The Hand of Hur, Inc.
Sucre Church (MCC)
One Week Away From Second Event!
May 3rd
Good Morning Everyone!
I’m sorry, but we are terrible!!! Look at that, the subject of this e-mail/post is “One Week Away From Second Event” and we haven’t sent you anything about the first one yet! Wow. Sorry about that. Let us tell you about what’s going on… it’s been exciting!
BUSY, BUSY & BUSIER!
Last year when I (Jason) was in the states sharing about what we have wanted to do here in Santa Cruz, we knew that it would be a lot of work. Still, as is usual, we underestimated how MUCH work was really in store for us. We were finally able to get started putting the roof on the place in early December. The idea was to finish in a month, do most of the electricity work and decoration in a few days and we truly thought that we would be able to start by early February. We decided to be careful with pushing it too hard, and after checking dates, we decided that the next best date would be March 7th. So we put that down on the calendar as our official start date. Needless to say, even that was too soon. We ended up having to postpone the first service (evangelistic event) until April 11th. Even then we worked day and night, 7 days a week, for over a month just to be ready for it. We ended up having to ask my Father-in-law to return from La Paz to help us put tile over the cement floor. That took almost a month. While they were doing that we worked for close to a month on setting up the electricity in the place with the light and socket systems, stage lights, outside lights, etc. Norah made the curtains while we worked on making a home made, collapsible 13 foot wide projector screen, putting the sound system together, and about 2,000 other things… 
Needless to say, we lost contact with a lot of people during that time. Even mom wrote me asking “Where are you? Are you Ok?”. That tends to happen when we get busy. Sorry!
OUR TEAM AND GETTING PEOPLE TO COME TO THE FIRST EVENT
We were a little worried about what was going to happen in our first service, because our main team here in Santa Cruz had dwindled over the few months heading up to it. Basically we found out who REALLY was with us and who wasn’t. We ended up having maybe 20 or so people who were dedicated to what God has called us to do. We did several things to try to get new people to come to the event. Beginning in early march, we (the team) each began praying for 10 non christian friends that we were going to invite to the event. During the entire month leading up to the event we prayed for these people daily, and we also fasted for that cause. We also printed out 3000 fliers to pass out to those who we had been praying for, to those who live closest to the church, and to the areas surrounding several of our small groups. On Saturday, April 10th, 29 youth arrived from the Sucre church to help us out as well. They went out to several places around the city during both days to do street dramas and hand out fliers for the event. In addition we set up two different busses from opposite sides of the city to bring groups of people before and take them home after the service.
HOW DID IT GO? GOD DID AMAZING THINGS ON APRIL 11TH!
After months of hard work, lot’s of prayer and fasting, and putting our faith in God, HE opened up heaven’s gates that evening. Our goal was to have a minimum of 100 people for this first event. We ended passing that goal by 50. That evening 150 people attended the event. We showed a video about God’s Love at the beginning of the service, the worship team from Sucre played and led several songs, there was a drama, I (Jason) sang a special and then entered directly into the salvation message, which lasted about 20 minutes. 
We prayed with the people, took an offering and finished. We gave awayfree ice cream before and after the service which was just was wonderful for two reasons. First, the people actually got there on time, and then they stayed afterwards so that we could talk to them and get to know a little bit about them. We were able to get the information (phone numbers & addresses) of around 100 new people.
AFTERWARDS & PREPARATION FOR SECOND SERVICE
Our goal all along has been to have several LARGE once-a-month services, and when we have a large enough team to be able to do the same thing weekly we’ll move to weekly services. In the meantime we will be working in small groups throughout the month, working individually with the people and also preparing for the upcoming event.
A week after the first event we invited everyone back for a meal at the church. The goal was to share with everyone, try to get to know them even better, and eventually include them in one of our small groups. That meal went very well. During the past few weeks we have also been practicing music with some who attended our first service. I announced during that service that if anyone knew how to play an instrument, to let me know. Eight people came to talk to me after the service! For this upcoming service wewill be doing almost everything ourselves. The church from Sucre will not be coming, with the exception of Joel Cuellar, who will come to lead the song service. We will playing all of the instruments with those who talked to me! Also we have raised up a chorus and a choreography team from our own group of people… plus a group of young people from our team will be presenting the “Everything” drama for the next service! (See it on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyheJ480LYA.)
CONCLUSION… THE EVENT IS ON MAY 9TH… PRAY FOR US!
Our second event is this coming Sunday evening, May 9th. We will be having a work day on Saturday, then we will go out to the neighborhood around our church that evening to invite everyone. On Sunday morning we will all split up into two groups and go to two different sectors of the city to invite people, and we will be bringing busses from those areas in the afternoon. Our goal for this upcoming service it to have 200 there!
We ask that you continue to pray for us and all that God is doing. Please know that all of the sacrifices that YOU have made financially are bearing fruits. Thank you for that, and we ask that you continue to be a part of the great things that God is doing and will do here during the next several months & years. We still have SO many financial needs here. In an upcoming letter I will spell those out for you. So please continue to be faithful in your giving! If you don’t currently support us… PLEASE DO! Trust me, this is going towards something that is leaving its mark on this world for Christ. You can get more information on supporting us on our website http://www.hohnet.com. If you have any questions, please feel free to write us!
Below I’m including several photos from the event. You can also see the entire photo album here… http://www.hohnet.com/photos/inauguracion-mcc-santa-cruz/. Thanks again for everything and have a great week! God Bless,
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,
Santa Cruz Church Plant Proposal
Oct 10th
As I begin this proposal, I (Jason) have to look back and laugh about how God works in our lives. Studying Business Management in college, I was taught to plan ahead and to not live life by the seat of my pants. Making a one, five, ten year and even a life plan is important. I took that advice, and really thought that I had it all figured out. I had a date when I would start building my own house, and was to start my own business after college. I guess that God had other plans because in 1996 He took me to Bolivia for two weeks to help build a seminary. Eight months later I returned planning to stay for a year. Then I met Norah. Need I say more? We married in 1998 and have dedicated our lives to God’s work. It seems ironic that 14 years ago I was “the man with a plan” and now here I am writing this proposal to plant our fifth church in a place that I never imagined going in my life!…
Please Read the rest here…
Update on Needs
Jul 14th
Hello Everyone!
Team From Sucre
This has been quite an interesting time for us. We feel SOOOOO close yet so far away from being able to really take off with the new church in Santa Cruz. We have a team from our church in Sucre here in Santa Cruz this week, helping us work on the new place, getting it ready for meetings, and the large evangelistic campaign that we want to hold very soon. They have also been doing dramas and evangelizing in the streets pretty well every afternoon and evening. It’s been an exciting time. The team of 10 who came are so pumped up about the work that they are doing. They just love it.
Roof Will Cost $8,550
At the same time that we continue to reach out more and more, we seem to feel more and more limited in what we can do. As I mentioned in the earlier post, we finally have our place, but we need to put a roof on it. I calculate that the roof would cost us $3,500 just from word of mouth of what people thought that it would cost. It turns out that the best that we can do is for $8,550 dollars, and it will take a month to build! That’s AFTER we sign the contract. Well… we can’t sign the contract without the money, and as of right now we really don’t have any.
I Will NOT Let Go of God’s Promise
Over the past few days I have been told by different people to maybe think of doing it in a different way. It sounds correct, and to be honest, we many times mess up on what God’s will is. At the same time I feel that God has given us a promise with this church… both in reaching the multitudes AND financially. Let me quote what I wrote back in January…
==== God’s Promise ====
Yesterday God gave us a pleasant surprise. A dentist who was once part of our church who now currently lives in Argentina is here in Sucre for a few weeks. She came to our house yesterday with a message that she felt that God had given her a month ago for us. (She had no idea about what has been going on in our lives or ministry as of late).
She told us that God had instructed her to tell us several things. 1st, that He has not forgotten about the promise that He gave to us many years ago. He has been preparing everything, and that we WILL see that promise fulfilled in our lives shortly. She gave us this verse from Genesis 28:15… “And, behold, I am with you, and will keep you in every place where you go, and will bring you again into this land. For I will not leave you until I have done that which I have spoken of to you.”.
That promise that God gave us many years ago was that he was going to give us multitudes throughout all of Bolivia, and that he was going to use our lives to bring complete change and blessing to this country.
She also told us that God showed her that economically he was going to raise up our lives and the church like he never has before. During the worst economic crisis that the world has seen in a long time, he was going to bless us like never before, and that those who are part of what we are doing will be immune to the problems that the world is facing. We will be a testimony to thousands of his faithfulness.
Glory to God!!! May his word be true! We will put our trust in HIM.
It’s hard to understand God’s ways and plans… but I will say this. GOD… I WILL NOT LET GO OF YOUR PROMISE. I WILL BELIEVE UNTIL THE END!
Luke 18 sums up my attitude well:
1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ 4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’ ” 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
We Believe Lord, and We Will Cry Out To You Day and Night. Lord, provide for your work so that Santa Cruz and Bolivia can know that YOU are God. Amen.
Finally, a Place & a Call For Help
Jun 30th
— Printable Version: letter.usa.june.29.2009.finally.2
Greetings from Santa Cruz, Bolivia! We pray that God blesses your life and family in an amazing way during this time. I can say that God has been so good to us!
We finally moved to Santa Cruz on June 11th. Moving from one city to another is not my idea of fun. It’s a lot of work and stress. We are now probably 80% unpacked and can live normal lives again. We’ve had quite a few people over to the house in the past week for a meal, and that’s been nice. Our house is very nice, although the yard is currently unusable. The last people who lived there had a large dog that dug up the yard, so they pulled out all of the grass and replanted before they left. It will be very nice about 2 months from now, but right now the kids haven’t been able to take advantage of a yard… something we haven’t had for years in Sucre. Rent is twice as expensive as in Sucre. We are paying $500 dollars a month for the place. The location is very good for us, which is very important. Santa Cruz is a city of 1.5 million people and is quite large. We are happy to be living only 5 minutes from the kid’s school and about 10 minutes (in our car) from the place we’ve chosen for the church. We feel that God has blessed us tremendously with this place!
The kids have taken the whole move great. They love it. In Santa Cruz there is a much larger English speaking community. In Sucre we had more or less 12 English speaking friends. In Santa Cruz there are probably several hundred. There’s even an English speaking church. Erynn and Jordan went to their Bible School last week. They absolutely loved it.
Jordan’s language skills have just blossomed lately. He still suffers a lot in pronunciation, but I think that he will be OK going into Pre-K this year at the English school. We have decided to start him in school a year later than normal, and feel that he will be better that way. He is now five… entering Pre-K this year and next year he’ll start Kindergarten. Derrick is just jabbering away all day. We bought a bunk bed for the boys now that we’ve moved. Jordan’s excited about sleeping on the top bunk, and Derrick likes not being stuck in the crib anymore! 
We live next to several soccer fields. I (Jason) have been jogging pretty well every day, and Erynn has been accompanying me on most of those runs. It’s nice to get out and move around a lot more (In Sucre, I always felt closed in). I’ve been feeling so much better. Since our trip to the states in December/January, I’ve lost 46 lbs. It’s amazing what that can do for your health.
Norah and I continue to pastor both churches in Sucre and Santa Cruz. The leadership team is mostly in charge of daily activities in Sucre. We fly to Sucre every other week to minister to the congregation on Sundays and to our leadership team on Mondays.
The contract for the place that we’ve been using for services over the past 4 years in Sucre has ended. The owner has asked us to start looking for another place, which is tough because there are VERY FEW places that are the size we need. We’ve been looking for months, but haven’t found anything suitable yet.
The church is Sucre is doing very well. Our leadership team seems to be growing without us being there. The fact that we are not there most of the time, but we continue to supervise and guide works very well. They are maturing quickly, without losing focus. We’re 100% sure that we’ve done the right thing in moving to Santa Cruz.
Over the past few months we have become increasingly frustrated with the work in Santa Cruz. We’ve been traveling there since February, and have opened several small groups. We had the large evangelistic campaign in April where around 55 people received the Lord. Those two things have gone very well. Our main frustration has been that we haven’t been able to really START as a church. We’ve been looking for a place desperately since April but hadn’t found anything. Any place that was suitable cost $1,500 dollars a month rent or more. A new church in Bolivia just can’t do that. Additionally, we need to buy chairs, a sound system, projector, and other things. It looked impossible. We had hoped that maybe something would happen so that we could do it, but no miracles occurred.
Several weeks ago Norah and I decided, after talking to our mentor in Argentina, that the best thing to do would be for me to travel home to the states for 4 or 5 weeks and to try to raise the money. I didn’t feel good about it, but it seemed like the only possible solution. 
We would raise the money needed to start and to rent a worthwhile place, planning to cover 5 or 6 months rent. During that time we would work hard with the church, trying to grow enough for it to be able to pay the rent on its own.
We had pretty well given up on finding a place before the trip, but two days before I planned to buy my ticket, we got a call from a couple in the church. They had just seen a place and wanted us to go see it. We did, and after a little brainstorming session we realized that the place would be perfect. 
The rent was $600 a month, but this couple really wanted to rent the back part for themselves. It’s quite a large place, with several large rooms in the front, a 3000 sq/ft middle part, and a small apartment in the back. It was decided that we would pay $400 and they would pay $200 a month.
The middle part is the perfect size for the church. We need to put in a portable roof over the center part, take out the plants, and place flooring in the center. We have permission from the owner to do that. 
$400 a month in a strategic place is so much cheaper than anything else we’ve seen, and is probably reachable for the church from the beginning! Glory to God!
Ok, here’s the deal. We need some help. We finally have a place, but we have a lot of work to do before we can begin and we don’t have the money to do it. We know that God will provide, but we need to let the need be known. We MUST put in a roof that we can take out when we leave. It will need to be a metal structure with some type of outdoor material as a roof. That will cost about $8,500. We need to take out the garden in the middle and put down a simple floor. We estimate that will cost about $1,500. We have reduced our start-up costs by bringing 200 chairs and 2 large speakers from Sucre. We also decided not to buy instruments in the beginning. We will use backing tracks instead. We still need to buy a projector, a computer, decorations, and a stage. We also need about $2000 to print evangelistic material and advertisement for the long evangelistic campaign that we HOPE to begin on July 24th.
We have been somewhat frustrated over the past few months, but we believe that God knows EXACTLY what He is doing. We have received so many promises from Him for the work that has started here. We will work hard and believe in Him until the end. God is good, and we know that He will abundantly provide!
If you can give, remember that all gifts are tax deductible. You can give online on our website or you can send a check to: The Hand of Hur, Inc., 293 Bray Hill Lane, Oakland, MD 21550.
We thank you so much. May God bless your life immensely, in all you do! Please continue to pray for us daily. We need it so much.
Love,
