— Jason Skipper 2006/03/08 01:30

Hi Everyone,

I just checked the page, and I can't believe that it's been a month already since I last wrote. What a month it's been. As I wrote before, two weekends ago, we had our “1st International Cell Church Conference - Sucre, Bolivia - 2006”. The pastors who have been helping us out from Buenos Aires Argentina, Gustavo & Susana Rossi, came to give the conference. What a time we had. God moved in a very special way, and also we were very happy from the turnout. We had Pastors from Potosi, La Paz, Cochabamba & Santa Cruz, apart from several pastors from different churches and denominations here in Sucre. About half of the assistants were from our church, and the rest were from other churches & cities. The theme of the conference was “Unleashing Revival Through Cell Groups”. In terms of administration and all of that, the conference was a great sucess. But to really measure the sucess, we need to see how things change in the church & in other churches who atended the conference. I'm Posting a few pictures at the end of this post.

Up until 3 months ago, I had never done a funeral. We have a pretty young church. I've married a lot of people, and I've done a boatload of baby dedications, but we've never had anyone who died in the church. Now I have done two. In December I had one, and this past week, a cell leader, a 57 year old man died of a brain hemmorage. That was sad. His son is one of our 12 main leaders in the church. Also, another cell leader was in a bus accident between here and Santa Cruz. 20 people died, but thankfully she lived. When we heard about it, I took a plane directly to Santa Cruz, and went to the medical clinic where they had taken here. She's not too good, in terms of broken bones and bad scars, but she's alive, and that's what is important. That happened last Thursday, so I flew down and had to rush back on Saturday morning to do the funeral.

Before the conference we did a LOT of work at the church to get it ready for such a large event. We spent several thousand dollars on curtains, paint, a platform, etc. I was really hoping to get the money back in the inscriptions of the people for the conference, but that didn't happen. So right now we're kind of scraping along, but I'm sure that God will supply. I just mention this so you would help us pray for that area. Healthwise, we're all doing pretty good. We're finally kind of settled down in our new house, but as far as I can tell, it is HOT here. The sun shines in a lot, and so far, we've just had lots and lots of heat. I'm not sure how winter will be yet. The cold season should start pretty soon, probably more in the middle of April.

We love & miss all of you. Please remember to pray for us. We need it. Check back often & write whenever you can. Have a great day and week everyone!

Below are a few pictures from our Conference. You can click on them to see them much larger. I've put them in at full resolution, so it may take a while to open them if you have a slow connection.

Preparations for the conference