jan 11th
Hello and greetings from the warm side of the globe! We pray that all is well and that our Lord is blessing you and your family in a great way. Once again we begin a new year, and what expectations we have for it! It’s been several months since my trip to the US, and we are in full force preparing to launch the new church in Santa Cruz.
God is so Good!
God did such an amazing work during my (Jason’s) trip to the USA. It wasn’t easy. A week before my return to Santa Cruz we were only 1/3 of the way to our minimum goal of $36,000. In a moment of total honesty with God, after 5 weeks of frustration trying to raise funds, I told God that we would go forward no matter what. We knew that without reaching that goal, we would not be able to begin the church in the way that we felt God had called us. It’s amazing how God tests our faith and our will. I believe that God sometimes tests us to know if we truly trust His promises. He gave the call and the promise, but He would have to supply. Within the next few weeks, we saw the fulfillment of His promise in a way that we will never forget. By the time I was on the plane back to Bolivia, we had met 80% of our goal, and we passed it two weeks later!
Of course, God used YOU to fulfill His promise. What most touched us, were the sacrifices that so many of you made. God touches SO MANY PEOPLE, and He challenges them to trust in Him – in the same way that Norah and I have to trust in Him to provide. That opens the door for God to test and teach each of us. It’s not easy, but if our faith doesn’t fail (it will waiver sometimes, but we can’t let go), we will see His hand and miracles in each of our lives. That’s God’s circle of faith!
Progress With The Santa Cruz Church
After arriving in Santa Cruz, it took awhile to get things going. We began construction of the roof on December 9 and hope to finish on January 23. We have officially set our launch date as Sunday, March 7. During the next month we will prepare the building, advertize, and all that is needed for that first service. We will hold a retreat with those who are currently in our small groups from Feb 13-16 to minister and prepare them for the great things that God has called us to do this year. Please pray with us often during this time. Also, we will post pictures, our full strategy and progress on our website (hohnet.com) and through regular e-mails. If you do not get our e-mails, please send your address to jasonskipper@gmail.com so that we can keep you updated!
Other News
Our family is doing well. Both Erynn & Jordan love the English School that they attend. You can read more about it at their website http://www.scclc.org. Jordan is also working with a speech therapist, which is helping him greatly! That is so nice, since in Sucre we didn’t have access to anyone who could help him. Jordan will be 6 years old on Friday the 15th. Derrick is in his terrible twos… and if that “terrible” means ornery, then he has hit it full force! J Norah and I are doing very well… we celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary last week. Isn’t that amazing?! We plan to travel bi-monthly this year to Sucre to continue monitoring the progress of that church. Thank God, they are doing well without us.
MUSIC FEST!!!
Bluegrass & Southern Gospel Music Fest at Alpine Lake Resort! Have a fun evening on Saturday, January 30, from 5 pm – 9 pm while supporting our work here in Bolivia! The Savage Family, Crosscut, Faith Praise & Worship, Cindy Sites and Dean & Karen Ullery, and Heaven’s Mountain Band will perform. No admission fee! There will be a freewill donation in support of our ministry in Bolivia. (PRAY FOR GOOD WEATHER TOO!)
Please keep us in your prayers continually and know that we appreciate you tremendously. May God bless you richly! We ask that you remain faithful with your support, because that is what we live on and work with. You are so important to God’s work here. If God challenges you to sow more, please do! Our goal of $36,000 was a minimum, and we still need many things that will drastically help strengthen our impact during the first few months as a church! It’s not too late to get in God’s circle of faith! We love you!
We Made It!!!
Nov 28th
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!
Santa Cruz Preparation, Sucre Trip, $4000 Short!
Nov 13th
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.
Preparations in Santa Cruz
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!
Roof
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.
Small Groups & Preview Services
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 t
hat 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.
Baptism in Sucre
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.
Only $4000 Short!
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! God’s Promise)
We Love you all and Pray that God will bless you always! Have a great weekend!
Love,
