Happy New Year!
As we start a new calendar year, I wanted to take a few minutes to give you a review of the past year, and provide a look ahead at the year to come.
This year has been an extremely challenging one in many ways, but by God’s grace, we’ve been able to have more impact than ever, reaching thousands of people like you to inspire and equip them to Return to the Old Paths.
I’d like to thank you for your support of this effort, because we can’t do it without engaged followers, supporters and members who provide us with encouragement, feedback, and inspiration for this difficult journey.
Documentary Film Update
We had high hopes that the Beyond Off Grid documentary film was going to be finished and released in 2015.
There are a number of reasons why the film has been delayed in being finished, from lack of funding to hire editors to the fact that our director Sean Tounn and I have been working on this on our own time with little to no compensation, and since we’ve both had significant income loss in the past two years, we have had to devote time to income-producing activities to provide for our families, and have not had as much time to work on the film as we would have liked to.
I take responsibility for the delay, and apologize to those supporters who have eagerly been waiting to see the completed film.
As we have completed the director’s cut on each section of the film, we have released it to supporters at the Premium Member level and above, and the feedback we’ve received from those who’ve reviewed it has been great.
Supporters with access can watch the film through section 2 (over an hour long in total) right now on the Section Advanced Screening Release page.
We’re actively working on completing the final section of the film now, and we hope to release it online to our supporters this month.
We still need additional funds in order to complete the film for official release. In October, we set a $5000 goal and we are currently a little over 30% of the way to that amount.
Would you consider becoming a supporter or adding to your existing support of our project to help us get the film completed more quickly? You can see the supporter reward levels here and existing supporters can Upgrade your Support here.
Getting the Message out at Live Events
There are a myriad of ways to reach out to people and build awareness of the necessity of reducing our dependence on modern systems.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to speak at the following live events this past year:
- April – the 2nd Annual Prepper Festival in New Castle, VA. I helped organize this event on main street, rural small town America, and was able to speak about the topics in the film to provide context for people who want to prepare well for the future.
- May – East Coast Preparedness Convention IV in Winchester, VA – at this event organized by Jay Blevins, I was on a panel discussion about preparedness, and I emphasized the need for people to reduce their dependence on modern systems and to change their living habits to practice lifestyle preparedness.
- August – the Beyond Off Grid Summit Hands-on Event in New Castle, VA was the first conference we’ve hosted, and though it was small and intimate, it was an awesome experience for everyone. See more details below.
- September – the 2nd Annual Prepper Camp in Saluda, NC – I went back to see old friends and meet new ones at this awesome 3 day event hosted by Rick Austin, who is in our film and has taught several online training sessions with us.
- December – the SGK Emergency Preparedness Expo in Fredericksburg, VA. I taught two sessions at this event, one on Understanding the Grid, and the other on how to Relocalize your Food Supply and Grow More of Your Own Food. We had a great time seeing old friends and meeting new ones.
We look forward to attending many more events in 2016 to spread the word about the film and the project.
Thousands Reached through the Beyond Off Grid Summit
Early in the year, I decided to focus our training on inspiring and equipping people for lifestyle preparedness and self-reliance. We named this training series the Beyond Off Grid Summit.
Our online training reached tens of thousands of new people, and inspired them to build a better future for their families through topics such as growing food, homesteading, natural health, raising animals, and much more.
We had some of our past guests back like Rick Austin and Scott Hunt, but also brought in a lot of new experts like Laurie Neverman, Alex Sumerall, Tessa Zundel, Josh Deel, Tammy Trayer, Michael Cooley, Cat Ellis, and others, who each provided incredible instruction in their areas of expertise.
In November, we made all of this training available for free during a single week with our Summit Online Event, and had fantastic feedback from the tens of thousands of people who attended.
Hands-on Training that People are Looking for
In August, we hosted our first-ever and totally unique Summit Hands-on Training Event at Abundant Valley Farm in New Castle, Virginia. Our gracious hosts Josh and Lena Deel did a fantastic job preparing for this unique event that was able to utilize their homestead and farm they are raising from the ground up as a learning laboratory and teaching venue for experts from around the country.
We had farmers Noah Sanders and Mike Brabo join us to teach, as well as the Harris brothers, who are local friends (Ben’s a horse logger and Luke is a forester). And of course, Josh Deel taught many of the sessions to teach about what they’re doing on their unique homestead and permaculture farm. Our friend and mentor Franklin Sanders also graced us with his presence to provide his wisdom and experience as a homesteader, farmer, and author.
The focus of this training was to teach concepts, methods and techniques directly in the context of application, either something that had been applied at the farm, or actually working on projects on the farm.
This ranged from pasture walks to teach about pastured animal rotational grazing and mobile farm infrastructure to installation of a garden plot using simple tools, to greenhouse growing and food forest design, plus instruction on most all of the main types of homestead animals.
The Harris boys also did woodland walks to talk about how to get the most out of a woodlot, taught on how to properly fell a tree, and did a demonstration of skidding logs with horses. Josh Deel milled the logs into lumber, and we utilized the on-farm milled lumber to teach about homestead construction as we worked on the barn.
And in the evenings we enjoyed some great panel discussions on homesteading and building local food economies.
Best of all, we had a great video crew there that captured all the action, and we look forward to making the Hands-on training available to you as a one-of-a-kind video training course that we will be releasing soon.
Get Inspired and Build a Better Future
Our Summit training series seems to have struck a chord with those who want to Return to the Old Paths, but needed the guidance and resources to make it accessible to them.
Hundreds of these folks have joined the Summit Online Course to get lifetime access to our Summit online training series and bonus resources.
If you’d like to access the inspirational and equipping resources that the Summit Online Course provides, you can learn more and sign up as a member here.
The video we recorded at the Summit Hands-on Training Event will be released soon as our Summit Event Video Course, so stay tuned for more info on that new resource that’s unlike anything else available.
What are You Doing Differently this Coming Year?
2016 promises to be a year of upheaval.
All economic indicators point to another major financial/economic crisis this year (could start at any time).
And it’s a presidential election year, so lots of unexpected things could happen, even before October, due to having a lame duck in office and the recent track record of attempting to use crises to violate essential liberties.
How are you preparing for the rough times ahead?
Are you only thinking of how to survive what may come, or are you looking at how you can actually build a better future for you and your family?
I want you to do the latter.
Don’t be reactive – be proactive, and create the future you want for your children and grandchildren.
This requires hard choices and sacrifice.
It requires going against the flow of the modern economy and culture.
But it’s the right thing to do.
As Jesus said:
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
Matthew 7:13-14 (ESV)
I plan to continue this journey, working to inspire and equip you to not just survive, but thrive in the tough times ahead.
Will you join me?
I look forward to having you alongside me in this journey into the unknown.
It is full of promise and opportunity. Join me in being a light in the darkness.
Here’s to a bright and better year ahead.
Blessings,
Jason
