HANCOCK, Michigan (BNc) — ‘A word of encouragement’ is a brief e-mail message sent out five days a week by Dan Skaggs.

A passage of Scripture is quoted and applied to every-day living. One subscriber comments: “Many days it is exactly what I need!”

Dan started sending out the messages in 1990 to encourage college students. Many members of the Hancock congregation are students at Michigan Technological University at Houghton across the river which has 7000 students. Gradually others asked to be placed on the mailing list as well. Send Dan an e-mail if you want to receive ‘A word of encouragement’: dskaggs6404@sbcglobal.net

skaggs-dan-lutricaDan has been preaching for the congregation in Hancock since October of 1972. He says: “I often refer to our congregation as a ‘revolving door congregation’. Our numbers vary with students and other people coming and going.”

For many years his wife, Lutrica, has provided a potluck dinner each Sunday for their college students who are hungry for home-cooked food. Sometimes a married student provides salads and deserts.

Dan comments: “By reaching out to them in this way, we have seen many instances through the years of Christian students bringing friends from campus. Not infrequently, the friends become Christians.”

The twin cities of Hancock and Houghton are in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Tourists are among those ‘coming and going’. Hancock is the gateway to the Keweenaw Peninsula, which is a popular area for fishing, hunting and vacationing in the summer and for skiing and snowmobiling in the winter.

Follow BNC stories