— Jason Skipper 2008/11/11 15:56

Greetings from one of the most interesting places to live on earth… Sucre, Bolivia! I’m not sure if that’s an overstatement or not, but life is definitely never boring here.

True Growth in the Church:

This has been a wonderful year for our church and for our ministry as a whole. One of our main concerns this year was that we had many people in the cell groups, but the majority of those people were not growing spiritually as we would have liked. Our leaders, in their desire to open more small groups, worried more about reaching new people than helping the ones they had already reached to grow in the Lord. We decided to put more emphasis on the quality of the cell groups, and in the personal growth of each member than on the number of cell groups. The result has been very good. We are seeing much more growth and maturity in our people.

We currently have nearly 900 people in our cell groups. We have two separate Schools of Leaders, with around 70 enrolled in each one. A few months ago we started our second weekend service. Half of our leaders have their weekend service on Saturday evening at 7:00 PM, and the other half have their services on Sunday at 6:30 PM. Both services are filling up well. We can still add more chairs, so we’re not full; but hopefully we will be soon!

We are also concentrating on becoming more complete as a church, emphasizing several areas; the children’s ministry, our worship arts ministry (drama, poetry), and the Dance (choreography) ministry. We’ll be holding our first Children’s Encounter Retreat at the end of this month.

Loving the Unloved:

We are working more in the social area. Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in all of Latin America. With the financial policies of the government, high inflation, and the worldwide financial slowdown, people are truly suffering. Many of our members, people who are apparently middle class, have shared with me that they are literally suffering to feed their family each day. It’s amazing, but some university students in our church are actually living alone on $20 a month.

We’d like to begin a ministry where people can give gifts, clothes, money, and talents to those in need. Over the past few months we have been very successful in collecting used clothing and other things for the needy. We have quite a few doctors, lawyers and others who are interested in donating their time and talents to help those who need it. We have all the equipment necessary to open a small medical center, if we can find a good place, and complete the necessary paperwork.

Expansion:

We have talked about this for several years now, but we feel the time is right. If all goes well, and we are able to raise the monthly support necessary, we want to expand our church to another city of Bolivia (In other words, plant a new church). We are currently looking at Santa Cruz. The plan is to take a team of leaders from our Sucre church, and begin cell groups and celebrations possibly as early as next April. This has been on our hearts for years, and several months ago, we felt a direct word from God about this. Since then we have been praying about it incessantly. We continue to feel God’s confirmation, and have asked that He will open the doors financially. Please help us pray about this.

We are doing very well. Norah’s been terribly busy over the past three months. She is directing the prayer group, and working very closely with the administration work in the office. She is also teaching in both Schools’ of Leaders. Yesterday, (November 10th) was Derrick’s first birthday. He’s fun! You can tell that he is going to be ornery. I think he will walk any day now. He can walk holding on to something, but he’s scared to let go. Jordan’s language skills have developed much over this past year. He speaks long sentences (mostly in Spanish), and he REALLY tries to make himself understood. He does not pronounce sounds well yet, but he is improving He goes to a pre-kindergarten type school, and gets along very well with the other kids. There doesn’t seem to be a language barrier with him and other kids, for which we are very relieved. Erynn is in third grade. This week her teacher began sending extra work home with her, and will continue to do so up until we travel home. She will miss several weeks of school, and has to have all of her schoolwork done before we travel.

The political situation in Bolivia is a mess. Right now, things are calm, but things can get nasty in seconds. President Evo does pretty well whatever he pleases, then there's a big fight about it… people die, they go into negotiations with the opposition for two or three weeks… nothing comes of the negotiations, but the people have calmed down by then. Then it all happens again a few weeks later. So far, he hasn’t kicked all of us Americans out of the country, and I hope that it never comes down to that. One thing we have learned, though, is that we can expect anything from this government. Thank God, we have never felt or been in danger, but it’s important that we always stay away from all demonstrations… and those occur quite often. Today, most of the city of Sucre is blocked off because some merchants are not happy with the mayor. That’s what we live with daily in this country that God loves so much.

We’ll be home for Christmas!

We’ll be home for Christmas! We won’t be home for long, but we will travel home on December 15th for a five week visit. It’s the perfect time to leave Sucre, because most university students travel during summer vacations. We will put the church on autopilot for almost the entire time that we are home. My kids are dying to see snow! I’m not… but oh well .

Our Plans of Returning to the USA?

I haven’t mentioned anything about returning home for good, as we planned to do over a year and a half ago. I really want to… but God won’t let us yet. When will it happen? I don’t know, although I’m pretty sure that it will happen. I promise to explain this in more detail when we are back in the states with you.

With You:

We won’t be home long enough to visit every church. We’ll do our best on that. We would LOVE to visit you while we are home. I don’t want to be too forward on this, but if anyone would like to have us over to their houses to eat or play games or whatever, we’d LOVE THAT.

ATTENTION:

WE NOW HAVE A GARRETT COUNTY BASED PHONE NUMBER, SO WE CAN MAKE AND RECEIVE LOCAL PHONE CALLS HERE IN SUCRE. Believe me! We have an Oakland number… 301-859-4401, which rings here. There are no international phone costs for you. I promise. It works through the Internet using VONAGE. Call us, and we can set something up for our time in the states. May God Bless you in all you do! We hope to see you soon… Love,

— Jason Skipper 2008/10/08 11:10

I just thought that I'd let you all know that I have updated the photo gallery section. I put a few pictures of mostly Derrick, and one of Jordan in there. You can go directly to it following this link… Pictures of Boys

I'll update this VERY soon. Just so you know, we are planning on being back home during Christmas, so I'll update you all on that soon! Blessings…

Jason

— Jason Skipper 2008/09/02 11:11 America/La_Paz

Good Morning Everyone,

So much has been going on here in Bolivia, I really can't seem to find the time to sit down and write it all out! Right now we're in the airport in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, waiting for our connecting flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. We're heading to Buenos Aires with Norah to attend a Leadership Conference there, with Gustavo and Susana Rossi, their pastors and several others. There is a group of about 12 leaders from our church who are traveling now, most of them by land. Norah and I decided to fly, because that trip by land is a minimum of 48 hours, sometimes longer.

Since our last letter, so many things have been going on here. The church is just booming. Really, since the beginning of this year quite a few things have come together to get things back in order in the church, and now we are beginning to see the fruits. In February we had a large leadership retreat. In that retreat, God literally challenged us to stop talking about and to get back to doing the work that he has called us to do. In March, we did a huge reorganization in the leadership in the church. We moved up quite a few of the most fruitful leaders so that they would form part of our main leadership group. In April we had our annual cell church conference, which was great for all of us. In June we began what we called the “Prodigal Month”, where we went out and found so many of those who had been with us before, but had later fallen away. That continued up through the most part of July. We had many people return to the Lord, and at the same time we hay many more come to the Lord during all of those activities.

This past month, we have freed our group of leaders to start doing their own Encounter Retreats. Since, things have been so active in the church that it's hard to keep up, trying to figure out all that is going on! Over the past 4 weeks, we have had 9 Encounter Retreats! It's been quite exciting.

Our family is doing very well. Derrick is now crawling all over the place, he runs around in a walker well, and can even walk some on his own holding on to things. He seems to be developing very well. Jordan's speech continues to improve. He speaks better Spanish than English right now, but we're working on teaching him both. He understands both just fine.

Norah and I are traveling alone now. Norah's sister, Rosemary, along with a girl who we trust from the church in Sucre are taking care of the kids. It's hard leaving the kids… especially Derrick, but I think that it's good for all of us. It's good for me and Norah, just so we can get a few days to be away from them, and have some quality time together. I also think that it's good for the kids. They (at least Erynn & Jordan) seem to adapt to change quite well. It helps them not be so attached to us all of the time.

Please keep us in your prayers. We appreciate your prayers so much. We also thank all of those who have been so faithful to God and good to us in sending gifts to help us continue forward. We're doing much better now, although we still regularly have more expenditures than monthly income. We just ask that you would pray for us, and if God puts it on your heart, please support us financially in any way that you can.

May God bless you richly. We thank God for your lives, and pray for you always. Write us if you can!

Love,

Jason, Norah, Erynn, Jordan & Derrick Skipper

— Jason Skipper 2008/06/05 12:59 America/La_Paz

I forgot to mention on Saturday that on Sunday we had a wedding in the local jail here in Sucre. A few months ago, one of my disciples met a girl who had just arrived from Peru. She came to visit the father of her son that is in the jail. He led her to Christ and later went to the jail and led him to Christ also. He has been discipling them over the past several months, and on Sunday morning I married this couple there in the jail. It was quite an experience. Mario (my disciple) organized the entire thing, worked with his disciples to get everything ready, etc. About 50 people from outside of the jail went to the wedding along with all of the inmates. I, of course, took advantage of the moment to share the gospel. Afterwords we had a reception in the patio inside of the jail, and we ate and played games, and just enjoyed the time to talk to the inmates.

Tonight we have a baptism in the church. We have a portable pool that we fill up for these events. I'll take some pictures and post them here soon. I'll post some from the wedding too. We have about 30 people signed up for the baptism.

Blessings!

Jason

— Jason Skipper 2008/05/31 20:06 America/La_Paz

Hello Everyone!

I'll tell you, I really need to figure out WHY I get so far behind on these updates! I'm developing a theory, but I'm not 100% sure… I think that we have so many BIG things going on, that I want to give those BIG things justice by writing a lot about them, but since I want to do it well, and I never have enough time to do a good article on them, I just put it off until I do have time. Of course there NEVER is enough time. I decided this evening to just make some time. I have so many things to do, but hey… this is very important too!

This will be pretty long, so I'll try to divide it up into sections and add quite a few pictures, that way it should be a little bit easier to read.

Third International Cell-Church Conference… Sucre, Bolivia 2008

Way back in April, from April 24-26th, we held our 3rd annual Cell-Church Conference. Pastors Gustavo and Susana Rossi and Sebastian Carnival, all from the mega-church “Catedral de la Fe” (Faith Cathedral) in Buenos Aires, Argentina came in for the conference. We had pastors and congregations from over half of Bolivia, plus the assistance of missionaries from Brazil, Venezuela and the United States (I'm NOT counting myself). This year we held the conference in our own church building, which holds about 350 people well seated.

The conference went very well. The theme was “From The Inside Out”. The classes and sermons were geared towards pastors and cell leaders, helping us all understand that success in the conquest of our city and country is for everyone who believes, not just for a select few. God will and does use those who believe and are willing to give their all towards that cause.

We've had several churches from other parts of Bolivia come to our conference over the past several years. One church, from Santa Cruz, who has taken us as their model church, began with the cell vision last year after our conference. We've been monitoring them, and one of our disciples, Luis Fernando Negrón has traveled there to help them several times over the past year. They came this year with an amazing testimony. In 1 year of work with cells, they now have 30 small groups! Wow.

One of the most important aspects of the conference was that God moved in an awesome way. His presence was so evident, and we feel that God did something supernatural during the conference. The leaders from our church came out of the conference with such a different way of looking at the ministry, and we are beginning to experience once again the enthusiasm, power and revival that has characterized our growth over the past several years.

Here are some very small pictures from the conference. To see them in a much higher resolution, just click on the picture itself.

Travels - Trips to Cochabamba and La Paz(2x)

The day after our conference, we drove to Cochabamba for “Carachipampa Christian School's Field Days”. Erynn's school is an extension of an English school in Cochabamba, and they require that all students attend the Cochabamba school for a week each year. The group in Sucre have the custom of going for what they call “Field Days”. They have all types of running, jumping, ball throw and more sports, and each student competes with other their age and sex. Erynn was in the 7 & 8 year old girls group with about 20 other students. She participated in 6 events. The 100 meter dash, the 200, 400 & 800 meter runs, the standing long jump and the ball throw. She is quite a runner! She won the 200, 400 & 800 meter races. The longer the race, the easier she won. She's not the fastest girl out there, but she just keeps going, and everyone else just falls behind. She won the 1st place prize for her age group, winning the most amount of points for her team from her group. Needless to say, she was VERY happy. Here's a few pictures of Erynn there in Cochabamba… (Actually, the last one is in Potosí a few days ago… but it's a nice picture so I added it in there too. )

La Paz

After 5 days in Cochabamba, we traveled to La Paz for two main things. One, to fill out papers and apply for Derrick's U.S. Birth Certificate and Passport, which wasn't too hard to do. We should be getting them in the mail within a few days. We also had to do some medical tests on Jordan.

Jordan's Tests

Jordan is now 4 1/2 years old, and he is not talking well at all. For quite awhile we hoped that he was just a late talker, but it has become obvious that he has some sort of problem in that area. We've checked some things out in Sucre, but honestly there is very little knowledge or help from doctors here.

So we did quite a lot of tests on him… a tomography and a EEG. We also took him to a phonologist, and had him checked out with several different types of pediatricians. After several weeks of studies and traveling back and forth from La Paz twice , we've come to the conclusion that Jordan has an expressive speech disorder… basically in the articulation side of it. He understands English and Spanish very well, and he is now speaking 4 and 5 word sentences. The problem isn't his knowledge of language, it is his pronunciation of it.

We had him tested for several other disorders… apraxia, autism, etc., but the doctors have pretty well ruled out any type of sickness or other disorders. From my understanding, there really is no known medical reason for these articulation disorders in about 90% of children who have them. The good thing is that they are treatable. We were given quite a few exercises to teach Jordan to move his tongue and lips in certain ways. These seem to be helping him a lot. We need to go back to La Paz every 3 months or so to get him checked out and to get some more exercises for him.

All in all, we feel pretty good about him getting over this. I think within a few years he will be just fine. For more information, you can read these articles in Wikipedia…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_sound_disorder#Articulation_Disorders (Also read Residual Errors and Causes)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech-Language_Pathology_in_School_Settings#Articulation_Disorders

Upcoming Activities in the Church

After so many weeks of traveling, we're happy to be back in Sucre, continuing with our work here. One thing that God put on our hearts after the conference was the amount of people who have slipped away from us and God over the past several years. We've taken about 1500 people to the Encounter retreat, but many, if not a majority of those people are not with us now. All though the month of May, we began praying for these people, and we have now named June as the “Month of the Prodigal”, of course I'm talking about those who resemble the prodigal son in Luke 15. We will be going out and looking for these people throughout the month, doing activities weekly, and we will be finishing up the month with an Encounter Retreat for these people, and a huge celebration for them on Sunday June 29th. We may do that celebration service in a coliseum/arena here in the city. We'll see how everything goes.

We have a baptism planned for this coming Thursday, June 5th. We also are starting a new school in the church… for those who have finished our “School of Life”. This school is called the “School of Vision” and is focused intensely on cell group leadership and multiplication. We will be starting that on Thursday, June 8th.

In August, we will be uniting with several other cell churches in the southern region of Bolivia… Sucre, Potosí, and Taríja, and will be doing a combined conference for all of the cell leaders of our churches. There is a lot of expectation for this. I'll let you know more about that as we come closer to the date.

Conclusion

I could probably sit here and write for 8 more hours about all that is going on, but I'm sure no one would read it, so I'll stop after ONE MORE THING!…

HELP

I'd like to finish with a cry for HELP! I know that sounds awful, but it's true. We didn't do much fund-raising last year while we were home, thinking that we would be coming back very soon. Now things have changed and we remain here. We don't know how much longer, but we can't leave yet. (You can read earlier posts if you'd like more information on that.) The problem is that we are literally out of money, and we owe money on our credit-card. We used that to buy the plane tickets for the Pastors from Argentina (+/- $2000), and the inscription money did not cover the amount. The Hand of Hur is now 2 months behind on paying us our salary, and we owe two months rent ($500) and have to pay Erynn's school bill by the end of next week ($750). I also had to do something that I think is terrible… I had to withdraw cash from my credit card to be able to buy groceries and pay several of the bills in the house. We haven't wanted to say anything about this to you all, but we are in dire need right now, and that doesn't count all that we need to do here to accommodate the growth that we are experiencing in our ministry.

I really hate asking for your help, but that's what we live and work with down here, and we are doing it for God's glory. I know that he will provide (he always does), but it's important for me and you to understand that many times that provision is through you. So… if it is possible, PLEASE help. You can do it online securely with Paypal or you can send checks made out to “The Hand of Hur, Inc., 293 Bray Hill Lane, Oakland, MD 21550”. All gifts are tax deductible. Thank you so much, and may the Lord bless you richly!

As always, sooner or later, I'll continue updating the site! Check in often! Lot's of love…

Jason, Norah, Erynn, Jordan & Derrick Skipper