Home from Chile!! our lives recently.

April is on its way out, May is on its way in, and the question many are asking us is, "What have you guys been doing since you got back from Chile?! " Well dear friends, I finally have some answers for you! Thanks for your patience with us as we have taken a while to update you on the happenings of our last month.

Back in LA, landscaping before graduation.. glorious Team Chile.

We arrived back from outreach both sad to leave Chile, and excited for what's coming next. We absolutely adored our outreach team... Actually even that feels like an understatement... We were (& are still) crazy about them. So it was heartbreaking to say goodbye. But one week after returning to LA we watched our team of students graduate the Discipleship Training School & return home to go change the world.

Our best friend Beka's last morning in LA

 Weeks 1 & 2 of being home were busy, sad, and yet still somehow full of celebration because of all that God had done. One of our best friends, Beka Brigleb, came to visit too... She has led YWAM outreaches before so she was super helpful in our time of transitioning back home.

Easter morning with the family.

 Week 3 was restful. We had the week off... We cleaned the house, slept in, Shaun started another quarter at The King's University, and we spent quality time just being together. The last 2 and a half months we had been living with the other 11 people on our team, so it was nice to be just the 2 of us. During that week we stayed with our family in Huntington Beach, it was an incredible gift to reconnect with them. Their house is one of our favorite places on the planet.

Craziness with the Gleason's! (Our Huntington Beach family)

Adventures with the Gleason boys-- riding a motor scooter through goodwill; backyard lounging in a laundry basket, covered with a memory foam mattress pad... note my sister Meredith in the bottom photo :) We love family time!

The fourth week home we were back to work again on the YWAM LA campus. I (Jess) was given the task of organizing for 24 of us from the YWAM base to go down to San Diego for a week to work with a company called "Event Force". Through event force we would be on staff at the San Diego Convention Center, working for Cisco- the tech company- at their annual Partner Summit. To break this down... We would be working 4-16 hour shifts helping to run a convention for business executives in San Diego for a week. The awesome benefit is that it would be a fundraiser for YWAM LA & a portion of what we earned would pay off a month of our "staff fees" at YWAM LA. So, I worked like crazy, with thee help of a couple great friends, and we made it happen. Last week we were in SD working the convention & we had an amazing time. We met wonderful people and had many opportunities to serve them with the love of Christ. The hours were long and our feet ached but by the end of the week I heard several stories of executives seeing God in us and being deeply impacted by our presence there... That made it all worth it.

View from the Petco Skybox Lounge- Jess worked an evening event for Cisco Partners here!

San Diego Convention Center

 The final piece of this update is really the biggest thing that we have been doing, but I won't say too much about it now. I will have Shaun tell you about it himself because he will do a better job. But basically we are working diligently to start a new Discipleship Training School for skateboarders called, "Calling All Skaters" which is aiming to launch this upcoming September. The vision is that it would be more of a "discipleship house" style... Living off of the YWAM LA campus, together in a house (or church.. Or wherever God provides) pursuing Christ together. This is still a YWAM LA ministry, following all of the standards of a University of the Nations, Discipleship Training School. But it is the first one our base has ever done off of the campus. Shaun is almost finished with the website so I will pass that along here soon, but please pray for us. This is a HUGE undertaking and we are still needing God to provide a lot of different pieces in order for this all to come together.

 Please pray for me too, because I am trying to understand my role in all of this and what God's vision is for my ministry. This weekend we are in Huntington Beach with Meredith watching our 3 "little brothers" while thir parents (our adopted parents here) are out of town. It has been a weekend full of fun!

Thank you once again for your amazing support! We love you & pray you are blessed this week! 

 Love, Jess & Shaun 

PS. Have you met our God daughter, Lily?

Video from Chile!

Hi friends and family! I'm sorry that it has been so long since we updated you, I will give you a better update soon... but I wanted to share with you guys a video from our time in Chile.

I pray you are encouraged! Thank you for your love and support! Love, Jess

I have created a new blog for our team here in Chile! My hope was that it would bless the friends and family members of the students on our team, because I know they are missing their loved ones very much. I will be updating the team blog often so please check it out! 

teamchile.tumblr.com

Chile Update!!

On the plane to Chile!
Shaun cut holes in his sleep mask & walked around the plane with his blanket as a cape...

Hola amigos!!

Here's what's new:

-Another Skatepark Disciple Baptized 

-Gear Coming out of our Ears 

-Sixty Workers Sent out into the Harvest; Asia, Africa, South America

-In Chile. Sports Camps and Skate Comps!

Pancakes made by the DTS students before leaving on outreach! 

Jake Baptized; Alive in Christ!
We have been hanging out with Jake and witnessing to him at the skatepark for about three years now. He’d been really back and fourth, being really interested in Jesus, asking for prayer sometimes and coming to church. But he had not been willing to surrender everything to Christ; holding on to a few silly pleasures rather than taking hold of the Holy Spirit. 

He was close friends with Karl (who passed away a few weeks ago). After Karl’s death something amazing happened to Jake, He repented and became a new person!.

He called me a week ago because he saw the video of Saul being baptized at the skatepark and the video of his two other friends, PJ and Sevin, being baptized at the church and he was so stoked (that means excited)!!  He asked me if I could baptize him before I left for Chile (which was two days later).

I talked with Jesse Ruggles (Youth Pastor) and Pastor Pete and they gave me the green light so we baptized Jake in our friends jacuzzi! The whole Chile team was present as well as a bunch of Jakes friends from the skatepark. Saul (the one who was baptized at the skatepark) was also there! Afterwards we all went out for dinner and celebrated. Pray for Jake’s continued discipleship and perseverance in the faith.

Donated gear!

Gear Coming Out of our Ears

People donated gear for the ministries we’re working with in Chile. We have about 40 skateboard decks and a ton of other skate gear to bless all the Chilean skate kids with,  5 giant boxes of lane line for YWAM Pichilemu’s community swimming pool, 5 surfboards and a bunch of wetsuits for Iglesia Fuego Urbano, and more.  The result was 13 checked bags of gear to donate and 8 of those bags were oversized and/or overweight, but the airline didn’t charge us for any of it!! 

Special Thanks to those who donated all the stuff; Untitled Skateboards, The Sanctuary Church, Christian Hosoi, Christ Presbyterian Church, Jett Collective, Billy’s Boardshop, Sierra Fellers, Randy Usedom and others.

Prayer & commissioning before heading to the airport

Sixty Workers Sent Out into the Harvest; Asia, Africa, South America

A few days ago we had a big prayer circle at the YWAM Base as the DTS Outreach teams were about to load up the bus for the airport.

The work of discipleship can be tiring and even frustrating at times, but it’s so rewarding to see these 50 students that we have been working with so intensely for the last three months to be sent out into the nations to serve and to preach the message of hope in Christ.

Spencer & Anita wearing our "Team Chile" shirts, talking to Chileans on the plane

the girls decorated one of the donated decks with scripture

Anita, Michael, and Isaiah in the Santiago airport

MINISTRY IN CHILE! Sports Camps and Skate Comps!

All fourteen of us are safe in Chile. Our team jumped right into ministry, a bunch of them are working a sports program for kids with special needs. A bus from the city goes around and picks up kids from impoverished and abusive homes and brings them to the YWAM sports complex from 11:00am to 3:00pm to partake in the program.  Our team totally loves these kids! Each person focuses on three kids and continues with those same three kids for the next few weeks. They teach them swimming and other sports and they teach them about God, the Bible, and prayer.

Eve, our student from Germany, about to teach swimming lessons

Some of us have been totally connecting with all the skaters who hang out at the skatepark down the street and sharing the word of God with them. They get so excited when we show up, we've been giving boards to the kids riding the nastiest boards and we've run skate competitions the last two days. The first day 18 dudes joined the competition, Pipo won. They had so much fun that the next day they wanted to have another competition even though we didn't have a prize. So 24 kids joined and Mathias won, it was a blast!

Our little amigo walking down to the skatepark with his new deck

THANK YOU ALL FOR EVERYTHING! Even though you are not physically here, you who support us and pray for us are members of this Chile team! 

GOD BLESS YOU,

Shaun & Jessica Hover