Wow! Dan gave an awesome summary of our teaching
last week. So much information has passed into my brain since we have gotten
here. My head is starting to feel full, and we're only 1/3 of the way through
the lecture phase! Anyway, here is a quick update on last weekend.
On Friday night, Dan and I went to the Tauranga
House Of Prayer (THOP) for the second time since we’ve been here. I had never
been to a house of prayer previous to coming here. It is simply awesome! It is
a great time to pray (obviously), worship, journal or listen for God’s voice.
To find out more about the Tauranga House Of Prayer, check out their website : http://www.thop.co.nz/about/
On Saturday, which was delightfully clear and
beautiful, there was an event at our base called Emerge. Emerge events
involve worship, a speaker (or speakers) and most importantly, food. They
hold Emerge events every two months, covering a variety of topics. The events
are open to the community, and fortunately for us, to the DTS students.
The subject this time around was prophecy, and we heard from Josh and Amberley
Klinkenberg from Inflame ministries. Inflame ministries holds prophetic worship
seminars of their own, and I would highly recommend checking out their website
for more info on these amazing people: http://inflameworshipschool.com/about/.
To be perfectly honest, I decided to attend
this event the morning of, on a spur of the moment decision. Little did I know
what I was in for. As I was saying, prophecy was the topic for this event, and
Josh spoke for a bit about the prophetic gift from the Holy Spirit. After a
lunch break for hamburgers and sausages, we jumped into several prophecy
exercises. This is where the fun began. We separated into two lines, with
one line facing away from the other line. The line behind them was then
rearranged. The folks looking away were told to ask God for a prophecy for the
person standing behind them. We were told not to panic or worry if we didn’t
get anything. Instead, we were to make something up. Josh explained that often
God is in our thought process more than we think, and so even if we believe WE
made something up, it was often God who actually did. We did this twice, so
both lines had a chance to prophesy. It was SO cool! I was nervous when it came
time for me to try it out, but I asked God what He had for me. I didn't hear
anything, but for some reason, I glanced over at a power outlet. Weird, I
thought. Then it hit me, who ever is behind me is or is going to be a energetic
person! They are simply electric; they get people excited, energized and awake.
I turned around and told the girl behind me what I had been thinking, and nervously
asked her if that made any since at all. To my delight she answered that she
was a worship leader! So what I had gotten was just confirmation and encouragement
for her.
Another exercise we did was going around the base
and looking for objects that connected with a word we had gotten from God.
After a few minutes, we went back in and talked about some of the objects and prophesies
that people had gotten. A guy named Scotty got up, holding a pair of jumper
cables. He proceeded to say that he felt like there was someone in the room who
related to the jumper cables. He said the person was like a good car battery,
that they could get other people going. That this person could charge folks and
excite them. But, he said, in order to do that they needed to learn how to get
close to others. And that’s where the jumper cables came in. In order to
transfer energy from one car battery to another, you need jumper cables. But
the cables are normally pretty short. You have to be close to the car you are
jumping off. After finishing his story, he looked straight at me and said
"and that’s for you mate, God told me it was for the guy in a checkered
shirt". My first reaction was, wait, I'm wearing a checkered
shirt? after realizing that I was, the full realization of what he had
said hit me. I was so blown away, because it was spot on! I need to learn to
get close to people. I love it ONCE I am close to others, but the process of
building close relationships is not a strong point of mine. But you can bet
that now its something I'll be working on.
Needless to say, I am glad I decided to go to
Emerge! God opened by eyes to His gift of prophecy and words of knowledge.
On Saturday night, Josh and Amberley held a
worship service at a local church. Although geared towards high school age
kids, several DTS students (myself included) went. We had a energetic couple
hours of worship. After the worship portion of the night, Josh and Amberley
talked a bit about what they do. We then had a time in which we gather into groups
around anyone who needed physical healing, and prayed for them. This is
something Josh and Amberley do a lot; at most of the events they hold. It was
incredible, after several minutes of praying, a handful of teens had been
healed of various levels of pain and physical brokenness. One guy in particular
had broken his collar bone not long before in a skateboarding accident. He
couldn’t raise his right arm very far at all, but after receiving prayer; he
was able to swing his arm around however he wanted to. It was so cool to be a
part of what was going on, to let God us to heal others.
After such a crazy, God-saturated day, I was
wiped out.
On Sunday we went to the Mosaic Church
again. I just can't get over how cool Mosaic is. I was not looking forward to
attending a new church, and figuring out how another body of believers did
their thing. But Mosaic has blown me away every week. But its not so much the
preaching (which is awesome) or the worship (which is amazing) or even the
people (who are wonderful). It’s what God is doing in the church. Really,
that’s what we should be drawn to in any church. Not the trendy decorations or
cool worship leader. God is doing some amazing things in and through this
church, and I'm excited to a part of that for the next two months.
On Sunday night, we had Marion Fromm as a
guest speaker. None of us had heard much about her, so we all had no clue of
what to except. Marion is almost 74 years young, and is serving as a business
missionary to Cambodia. She founded a company/ organization called Reverse The
Curse. RTC produces and sells dried fruit and preservatives under the name of Cambodian Harvest Dried Fruit Co., LTD. Marion founded RTC
as a means to employ Cambodian landmine victims. Tragically, Cambodia is still
littered with the landmines from past conflicts, and landmine victims are not
uncommon throughout Cambodia. Those who have been maimed by landmines have a
very difficult time finding work, and often, no one wants anything to do with
them. The Buddhist/karma mindset is that the victims "deserved" what
they got, and that they should not be helped. This is obviously not God's heart
on this issue, and Marion is working to change that mindset. As one might
expect, the employees are often open to hearing about the gospel after having
been shown Jesus is such a incredible way. Marion had started a church in her
factory, with nearly all of her employees attending. She holds small group
bible studies every week as well, and visits by the Holy Spirit with visions and healing are frequent. What started as a simple dried fruit factory
has grown into so much more.
I think the most awesome thing about Marion’s
story is her obedience. God called on her late in life. She had no clue how to start a dried fruit company,
let alone pioneer a church. But Marion was obedient to what God asked, and He has more than taken care of her this far. I know enough about God to know that if He asks you
to do something, He will equip you with the knowledge and means to see it
through. He certainly did that for Marion.
If you would like to read Marion’s full story
(just do it, it’s a awesome story) or find out more about RTC, check out their
website: http://www.reversethecurse-cambodia.com/
So, that is what happened this past weekend!
Thank you all for your prayers and support, they mean so much to Dan and I.
May God bless you and keep you!
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| Sunset in Gideon's Valley |
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| Cool willow trees! |
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| More Gideon's Valley sunset action |
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