Hello everybody. I am so sorry it has been a very long time since I have entered anything in here. I have had a great past month. I had safe travels back from the Central African Republic. I had a 14 hour layover in Paris which I spent sleeping on the floor next to Doug and Martha. Then I had an overnight in London. I got a hotel and it was very nice. :) I had coffee in the morning. that was wonderful.

I got home on Saturday afternoon. My mom and Michael and Jeremy picked me up. We had a good time in the car just being friends. :)

Now that I have been home a week I have gotten settled back in. I have both my car and motorcycle running and ready to go. I am planning on helping mom with projects around the house.

I am very glad to be home, but it is different. This is the first time I have had culture shock coming home. I am not completely adjusted to America yet. It is nice to be here and I love it, just not used to it. ;)

I am planning a trip to North Carolina to visit the Hope church. They have offered me an internship leading missions trips with ICDI and others. I do not know any details of the internship and don't know what all it entails. I will be going up there when I get the chance to figure things out. Please be praying that God will lead me in my decisions and give me wisdom.

I think that is all. Thank you all for everything!! :)

John Hocking

Hello all,

I am very sorry for not updating this sooner! I have had a computer failure and then I left with the drill team. SO, I will recap my month for you.

First of all thanks to everyone for your prayers! I spent the end of July and the beginning of June out with our drill team. We started in a small village about a 6 hour drive from Berberati. We stayed in a school and drove to the drill site in the morning. The area where we were drilling is a very very sandy area. They had attempted two wells previous to the one they were working on when I got there with no water. The well that I helped with did get water after a few days work. These areas are the hardest to work in because the sand keeps caving in down in the bottom of the hole as they drill. This makes it a very long and tedious job of going up and down to get the sand out of the air lines. The village was a small village and it was great to spend time with the people in it. We had a soccer game and showed the Jesus film for the village. It was a great experience to be out in the villages that really need the help. We would go to the river every evening to wash up and go swimming. It was lots of fun. When I am back in the states I will upload pictures and maybe some videos.

We finished the one well and then moved down a few miles to drill another one. This one we made two attempts but both of them were dry holes. This area needs water so badly, but it is very very hard to find the water.

After my time with the drill team I traveded with a repair guy and did lots of driving. We drove around 1,500 kilometers in a few days. Then turned around to go back a few days later. The trip back was only 600 though. But still a lot of driving. We picked up dad in Bangui then headed down here to Berberati for one more week before I fly out of the country on July 2nd. I am excited to be getting home, but am very sad to be leaving all these people that I have grown to love so much. Pray for me as I say my goodbyes. I do not know when I will be returning, but Lord willing I will be back soon.

Thank you all for you prayers and continued prayers for my father and his meetings, and me for finishing up things here would be appreciated.

In Christ

John

Computer problems

Hello All!!

I am very sad to say that my computers hard drive is bad. That being said, I do not have any of your email addresses anymore. I need to know your email address if you want any updates via email. I am sorry. :( Hope that you are all doing well!!

John

This is me and the guys having fun at the river. :)

PS: nobody else could do the inverted dive, or the one where I grab my legs and go head first, or the one where I flip from the top. It was fun, but they all say. "Bunjou a ga kirikiri!" Which means the white man is crazy!!!

:) hope you like it.
John

May 11th

Dear Friends and Family,

The past few weeks have been busy, exciting, and fun. We currently have the drill team and a few of the repair teams in the garage needing work on their vehicles. Doug is running around like crazy trying to get everybody back on the road so we can continue drilling wells. He has been really busy with stuff, and on top of that we are changing some of the regulations in the garage. Things to help people and projects run smoothly together. It is good stuff, but just being implemented in a hard time. Please pray for strength and wisdom through all of this.
Personally these weeks have been really exciting. Doug has been really busy so I haven’t had much work in the garage. So I have been working around the house. Doing handi man projects. I fixed the sink, lights, cd player, just little things. I have also been working in my garden which is coming along nicely. I have lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, green beans, and cilantro. Everything is doing well. I do have to make a few more rows for when I thin all the plants out, but it should be a very good garden. Mom, you should be proud of me. ;)

I have spent a good amount of time with my friends. We have gone to the river to go swimming a few times and we take the camera with us to take video and pictures. I have put them on my computer and using the handi imovie I made a video. They loved it. Soccer has been going really well too. We have not had any fights in the past few weeks which is abnormal. Sometimes there is someone who gets mad and they start throwing fists, but lately everyone has seemed calmer. Its nice. We played a real competition game yesterday and won 2-0. It was fun.
I am very thankful for my time here and am getting along very well. I hope that all of you are doing fine. I would love to hear from you all.

Please keep me in your prayers as I only have a couple months left and still have a good bit to get done here. Thank all of you for your continued support.

John Hocking

Well, I have some time so I will expand on my last post. I know it was short. This past week has been fun and busy. We spent last weekend in Gambula with other missionaries. It was really really good to get away and spend time with friends. We came back from there and heard that we needed to travel to the capitol Bangui to get our Carte de sejours. This was an unscheduled trip, but it was fun. We had a good trip down listening to music from both my and Marty's cd collections. :) It was a really fun trip. We got to Bangui, on Tuesday evening. We had a nice dinner with Bob. By the way the cook there is my Godfather, so I am always to be with him. He makes the best bread ever!!! In my opinion anyway. ;) We went in early Wednesday morning to get our paperwork done, which went fine. We filled out forms and had our fingers plunged into ink and squished into small spaces on paper. Then.. they didn't let us wash our hands, so our fingers were blue for the next 2 days. We got done with that and we had to travel to the community hospital to get a clean bill of health. Which the doctors told us "Well, you came from the states and we know the doctors there check you out before you come, so we will just sign the paper for you." Which is true, but funny. So we now have our carte de sejours... Well, I guess we have papers that say we have one, the actual card is coming later... sometime. The rest of Wednesday and Thursday Doug spent most of his time trying to fix our power steering line on our car for our trip back. It turned out to be a much bigger job than we wanted or anticipated. We replaced the line, and had someone weld the line. (the line itself costs like $80) We took the piece back and there was a hole in the weld that we had just had done... so it was worse than before... So we had to find another place to weld it. Well God provided and we found one and we got it fixed. It was after dinner that we finally got the car going though. We stopped for gas that night so we didn't have to worry about it in the morning. We left Bangui at 6am on Friday. We had a wonderful trip back. We had two of the cutest little kids in the car with us. Michele and Patrick. They were amazing. Didn't fuss at all the 13 hour trip. They had lots of fun. And we decided that we wanted to get rid of our 3 huge bags of candy on the road. So we started tossing them out the window to kids on the road. That was amazing! Those two things along with our wonderful music selection of Go Fish just made the trip amazing. Also good news from the trip. Doug finally got his drivers license so he was able to drive, which meant I got to ride rather than drive. Which was nice. I spent a good portion of the drive with my head out the window looking at things and enjoying the wind. Plus I tried a couple different times to land a banana peal on the car behind us with Bob inside, but both times I missed.
The past two days have been rest and recouperate for work tomorrow.. Saturday was a great day for me. In the morning we had a meeting with Bob. It went very well. I also fixed up a place for my new garden. Mom sent me seeds so I am planting them so that when she comes out next year they will be ready for her. I had time to do that in the morning. Had lunch and then headed out with a few friends to the river to go swimming. It was... PACKED. There was barely room to walk on the bridge. It was amazingly fun though. Everybody was shocked to see a white guy swimming in their river. It was really fun jumping off the bridge and diving and just playing. We went back from the river played soccer and then I had a nice relaxing evening.
Today... was an adventure. :) We went to the Apostolic church. Which is an amazing church. The people there have such energy. After about 45 min of singing we had introductions of the "white people". I introduced Doug and Marty. They kept asking me if Doug was a pastor. Well... he isn't. I told them like 3 times. They wanted him to preach but I kept telling them that he wasn't a pastor. So finally they asked me to come up and at least translate the message for Doug and Marty. So... me.. John Hocking translated the message into english, which is hard, because a lot of it doesn't translate directly. Marty kept looking at me and winking and smiling at me which also made me lose concentration cuz I would smile back and start chuckling. It was really fun and I did enjoy it, although Doug did say he got sleepy so next time I will be more active in my translations. :) After the service they had us for a drink of Jino, which is a juice drink here, and we talked for a little bit. They want me to come back next week and play my djembe with them. Which I told them I would. So next week I am going to get to play my drum. Makes me excited and happy. :) This afternoon we went to the river again, planed my garden, and played soccer. This evening I had dinner with the Murtoffs and Bob. It was nice, and we watched Loui Giglio, which if you haven't heard his messages, you should go look them up on youtube. They are amazing. Look up the Indescribable tour. God has blessed this man and he is working for our God.

Well, I would like to ask for your prayers for this coming week. With us being gone for a week it will be interesting getting back into a groove with the guys. Also that Bob would have a good week of meetings here. Pray for me that I would have strength in my jobs as well as interacting with the people here. I love these people so much, and I pray that God makes me a light for his kingdom.

Again, I need to ask you all to seek God's council and if you are willing to help me financially. I don't really like asking for money, it seems so.. impersonal. But I want you to be a part of my ministry. I want you to understand that if you are helping by supporting me, you are as much here in the country as I am. Without you I would not have the opportunity to be here. It is through Gods will, and his servants that I have found a doorway here in the Central African Republic. I ask you to seek Gods council in giving. I do not want you to give, just because you can or because you know me. I want you to give with the thoughts and prayers that God will use your gift through me to touch the people here in this country. I thank all of you for everything you have done. You have all had a part in my life. I love all of you very much. I look forward to seeing all of you and telling you my stories of Gods work here in person.

In Christ,

John Hocking

April 20th

Well, it has been an amazing few weeks here! I have still been playing
soccer everyday (with the exceptions of when I’m gone) and it has been
amazing getting to know the guys some more. I have invested in two of
them that I have over every weekend. Their names are Apo, and
Gbiatiala. If you could pray for them I would appreciate it. They are
Christians but I am not sure about their actual beliefs. God is
working and it is great!
We took last weekend off and went to Gambula. It is about a 2 ½ hour
drive from here to there. It was a good rest. We actually got to watch
the super bowl that someone had recorded and sent out for us! It was a
lot of fun. It was good to be in a different place and be able to
relax a while.
This month has been hard with some of our personnel. We are having
some problems, so if you could pray that we would get them worked out
that would be great! Bob Belo is coming this weekend to Berberati. I
am excited to see him. It will be nice to visit for a few days. We are
actually leaving tomorrow morning to go to Bangui. We have to travel
down there to get our Carte De SEjours. I think that’s how its spelled
but no promises. Haha. Anyway, also pray for safety on the road as I
will be driving and we are leaving at 3 am and it is about a 11 hour
drive. Pray that God will keep me awake and alert. I will have my
music so I should be fine, but still, prayer is important. Thank you.

I have reached my half way point in my trip and I have realized that
I am still short on my support. I would like to ask you to pray and
ask God if you would be willing to continue to support me financially.
I have raised about half of what I need for this whole trip. God has
blessed me with a spiritual family that involves each and every one of
you and I think God everyday that he has given me the opportunity to
be in ministry with you. Thank all of you.

Sorry this is short, but as we are leaving early tomorrow morning I
would like to turn in early. ☺ Again, thanks to all of you!

God Bless

John Hocking

Dear Friends and Family,

I have had an amazing time here so far in the Central African
Republic. I am currently traveling with one of the guys from the drill
team, Marcillen. We have spent the past few days traveling to
different villages with new wells. Making sure everything is working
properly and fixing things and also taking pictures of the places
where they used to get water. Most of the water I saw was filled with
tadpoles, leaves, mud… it’s awful.
I have experienced two main things that I want to share with you from
my trip. First off, we were at one of the pumps and it was not pumping
water. Well, the pipes were a little too short, so we replaced the
pipes. As we were just about finished the “Pastor” from the village
came and started ranting about how the pump never works. He was
obviously drunk and was telling the people it was because of their
sins and evil spirits that the pump didn’t work. Well, this got mine
and Mace’s attention. We kept working, but sort of asking him why he
was saying stuff like that. Then the pastor got mad at Mace and said
that he was making it so the pump wouldn’t’ work.. Well then I chimed
in and said can’t you see that we know its not working right and
that’s why we are here right now working on it. Well, he responded and
said, no no, my problem isnt’ with you, its with the black man working
on our pump. He is the one making it not work. Well, by this time Mace
had finished his work, we didn’t tell them that it was finished. But
we just got up packed up our stuff and left without talking. So they
thought that we were not finished and just packed up and left. Well,
we saw them pumping water as we left, so we know that they know it
works, but it was just so upsetting that the pastor was drunk and
leading other people to believe that their sins was the reason the
pump wasn’t’ working. It was a bit discouraging and it really upset
Mace. God has lots of work to do in that village and we will be
returning there again sometime. Prayer for the people in that village
would be much appreciated.
The second thing I would like to share with you is encouragement. We
visited a village called Lambi Lac. It is the most beautiful village I
have ever seen. It is up on a hill, so there is always a breeze, very
cool in the shade, but still hot in the sun. The people there are
amazing. There are three people groups living there. Central Africans,
Fulani, and another tribe I don’t know the name of. They all live
together in harmony. They don’t’ have arguments about religions. The
pastor there doesn’t’ have a church, he just talks to people and his
wife has meetings every week, but not specifically a bible study. If
she gets the chance she shares, but doesn’t force it. This is the kind
of work that needs to be done. The pastor told us about 4 different
people who have rejected islam and are now christians. The landscape
was also beautiful. It was not a forrest, but not savanna. Open fields
with trees, but not brushy. Its beautiful. I hope to return there many
times. It is also only about and hour and a half from the Capitol
Bangui. God is amazing and that village encouraged me soo soo much.
Thank you all for your prayers. Also pray for the pastor and his
family as they continue to minister to the people in Lambi Lac.
Work in Berberati has been going very well. I have really enjoyed
working with the guys and Doug learning and building things. I am
watching them build a car from the frame up. Its very interesting as I
see it come together. I know what a car looks like, but seeing it come
together is cool. I am getting better and better at welding and
learning new things everday. God is good.
There are guys that I play soccer with everyday in Berberati. There
are two in specific that I would appreciate prayer for at this time.
Apo, and Gbiatiala. I have spent some afternoons with them and one
whole Saturday. They are both Christians, but lack some of the
understanding of Christ. I would appreciate prayer that God would give
me wisdom in what to say and do with the guys to help show them the
love of God as well as what he tells us to do with our lives.
Thank you all so much for your prayers. I pray that this letter finds
you all well. Please feel free to email me back and ask me questions
and let me know how you are doing. I miss all of you so much, and am
looking forward to seeing you in a few months.

God Bless

John Hocking

This is my Honolulu Police Vehicle that we drive here. :) Its amazing. Right hand driver.

March 22nd

The picture is Alexis. One of my friends that I knew when I was here before in Yaloke. He is on a drill repair team.





Well, this month has been amazing and full of promises of more
projects to come along with struggles along the way. The past two
weeks we have been trying to get an engine ready to switch out for the
one that is on the drill rig at the moment. It has been burning oil
really badly and needed changed. We have one at the shop, just had to
get it ready to go. So... in the process of doing that we learned that
the drill rig is planning on going out a long ways away. Well, we
don't want it to go out with the bad motor, so we figured we could
have the motor ready to go by then. Well, as it turns out we have it
ready, but the problem is is that they don't have a way to change the
motor. A motor is obviously heavy and they have no machinery to lift
the thing. So we had to figure out how to get all the right trucks at
the right place to do the job. Thankfully the Lord worked things out
for us and the motor is headed out tomorrow. Thank the Lord.
We have been working on getting some things cleaned up around the
garage. We have cleared out one bay completely and now have tons more
room to work. Very helpful space in a garage. Also, we have been
trying to teach the guys a little bit about proper use of tools. We
have a problem of them trying to use one tool to do many different
things. What they can't seem to understand is that when a tool is
abused it will not last as long. I would appreciate your prayers as we
try to help the guys understand that it is good stewardship to take
care of the things that God has blessed us with so that we can better
do his work.
This week has also been fun for me in that Elise, the lady who helps
around the house while I'm working, has been sick. Not saying that it
is good that she is sick, just that it gave me the chance to do things
around the house and garage. :) It was fun to do laundry again. I
haven't done it in a while. haha. I can't believe I just said it was
fun doing laundry. (don't get any ideas mom) Prayer for Elise would be
greatly appreciated.
Another prayer request is for Doug. He has been getting a little
frustrated with the guys in not doing everything they are supposed to.
We are having a few problems here and there that we have addressed
before and it just keeps coming up. Pray that we will have patience
and that God will show us a way to work with them and figure these
things out.

I appreciate all of your prayers and support. I am having a wonderful
time here and learning so much. God is so present here its hard to not
see him in everything. The beautiful scenery, the people, everything.
Our God is amazing isn't he?

In Christ
John Hocking

Well the past weeks have been very successful! We have gotten a lot of
things organized. Now that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot more to
do, because there is. Just means that little by little we are getting
things done. It has been an exciting time here for me. I am learning
so much, not just from Doug and the guys, but from God. He is showing
me how much His love means to me. He is more than a father to me. He
has given me unconditional love. That is not something to be taken
lightly. We have Gods love, but we need to really love Him back. I
have learned that in order to have a real relationship with my father
I need to love Him like a father.

It is amazing what God can show you when you focus on Him.

Thank all of you for your prayers and support. I have gone through
some hard times here, but your support and prayers have pulled me
through. God is working in me and through me to show the people here
that I care for them and the work that they do. I have made lots of
friends and get along with all the guys in the shop. I love being here
and I know that God has plans for this place and these people.
Thank you again for everything.

In Christ

John Hocking

The rain at night. It always sound so nice on the tin roofs. It luls me to sleep. :)












This is the lathe man and his work. He is amazing.

This is the gate that I fixed and painted. Its sideways sorry. I can't fix it at the moment.
Also The containers that I arranged.

This is what my feet look like after a soccer game. :)










These are my yummy corn muffins I made today.

All together it was a good day!! :)

J hock

Well this week has been a great success! I did a lot of work, but had a lot of fun!
Monday we started work in the garage. I started arranging the top of two containers... wow. It has been a long time since I have seen such disorganization... but then again, it has been a while since I have had to clean my room. :) It was litterally 2 feet after you got up the ladder before you had to start climbing over things to get somewhere. It is now arranged that you can reach any one thing without climbing over another to get to it. That followed in to some of Tuesday too...
Tuesday afternoon Doug taught me how to weld. That actually came in very handy because Wednesday I welded together some soccer posts. They are a little small, but I ran out of pipe. I will extend it if I can find some more somewhere. I also spent yesterday and today fixing a gate that the dogs have completely destroyed. Not in a way you would think though. They have literally rusted out the posts of this gate by peeing on it. Bleagh. Anyway, that is fixed now. The next project is the Pyote that need the same thing. We are going to put PVC pipe over it so they can't do it again.
Thank the Lord the container came in yesterday and the two generators are leaving tomorrow for Buali and Bangui. We had one of the garage guys get a finger smashed between some sheet metal. Prayer for a quick recover would be appreciated. It is not too bad, just needs time to heal.
Dad is coming tonight with a team. They are a couple hours away and will get here around 10pm. Which is late for me since I normally hit the hay around 8pm. That is ok though because we don't work tomorrow. So it works out ok. :)

Prayer for this week would be appreciated for the work being done in the garage to get cars ready for trips, drill teams ready to go again, and well repair teams as well.

Thank you all for your support and prayers. If you have any specific questions or just want to say hey don't feel shy to write back! I miss you all and hope that all is well. Also if you have any prayer requests send them to me. I'm not just on mission here, I want to be supporting you as well.
God bless

John

The first two days of work have been very successful! I have arranged the top of a container area. Before I started working on it I literally had to climb over things to get anywhere. You could move about 2 feet, then hit junk. Now everything is organized and moved to the proper place. It was very exhausting, but it looks great. I suppose I should get used to it, because there is lots more to be done. :) Anyway, the top of containers is not very clean. Lots of dust and dirt. As you can see from my picture...

I am still very excited to be working here, so the hard work doesn't hinder that any.
Please continue to pray for safety for me and the workers in the garage.
God bless
John Hocking

The first day...

Dear Friends and Family,

I have been getting a good idea of what I am going to be doing here for the next few months. I am kind of the odd job man. There are things here and there that need to be done that people just don’t have time to do. So I am going to be working on small projects to get them done. As well as anything Doug would like me to do. I am his helper, so anytime he wants me to do something, that’s what I do.
Last week we got some more stuff from the Dubai container. Inside was a huge crate of Soda! Pepsi, Sprite, Mt. Dew, Tonic water, and a couple others. It was really funny, but they were only like 15 cents a can. So, I am officially stocked for drinks for a long time. ☺


Nothing too exciting this past week, just getting settled in and seeing what needs to be done. This coming week will be exciting to start working on things and finding out what else needs to be done. Organizing is going to be one of the big projects. There is a lot to organize.
Bob Belo and my dad are leaving today. Bob was supposed to leave this morning, but a little ways down the road was having car problems, so he is back while they are working that out. Please pray for safe travel for both of them. Dad is coming back up here in a week with a team traveling to different villages. Other than that, pray for safety while working!
Thank you all for being such great supporters of my ministry. The encouragement is very much appreciated. Thank you.
John

One of the orphans in Bangui.



Another orphan in Bangui


















Me at "The End of the World"

Africa February 20th

Well, I have been here in Africa for a month now. Things have been going wonderfully! I have made my rounds around different villages, taken my 12 hour car rides, and short bush plane rides. I am now settling into my new home for the next 6 months. Berberati. It is nice here. I will be working doing odd jobs and helping out wherever I can. Doug Murtoft and his wife will be here. He is a mechanic and will be working in the garage. I will be learning from him and helping out where he needs me.
This week I could use some prayer to get over a cold. I have had it for a few days and need to get rid of it. I have been resting a lot, but after the weekend work really starts, so I need to get over it by then.
The Lord has been gracious and has granted us safe travel everywhere. I know that He will provide for me and keep me safe. I have been blessed so much to have this opportunity to come and will be looking for what He is showing me here.