Many Thanks from the Children in China

Pastor Doug,
It was my pleasure to become friends and work with Karen and Josh while they lived and served in China. The gave us 500 USD from your fellowship and explained the year of Jubilee. I was so amazed. After years in the church and now on the field, I've never of heard of a fellowship giving their people money to give away.
I just wanted to say thank you because of you we were blessed and our needs provided.....in order to help the orphans in China.
Sincerely, Pam in Henan
http://www.swallowsnestzz.org

The Jubilee Helps Children in China

We were given the Jubilee money by a member of your church who knew we were going to China in fall of 2009 to teach English to university students in Henan Province. She challenged us to find someone to bless with this money during this past school year. Well, we have!
My friend Pam started an organization in 2006 called Swallow's Nest to provide care for about 25 special needs orphans in 3 apartments in downtown Zhengzhou. These children are waiting for surgeries and/or adoptive placement with a forever family. As a nurse, I have been able to assist her with infant assessments, wound dressing changes, and other concerns. Pam and her family have challenged us to care for the 'least of these'. This money will go to offset the cost of surgery and the ongoing costs of formula and diapers. They are truly God's hands and feet.
Their website is: www.swallowsnestzz.org
Amazing stuff! Thank you for this opportunity.
Josh & Karen (and Levi) Christoffels
Zhengzhou, Henan Province CHINA

The Jubilee By: Nate and Tara

My husband wasn't in church with me the day the envelopes were handed out but I was so excited about the challenge that this "Year of Jubilee" money came with and wanted to use it to help someone in need. My husband shared my excitement and we both did not want to rush into giving it to the first person we saw. So after brainstorming and praying about it we were a little unsure but knew we didn't want to wait too long...in June (and I know I'm a bit late in writing about it) a coworker came to me (one whom I rarely see) and was telling me about some financial struggles she and her family were having. As I listened, I could feel that tug and then she said, "I just wish someone could loan me $500" . At that moment I just said, I will. She couldn't believe it and after I told her several times over, yes I will, in fact, I don't want you to repay me. God loves you and so do I, I said. She got tears in her eyes and still couldn't believe that I would. I knew that's exactly who God wanted me to give it too. I don't know why, but that's not important...God wanted me to listen to Him. Isn't He Amazing! What an opportunity!

The Jubilee By: Robert and Jackie

Patience Pays Off

Robert and I had been holding on to the Jubilee money for over 5 months. We both felt that if we continued to pray for God's leading, the right person, family, or organization who needed this gift would be obvious. I must admit that I was starting to feel anxious about "sitting" on that much cash for so long. I wondered if we would never have a clear sign and should just pick a local organization that we thought would use it wisely. Robert encouraged me to continue to be patient.

Just a couple days ago we learned that our new neighbor was suddenly admitted to the ICU fighting for life. The family is currently without health insurance and the parent in the hospital is the "bread-winner." Praise God - it now seems they will pull through, but might have a long recovery ahead. It was emotional for both me and the spouse when Robert and I explained how we came to have the $500 and now knew that it was meant for them. What joy there is in being rewarded for patience and trust in our Lord! Thank you elders, pastors, and anyone else involved in the development of this "Year of Jubilee!"

Robert & Jackie Heider

The Jubilee By: Lane and Laura

We decided to give our $500 to a help out a young couple our age. My high school classmate/family member and his wife have twin daughters who are 22 months old. In August, one of the twins was diagnosed with an extremely rare and aggressive form of pediatric brain cancer. She has already had a tumor surgically removed and now has a very tough fight ahead of her. She has started intensive, systemic chemotherapy and will likely have to follow with radiation, stem cell replacement and additional chemo. Each treatment will require a 4-5 day hospital stay. In order for her mom to provide the best possible care for her, along with her their other 3 children, she has discontinued working. This leaves the family with only one income. So, hopefully the Jubilee money will help to cover some of the family’s financial needs. We hope and pray God will take care of the rest. Lane and Laura Ischen

The Jubilee By: Paulino & Brenda

My husband's family live in Brazil. He went there for the month of July this year. They are very poor, so we have always helped them out financially. They have had several tragedy's since we have been married. The most recent tragedy was in August 2008. My husband's mother had several strokes in 2007 and 2008 and she passed away in August 2008. That was a blessing since she could not do anything on her own anymore. On the way to the funeral, the man they hired to drive them to the funeral went off the road and rolled the car. His sister, uncle, and brother were hurt seriously and his brother's wife was killed when the car rolled over her. The others had head injuries, broken ribs, and his sister is just starting to walk again. This money helped us to help them even more. The Goehring family also gave their Jubilee money to his family. They were so thankful to God and Hill Crest Baptist Church when he told them about the Jubilee money. It was a big financial burden with the two funeral and the medical expenses. We cannot express how thankful my husband, his family, and I am. I do believe God expects us to serve and help those in need and I appreciate the teachings about complete forgiveness, helping people in need, and leading a christian life. We all sin and make many mistakes, but we need to keep striving to be more like Jesus.

The Jubilee helps with School Costs

It has taken us a while to use the Jubilee money, but we finally did it! I contacted the school that our children attend in Brandon and explained what our church was doing with the Year of Jubilee. I had a meeting with both the principal and the director of nutrition and they were very excited to hear that we wanted to give the money to them to use for families in our school that had real needs that weren't being met. I also explained that we didn't want the families to know who the money came from, but that we would appreciate if they told us what kind of needs were being taken care of with the money. I did explain that we wanted the money to be used for backpack buddies, school lunch accounts and/or school supplies.
My husband and I both have thought at different times that we could use the money to meet our needs, but neither of us wanted to do it. We knew that we both would rather be a blessing to someone else, or in this situation many other families. While we could've used the money to help us out we chose not to. During our struggles over the past 9 months God has used our friends and family to provide for us when we didn't know how our needs would somtimes be met. Well, I took the Jubilee money to the school on Wednesday of last week and today as we left church a friend of ours gave us an envelope. When we got to our van and opened it we found their portion of the Jubilee money!! We will never forget how wonderful it felt to be the giver when we truly needed the money and within a matter of days be the recipient of such a great blessing! Thank you!

The Jubilee By: Daniel and Christine

Dan and I have finally used our $500 Year of Jubilee Money. It took us some time to decide where and how this was going to be helped.

I had over heard a coworker of mine- stating they needed a miracle to help them out. They are just stressed with bills….well…

We had decided to help out this family that is in debt – behind in medical bills and house payments. We bought them a lifetime membership to Dave Ramseys FPU and lined them up a class at a church nearby starting in September. We wrote them a letter this was not something they HAD to attend- but they could think about it. The membership is good for lifetime, and if it does not work in their schedule to start in Sept they can cancel and arrange another time that works for them.

So we wrapped this up and included the envelope of 500.00.
We dropped it off and told her to open it when her husband got home from work…as he works 2 jobs.

She later texted me…she wanted to call…but she was overwhelmed…stated they both cried – never thought that they would be in this situation- where they were in need.
And God provided. She thanked us. And we thanked our Church and God!

It was a wonderful feeling.
Thank you for this opportunity!!


Daniel and Christine Grosz

The Jubilee Helps Others

Once again the Lord blessed me when, with the remaining 225.00 I had, I bought magazines for a person in a hospital with family out of town, gave an elderly person a 100.00, and last but not least 100.00 to help children who have Aids.

The Jubilee Helps More Individuals

Our family has decided to break our money into smaller amounts. To this point we have used 300 of it and are still deciding how we are going to spend our last 200. We recently saw an add posted on Craiglist.com where a man said he needed work and would do just about anything to get money. The next day we called him up and asked him if we could meet him somewhere. He was wondering if we needed work but we told him we just wanted to help him out. During our meeting he told us how he was recently laid off from his job out of town and had 400 dollars to his name and that money was going to his rent. He told us how he had screwed up in the past but had figured out his life and had a young daughter and wife at home. He told us he was so desperate for a job that he even went to McDonalds to apply to be the guy that holds up a sign outside of the restaurant. After talking to this guy for 15 minutes or so we handed him the money and explained our story at Hillcrest. He told us how he grew up going to church on and off and would like to get involved again. At that point he took my number and said he would like to go with us some time. About an hour ago I received an ecstatic phone call and he told me he had received 3 job offers in one day. One that was willing to pay him 14 dollars an hour. He said that he had previously worked at this place and a few days prior he went in again to see if they would hire him. They claimed they couldn’t due to the economy but today they called him back and said they would hire him. The best part about it was that he told me he didn’t have to work on Sunday’s and he would let me know about coming with us to church some time. It was such a great feeling for our family to meet with this guy.

Another day we were driving by Walmart and saw some men holding signs We pulled in and asked them what they needed and how we could help them. They told us they had hitch-hiked here and now were trying to make some money for bus tickets to get to Minneapolis. They didn’t expect much from us and would have been happy with just a meal, but after explaining our story we gave them enough money for bus tickets and some food. They were so happy and gracious. They hugged us and then took off to buy their bus tickets. The feeling we got when helping these people was indescribable & brought tears to our eyes.
We feel extremely blessed to have had these opportunities & look forward to our next chance to give away the rest of the money.

The Jubilee Helps a Variety of People

One family has been doing numerous small actions with their jubilee money. At their business, they have been putting extra merchandise in people's orders. They have not charged Hillcrest for some of their services. They have paid for people's meals in line at McDonald's. Daily, they have enjoyed being able to give to others.

The Jubilee By: Joy

What an amazing feeling it was to be given the opportunity to help someone in need! My six year old daughter Jasmine just happened sit in church with me that Sunday instead of going to Sunday School and she helped me and my other two children decide what to do with some of the money. We recently went to Wal-mart and ran into an old co-worker of mine who happens to also be a single mother. As we were standing behind her in the check out line she was telling me about her recent medical problems and medical bills, knowing how hard it can be I was trying to help her feel better when Jasmine tugged on my shirt and said "Mom we should give her some of that money from church." WOW! I thought, it is amazing that my six year old thought of that before I did! So we used $100 to purchase the $42 in groceries she had and had the cashier give her the change. It was amazing to do something like that and to witness the disbelief on her face when she said "You have no idea how much we needed that! Why would you do that?" and I responded "Because God loves you." I know we were able to touch the heart of that woman that day but I believe we also touched the hearts of the several people who gathered around us who shocked that we were able to give so freely.

The Jubilee By: Aaron and Sheri

My sister, who is disabled, has been out of work for a long time. Her unemployment benefits recently ran out. I said to Aaron, "If she wasn't my sister, we could give the money to her."Of course, we came to our senses and helped her out with a particular bill. We're still looking for the right thing to do with the rest of the money -- I have a feeling God has a specific place for it to go.Sheri & Aaron Levisay

The Jubilee By: Art and Cheri

We talked about all the people we know that need financial helpand SO had many ideas. We finally decided to help a single mom that I work with on budgeting because she was in the most helpless spot. In November 2008 she found herself $300 behind at the daycare her daughter was attending because the father had lost his job 4 months prior and was not paying child support. The daycare said that she would not be able to bring her daughter any longer if she did not pay the bill the next day. WELL………. She went to a title loan place and became one of their victims! She received a little under $300 and satisfied the daycare, but the payments were $120 a month which she could not afford in the first place., so she quickly became delinquent and was beginning to sink. Long story short, by the time we stepped in her payoff was $780.00 (not to mention the $480 she had already made in monthly payments) and they would have repossesed her car soon. After MUCH discussion, we were able to get them to settle with a payoff of $600 so we just paid the whole bill to get her car title back. She just kept saying thank you and I cannot re-pay you! God definitely made an impact in the life of this family. Art and Cheri

The Jubilee Helps People Out of Work

I used my Jubilee money to help fund Latin American child care. I also made contributions to out of work people. I found this to be a thought-provoking exercise.

The Jubilee By: Elaine

I finally came to a decision on what to do with the $500.00. I am giving it to the Food Pantry today. This will help a lot of people instead of one or two. Elaine Perry

The Jubilee Helps Out a Family in Need

We have close friends who are going through some tough financial times. They have two young children, owe on last year's taxes, and are getting laid off in a couple months. When we first received the jubilee money, they immediately came to our minds, and so we gave them part of the jubilee money to use for bills, groceries, whatever they find to be the most pressing needs.

Jubilee Story on Kelo-land

Kelo-land TV found the Jubilee blog and contacted Hillcrest Church to do a story on the Jubilee. They shared the story on the news on Wednesday, June 10. Here is the sight to read the story and see the video: http://www.keloland.com/news/news/NewsDetail7807.cfm?ID=85783

The Jubilee By: Amy and Andy

My husband wasn't in church with me the day these envelopes were handed out but together we made the decisions on who to give to.When I heard it was going to be a challenge I thought "whatever! how hard could it be?!" Well it was definately a challenge for us! To give with an open heart and without being judgemental about WHY our choices may need the money and putting it in God's hands, out of our controlwas tough! First off we gave some of the money to our neighbors. they have 3 children all with varying degrees of hearing loss, from mild to eventually deaf. This husband and wife work from sunup to sundown,also while she goes to school for ASL and the whole family tries to learn it. The remainder of the money we gave to various people with financial needs because of the economy, just gift certificates for groceries or gas. We did this all anonomously but still heard in a roundabout way some of the people's reactions and gratefullness and we were very proud and gracious to be a part of the Jubilee!Amy and Andy

The Jubilee By: Coleton and Deserae

Wow. My husband and I were shocked at what was inside that envelope. That's all we could think and talk about the whole day and week after. We both thought it was absolutely selfLESS and amazing at what the church was doing. The week before this, Coleton's brother had called us telling us that he and his fiance didn't even have enough money to pay for the food at their wedding, amongst other things. So when this money came, we decided to give them $250 of it to go towards paying for their wedding. The other $250 went to Muscular Dystrophy Research. My mom has muscular dystrophy and is confined to a wheelchair. I also have 3 aunts, 1 uncle and 2 cousins that have the same thing. For the past 10 years, they (the research center) have known what it was that their muscles are missing but just a few weeks ago were finally able to do treatments on two patients and it worked perfectly. So, in order for more people to get the treatment, it costs 2.5 million... so we figured at least we could help a little bit. We definitely do not have room in our budget to help out of our own pocket. We are SO thankful for this opportunity. Thank you, Hillcrest. God is doing amazing things. Coleton and Deserae Long