The last three weeks have been utterly amazing. It has taken me a while to write about all of it because, for the first week and a half I didn't have internet here, a thunderstorm took it out, then I had a hard time making myself sit and really think about what has been going on. So, belatedly, here is what I have done while here in Norway.
The whole time Helen and I are staying here we are living in her parents house with the rest of her family either staying for Christmas as well or living quite close. She has an amazing family, I get along great with her siblings, especially her brother in-law, Rik, me and him share the same Dutch heritage and some crazy/mischievous characteristics. The first 2 weeks that we were here Helen worked a lot, she's like a butcher and an artist combined, and I helped her dad around the house, which is also a farm. I stacked fire wood, cut trees with a chain saw, drove a tractor and essentially became a farmer. On Monday the 19th I fullfilled my alterior motive for coming here this Christmas, I visited a church in Stavanger (Western Norway) called Imi Kirka, the lead pastor from this church had come to Bethel in early November, along with leaders from around the world, for a conference and he was at a meet n' greet designed to recruit 2nd years for internships for next year. I talked with him back in November and we made a good connection so I contacted him later to try and organize a meeting during my stay here. He was also excited to meet so on Monday we made the 3 hour drive to see the church and talk with the leaders there. I was blown away by the treatment they gave us. This is an 800 member church and the lead pastor, his daughter, and the leader of the nationwide youth movement, all sat down to meet with Helen and me for an hour to tell us all about the church and themselves. Then, in response to the question we had about finances and stuff like that, they said that they could offer a free place to stay and a small monthly stipend. So, I am thinking rather hard about going there to work with them next year.
Christmas was wild, Helen's family (the Smidsrøds) and I had a super relaxed gift giving time in the evening of the 24th. It was awesome to see them open the presents Helen and I got them, especially the one that I got for Helen, and it was rather fun to open my own as well. I think it is worth commenting again on how well I have connected with the Smidsrøds, they really have welcomed me in to their home and family.
Since Christmas we have been doing some other cool stuff, went to a big pool park thing at the end of a fjord, I rode a horse for the first time and shot a gun, a Springfield I think, at least that was the type of bullet. Tonight we go to some super cool church friends of Helen's for New Years, it will be a great night of board games and deep theological talks.
Sorry for not updating sooner. All of you that read this blog are amazing and wonderful and a pray blessing over all of you. Thank you so much for caring about my life enough to read what I write about it. God bless and happy new year!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Life, and Some Exciting News
First and update of the state in which I was in when I wrote the previous post. During a worship time on Tuesday I felt God telling me that He had fixed me already, that I really did have different beliefs than before and God had changed the way my brain thought about everything. He said that even though my emotions may not line up all the time it does not mean that that is not true. I actually do believe that I am accepted and that God loves me for nothing about what I do, I can rest in that and whenever I begin to get stressed or angry at myself for messing up I can tell my emotions that they have no reason to be there and I do not believe those things anymore. Since then I have had a couple stressful times and, honestly, it is a little difficult to not get caught up in the midst of it and forget what God is telling me but I think I am getting better at it. God is so good and I know He is going to work it out for my best.
Life is full of challenges, but the grace of God is a constant and He will always get you through, alive and thriving.
So some exciting news, in two days I am going on a long trip for Christmas, a trip all the way to Norway. My relationship with Helen is getting to be quite serious, serious enough to merit a trip to her home and family for one month. I cannot wait to get there, I know it is going to be wonderful and amazing and very Norwegian. My next blog post will probably be from Europe! It is going to be wild, the only other time I have really been to Europe for an extended time was when I was 3, so this will be quite the adventure into new territory. I miss all my friends in my home province of Nova Scotia and they will be dearly missed over the holidays. What a beautiful country I hail from. Nevertheless, I go to Norway in two days and I know it will be the trip of a lifetime.
Life is full of challenges, but the grace of God is a constant and He will always get you through, alive and thriving.
So some exciting news, in two days I am going on a long trip for Christmas, a trip all the way to Norway. My relationship with Helen is getting to be quite serious, serious enough to merit a trip to her home and family for one month. I cannot wait to get there, I know it is going to be wonderful and amazing and very Norwegian. My next blog post will probably be from Europe! It is going to be wild, the only other time I have really been to Europe for an extended time was when I was 3, so this will be quite the adventure into new territory. I miss all my friends in my home province of Nova Scotia and they will be dearly missed over the holidays. What a beautiful country I hail from. Nevertheless, I go to Norway in two days and I know it will be the trip of a lifetime.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Facing Some Real Challenges
This week some real issues surfaced within me that I would like to share. On Thursday my community activation group put on a block party for our community, we had a free food, face painting, and entertainment on a portable stage, rappers and music and the like. I was in charge of MCing and organizing the entertainment and it was stressful. Even though it was going great the whole time and people were enjoying themselves and getting healed (One girl was using crutches and all the pain left her leg 7/10 to 0/10 pain!) and we were making friends with community members I was really uptight the whole time. Afterward I was exhausted because of all the personal effort I put in to make it all work, even though I did not need to. This was the same feeling I had about a month ago while I was leading a meeting for my international transformation group, delegating responsibilities and such. Even though everything was going incredibly well the whole time I was stressing out like nobody's business! Then, the most recent proof that there is a problem that needs to be dealt with, I was talking with one of my good friends last night about our dreams for the future, I started talking about what I saw myself doing in the coming years (a subject for another blog entry, perhaps several other blog entries) and, as I did, I felt this tension begin to take hold of my body. Instead of drawing life out of thinking about my dreams I began to feel heavy and burdened.
The constant in these examples and in the countless other times I can think of when I felt like this is this one vital thing: Responsibility. Every time I have been put in a position where the success or failure of something is based upon my actions I have taken on more than my fair share of stress.
After my conversation with my friend last night I began to realize that this was something that had to be dealt with, I fully intend on being in positions of incredible authority and responsibility in the future and it would not do to have an inordinate amount of stress all the time. I prayed about it and God graciously talked me through it all. Behind the feeling of stress there has always been fear, that emotion that can be so crippling and keeps us from our dreams. In this case it was the fear of failure, what would happen is I would get afraid that I would mess everything up and my automatic reaction would be to tighten up and try to exert my control over the situation, the logic being that if I try really hard it will be more likely to succeed. All of this is mostly subconscious of course. But emotions are never the root issue, they are always a symptom, emotions do not cause themselves they exist as reactions. So, I asked God what the root of these fear feelings were and He led me to read Paul's epistle to the Galatians. For those of you who do not know, Galatians is all about the issue of "Law vs Grace" the new covenant, the agreement made with God since Jesus, says that the only way we get to be righteous is by faith, believe and receive and you got it, whilst the old covenant, the previous agreement that God had made with the Jews, said that the only way to be righteous was by following a whole bunch of rules. The Galatians were trying to mix the covenants, which Paul vehemently rebuked them for. When I finished reading I realized that the issue I was having was that I was thinking that my success or failure was based upon my actions. But that is not what the Bible says at all. God tells us again and again that our success is entirely based upon Jesus' actions. This is a big deal, the idea that I have to do a bunch of stuff to be accepted is an idea quite ingrained in my head, it is going to be a process to overcome it. But I believe that I will and that it will change my life. I am incredibly excited to see what God is going to do and I know it is all going to work out wonderfully-
The constant in these examples and in the countless other times I can think of when I felt like this is this one vital thing: Responsibility. Every time I have been put in a position where the success or failure of something is based upon my actions I have taken on more than my fair share of stress.
After my conversation with my friend last night I began to realize that this was something that had to be dealt with, I fully intend on being in positions of incredible authority and responsibility in the future and it would not do to have an inordinate amount of stress all the time. I prayed about it and God graciously talked me through it all. Behind the feeling of stress there has always been fear, that emotion that can be so crippling and keeps us from our dreams. In this case it was the fear of failure, what would happen is I would get afraid that I would mess everything up and my automatic reaction would be to tighten up and try to exert my control over the situation, the logic being that if I try really hard it will be more likely to succeed. All of this is mostly subconscious of course. But emotions are never the root issue, they are always a symptom, emotions do not cause themselves they exist as reactions. So, I asked God what the root of these fear feelings were and He led me to read Paul's epistle to the Galatians. For those of you who do not know, Galatians is all about the issue of "Law vs Grace" the new covenant, the agreement made with God since Jesus, says that the only way we get to be righteous is by faith, believe and receive and you got it, whilst the old covenant, the previous agreement that God had made with the Jews, said that the only way to be righteous was by following a whole bunch of rules. The Galatians were trying to mix the covenants, which Paul vehemently rebuked them for. When I finished reading I realized that the issue I was having was that I was thinking that my success or failure was based upon my actions. But that is not what the Bible says at all. God tells us again and again that our success is entirely based upon Jesus' actions. This is a big deal, the idea that I have to do a bunch of stuff to be accepted is an idea quite ingrained in my head, it is going to be a process to overcome it. But I believe that I will and that it will change my life. I am incredibly excited to see what God is going to do and I know it is all going to work out wonderfully-
Monday, November 28, 2011
Back to School
Today was my first day back to school after Thanksgiving break. Texas was awesome and wonderful, I had a great conversation with Aron about our covenant relationship and he entirely reciprocated all my feelings. We will most certainly be in touch with each other for the rest of our lives.
Today was a very special day of school for me, for the next 3 weeks the school will be breaking up into smaller groups a couple days of the week and every student is going to preach a ten minute sermon. This morning I was one of 5 who preached. It was an amazing experience and, even though it certainly was not perfect, I know that I did well. I taught on the scripture 1 Corinthians 3:21 "So then let no one boast in men, for all things belong to you." Essentially I said that we should have no divisions or competition in the church between denominations. No one person or group is special above anyone else, every Christian has it all. Life is really good.
Today was a very special day of school for me, for the next 3 weeks the school will be breaking up into smaller groups a couple days of the week and every student is going to preach a ten minute sermon. This morning I was one of 5 who preached. It was an amazing experience and, even though it certainly was not perfect, I know that I did well. I taught on the scripture 1 Corinthians 3:21 "So then let no one boast in men, for all things belong to you." Essentially I said that we should have no divisions or competition in the church between denominations. No one person or group is special above anyone else, every Christian has it all. Life is really good.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Renewal of the Mind with some back story
Wow, God just laid a heavy revelation of myself on me, in a good way. It is going to take some explaining to get you up to speed with where I am at though.
A huge part of my life and my being is the hunger and pursuit of the miraculous, and I am talking the real miraculous. Healing miracles are cool, and I love them, but what really gets me excited is are bonafide crazy miracles. Levitating, walking on water, summoning objects out of nothing, these are the things that I am passionate about. This is one part of the back story.
The other part is that I been an avid gamer for most of my life, for mostly the same reason. See, I really like power, it is exhilarating. Doing miracles has that feeling and, to a lesser extent and as a semi-counterfeit, so does playing video games. Anyway, when I play video games I mostly play war games, games that centre around destruction and killing.
These two things come together in my present experience. Just moments ago I was reading the Bible and I started to feel the power of God in and on me. Almost like I became supernaturally energized, kinda like being manic or that sort of thing. I began to imagine the power of God flowing through me and manifesting and the automatic image was me "force pushing" the desk in front of me and causing some massive damage to the room. All of a sudden I hear God's voice say to me quite sternly, "Your mind has been affected by the video games you have played to love destruction, I am changing your mind, from now on you will love to build up and bring life instead of destruction."
It is all rather mystical and un-provable, so I do not say it supposing that any skeptics will believe it, but I knew that I had to record the experience and I decided to let you in on it. I will get back to you on whether things actually change in my mind or not. Praise Jesus Christ for His salvation!
A huge part of my life and my being is the hunger and pursuit of the miraculous, and I am talking the real miraculous. Healing miracles are cool, and I love them, but what really gets me excited is are bonafide crazy miracles. Levitating, walking on water, summoning objects out of nothing, these are the things that I am passionate about. This is one part of the back story.
The other part is that I been an avid gamer for most of my life, for mostly the same reason. See, I really like power, it is exhilarating. Doing miracles has that feeling and, to a lesser extent and as a semi-counterfeit, so does playing video games. Anyway, when I play video games I mostly play war games, games that centre around destruction and killing.
These two things come together in my present experience. Just moments ago I was reading the Bible and I started to feel the power of God in and on me. Almost like I became supernaturally energized, kinda like being manic or that sort of thing. I began to imagine the power of God flowing through me and manifesting and the automatic image was me "force pushing" the desk in front of me and causing some massive damage to the room. All of a sudden I hear God's voice say to me quite sternly, "Your mind has been affected by the video games you have played to love destruction, I am changing your mind, from now on you will love to build up and bring life instead of destruction."
It is all rather mystical and un-provable, so I do not say it supposing that any skeptics will believe it, but I knew that I had to record the experience and I decided to let you in on it. I will get back to you on whether things actually change in my mind or not. Praise Jesus Christ for His salvation!
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Enroute to Great Friends
As I write this I am sitting in the San Francisco airport, waiting for my flight to Houston, then to Dallas, Texas. There I will be spending my Thanksgiving break with a good friend named Aron Philips and his family. Aron was in 1st year at BSSM with me last year and we really connected. He is one of a couple people that I think I have a covenant relationship with. What that means to me is that I have decided to keep in connection with Aron for the rest of my life. If he were to ever need my help or input with something I would do my best to help him. I have covenanted in my heart to stand beside Aron in whatever he pursues in his life. It is not something I hope to get from the relationship, but something I really want to give. Best case scenario I look back when I am 80 and see that I have helped Aron in some way to achieve his life dreams. If at that time he has helped me reach mine, then so much the better, but that is not why I decided on this covenant. Because I know that God is going to put people in my life who are going to want to lay down their lives to serve the vision God has given me, I get to do the same for others without need of return. My hope in life is to gain upwards of 5 of these relationships that I can really pour myself into, people spread around the world that I will always have connection with. There are so many great, great men and women who are going to change the world in very substantial ways, I know I cannot help all of them, but I will connect with and help a few. God made us to be in community He made us to love one another like He loved us, that means loving sacrificially, beyond just an emotion. There is another friend I have from England that I have covenanted with named Adam Heather. I am willing to give years of my life just to serve the vision he has. I do not even know what that vision is yet, but I know that he is a man worth serving. God is good, He is going to provide for everyone of our needs, wants, and desires. We can give of ourselves to others with no worry for our own well being, we get to give.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Life is normal, and wonderful
Well, nothing spectacular has happened in the last four days, sorry, nothing spectacular has happened to me, that I can report on. God has been doing some awesome stuff through some friends though, just today they prayed for a lady with shooting pains going down her leg and she got completely healed. But anyway, I suppose that you will have to be satisfied with an update of all the things I've been up to.
On Tuesday I went to my first mission trip meeting. In March I am going to Mozambique with 19 others. We are going to be staying at a orphanage/mission base of an international organization called Iris Ministries, you should look them up they are amazing. We are going to be ministering to the orphans and the missionaries there, having a party and loving like we never have before. I am really excited about it. (If you feel the urge to give towards said trip you can do so online at ibssm.org)
On Wednesday I met with my group in the International Transformation track. Our mission this year is to help an organization in Iraq to organize a youth conference in Kurdistan this July. Yesterday we met to do intercession for Iraq and made some prophetic cards for the youth that will be there. This is something else that I am incredibly excited about. I may end up going down there for the conference this summer as well.
Today I went on Community Activation and handed out flyers for a block party in a couple weeks. Had a great time talking and praying with people. My team is absolutely amazing and this activation is one more thing that I am incredibly excited about.
So, even though I have not recently seen any really cool miracles, I am loving life, probably more than I ever have before. Ah, God is so good.
On Tuesday I went to my first mission trip meeting. In March I am going to Mozambique with 19 others. We are going to be staying at a orphanage/mission base of an international organization called Iris Ministries, you should look them up they are amazing. We are going to be ministering to the orphans and the missionaries there, having a party and loving like we never have before. I am really excited about it. (If you feel the urge to give towards said trip you can do so online at ibssm.org)
On Wednesday I met with my group in the International Transformation track. Our mission this year is to help an organization in Iraq to organize a youth conference in Kurdistan this July. Yesterday we met to do intercession for Iraq and made some prophetic cards for the youth that will be there. This is something else that I am incredibly excited about. I may end up going down there for the conference this summer as well.
Today I went on Community Activation and handed out flyers for a block party in a couple weeks. Had a great time talking and praying with people. My team is absolutely amazing and this activation is one more thing that I am incredibly excited about.
So, even though I have not recently seen any really cool miracles, I am loving life, probably more than I ever have before. Ah, God is so good.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Stability Wanted
Last night I had a very interesting time whilst at church. On Sunday nights Bethel has two different services, one at the main campus that has the usual schedule, worship and sermon with ministry time after, and another at what is called the "Twin View Campus" that is essentially 3 hours of music and dancing in worship of God. I was at the Twin View service. The music was great and everyone was really engaged, but I had a really hard time of it for most of the night. The reason for this requires some explaining. Recently I have been struggling through the idea that God does not actually require my worship, He is quite pleased to have me in my entirety and I do not have to a single thing on top of that to please Him. This is a very different paradigm than the one I had before where I felt like I had to fulfill my quota of singing/dancing before I would even be able to feel His pleasure. This has been a yearlong journey, but I am still working through it. Anyway, because of these conflicting ideas of fulfilling my responsibility and not having a responsibility to fulfill, last night became a bit of a roller-coaster of emotion. At no matter what I was doing I was questioning whether I was doing the right thing, if I was sitting in my chair peacefully praying (or almost falling asleep) I would wonder if God was wanting me to be up and dancing, or if I was up and dancing I would wonder if I was dancing because that was my chosen form of worship or if I was just doing it because that was what was expected of me. In hindsight I suppose I was over-thinking the whole thing a little to much, but it is hard not too because I am trying to figure out my standpoint on the whole issue.
By the way, while I was at Twin View God showed up at Bethel in what's called a 'glory cloud.' There was a physical cloud of smoke, feathers, and flakes of different coloured 'gold dust.' It was all pretty intense from what I heard, I have not seen it myself yet but I will certainly give my own account of it when I do, I may even capture it on camera. God is just crazy.
By the way, while I was at Twin View God showed up at Bethel in what's called a 'glory cloud.' There was a physical cloud of smoke, feathers, and flakes of different coloured 'gold dust.' It was all pretty intense from what I heard, I have not seen it myself yet but I will certainly give my own account of it when I do, I may even capture it on camera. God is just crazy.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
A Couple Miracles
Being a second year student at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, I have the opportunity to be part of the ministry teams that pray for people after church services. Last night I saw two really cool things happen when I was praying. The first was a man who had a deviated septum in his nose, essentially the middle piece of cartilage was off to one side and was blocking one of his nostrils, it had been for years if I remember correctly. Anyway we prayed for a couple minutes and the septum actually moved! By the end of our praying he told me that it was a solid 25% better and he could breathe through both nostrils, God actually moved his septum! The other miracle was a guy with Parkinson's, as far as I am aware Parkinson's is a degenerative disease that slowly does bad things to your body. After we prayed the guy felt the presence of God through tingling in his chest and hands and he could walk normally. Before he came fro prayer we was dragging his feet but after he was lifting both legs with no issue. I really feel like the power of the sickness was broken last night and from now on it will regenerative instead of degenerative. Praise the Lord!
Friday, November 11, 2011
Back into the swing of things
Hello beautiful people,
I am blogging again, finally sat myself down to really do it. Pretty much this year has been the most amazing of my entire life. I love it and I love every part of it.
I moved back to Redding, California on September 1st into a community called Clay St., one of the lower income areas of Redding, just down the road from my girlfriend, Helen Smidrød. It's an amazing relationship that I could write pages and pages about, but that's not what this blog is for.
Since coming back to school here at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry I have come into a few different positions of leadership. The foremost is my role as one of four 2nd year leaders for a community outreach. We pretty much go to this specific area every week and build relationship with the people there, praying for them, talking with them, listening to their issues etc. I have a fun story from that. Last week when we went out we encountered a lady and I asked her if she had any pain that she wanted prayer for. She said that she had pain in her toes because her shoes were too small. I explained to her that it was really easy for God to make shoes bigger and I know that because I have seen him make legs grow longer, and if He'll do it for legs He can do it for shoes. When she heard this she decided that she wanted to be taller as well so we sat her down in a chair and prayed for her legs, one at a time. First I commanded her left leg to grow and (after a couple tries) she felt a tingling sensation and, when I measured her legs together, her left leg was almost a centimetre longer, then I had her pray for her other leg and after she commanded it to "Grow, grow, grow" she felt a tingling sensation in that leg too and it became even with the left one. Now, I am just as skeptical as anyone else about these things. I have had times when it was all hyped up people actually just shifting around there hips and it looked like it changed but really didn't, but this time was legit. We prayed for her toes after and the pain left for a bit (came back with a vengence by the next week) and for her baby, who was teething, the baby got healed and stayed healed. God is so amazing.
As well as leading the community outreach, I am also co-leading a group that is working to help a ministry in Iraq. We are organizing fundraisers here and helping organize a youth conference in Kurdistan (The safe and American friendly part of Iraq) this summer. I may even go. It's pretty awesome and I feel priviliged to be able to lead the group. Really good practice/training for what I will be doing in the future i.e. leading things.
Life is truly amazing, there is so much going on, too much for one entry. For the rest of the year I think I will be using this as my legit journal/diary, sharing both testimonies and things that are going on inside my life. Hopefully the stories will be enjoyed by all. God Bless ya'll
I am blogging again, finally sat myself down to really do it. Pretty much this year has been the most amazing of my entire life. I love it and I love every part of it.
I moved back to Redding, California on September 1st into a community called Clay St., one of the lower income areas of Redding, just down the road from my girlfriend, Helen Smidrød. It's an amazing relationship that I could write pages and pages about, but that's not what this blog is for.
Since coming back to school here at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry I have come into a few different positions of leadership. The foremost is my role as one of four 2nd year leaders for a community outreach. We pretty much go to this specific area every week and build relationship with the people there, praying for them, talking with them, listening to their issues etc. I have a fun story from that. Last week when we went out we encountered a lady and I asked her if she had any pain that she wanted prayer for. She said that she had pain in her toes because her shoes were too small. I explained to her that it was really easy for God to make shoes bigger and I know that because I have seen him make legs grow longer, and if He'll do it for legs He can do it for shoes. When she heard this she decided that she wanted to be taller as well so we sat her down in a chair and prayed for her legs, one at a time. First I commanded her left leg to grow and (after a couple tries) she felt a tingling sensation and, when I measured her legs together, her left leg was almost a centimetre longer, then I had her pray for her other leg and after she commanded it to "Grow, grow, grow" she felt a tingling sensation in that leg too and it became even with the left one. Now, I am just as skeptical as anyone else about these things. I have had times when it was all hyped up people actually just shifting around there hips and it looked like it changed but really didn't, but this time was legit. We prayed for her toes after and the pain left for a bit (came back with a vengence by the next week) and for her baby, who was teething, the baby got healed and stayed healed. God is so amazing.
As well as leading the community outreach, I am also co-leading a group that is working to help a ministry in Iraq. We are organizing fundraisers here and helping organize a youth conference in Kurdistan (The safe and American friendly part of Iraq) this summer. I may even go. It's pretty awesome and I feel priviliged to be able to lead the group. Really good practice/training for what I will be doing in the future i.e. leading things.
Life is truly amazing, there is so much going on, too much for one entry. For the rest of the year I think I will be using this as my legit journal/diary, sharing both testimonies and things that are going on inside my life. Hopefully the stories will be enjoyed by all. God Bless ya'll
Friday, April 8, 2011
Post Mission Trip Post
Wow my trip to Tijuana was amazing. Here are the wonderful things I saw in chronological order, there are a bunch of them.
Thursday:
I led an evangelism team that had very little Spanish between us. One of the first people we saw was an old lady sitting down with a cane beside her. We communicated that we wanted to pray for her and eventually found out that the pain was in her knees. We prayed and asked her to stand and all the pain left! Then we asked if she had any other pain that we could pray for, she had some in her head, but after we prayed that left too! After her we encountered a women who had pain in her toe, and 8 on the scale from 1-10. We prayed for her and she was instantly healed! She was so surprised it was hilarious, she kept walking back and forth testing it out. As we were walking back to the church that was having a meeting that night a guy hailed us in English to go talk to him. He was not interested in us praying for him or anything like that, he just wanted to talk and give us advice. It felt like a waste of time but I felt that God was wanting us to stay so we stayed for 30-45 minutes talking with him. While that was happening another guy came over who also spoke English. He was okay with prayer so I prayed and God healed his back. We invited both of them to the service that night and went back to church. That night, to my surprise, both of them came. The guy who liked to talk, Daniel, came to tell us how much of an effect we had on him because of our love and friendship. He gave us his address and phone # and asked us to contact him. The guy who got his back healed, Alex, came to me specifically and told me that he had been so impacted that God would heal his back, and keep it healed, that he gave his heart to Jesus. I gave him my phone # and email address and as soon as he gets back into the states he will contact me to find a good church that is near him.
Friday:
Presented the drama, "Set Me Free" by casting crowns in church. During ministry time a friend of mine prayed for a lady with breast cancer and in began to get quite hot and dissolve. A guy's foot got healed of something. I prayed for a man with metal plates in his legs and I am believing that he got healed, he could not check it out at that time. A lot of people got touched that night.
Saturday:
In the evening we went to pedestrian only street named Revolution Street. We had people on a stage doing music and dance and preaching stuff. When I was not dancing or doing a drama on stage some friends and I went around praying for people. A couple people got saved, backs and legs got healed. One lady had recently had brain surgery to remove brain tumours. She got completely healed after falling into a trance and seeing Jesus. Her husband got healed of a herniated testicle. So much happened that night, God showed up hardcore.
Sunday:
At church that morning I helped out with kids ministry. I taught the kids on healing, there were two that were 'sick,' a little boy had a hurt thumb and a girl had trouble breathing for some reason. After teaching them that Jesus healed because He loved them so much and that they can pray very simply to see Him do it I let the kids pray for each other and both of the 'sick' kids got healed!
Monday:
Monday morning we left Tijuana to go back home, we stopped in Orange County for one last service that night. At the service, among other things, a man who had been trapped in a wheel chair for more than a year and required others to feed him jumped up by the power of God and ran around the building. Amazing.
Thursday:
I led an evangelism team that had very little Spanish between us. One of the first people we saw was an old lady sitting down with a cane beside her. We communicated that we wanted to pray for her and eventually found out that the pain was in her knees. We prayed and asked her to stand and all the pain left! Then we asked if she had any other pain that we could pray for, she had some in her head, but after we prayed that left too! After her we encountered a women who had pain in her toe, and 8 on the scale from 1-10. We prayed for her and she was instantly healed! She was so surprised it was hilarious, she kept walking back and forth testing it out. As we were walking back to the church that was having a meeting that night a guy hailed us in English to go talk to him. He was not interested in us praying for him or anything like that, he just wanted to talk and give us advice. It felt like a waste of time but I felt that God was wanting us to stay so we stayed for 30-45 minutes talking with him. While that was happening another guy came over who also spoke English. He was okay with prayer so I prayed and God healed his back. We invited both of them to the service that night and went back to church. That night, to my surprise, both of them came. The guy who liked to talk, Daniel, came to tell us how much of an effect we had on him because of our love and friendship. He gave us his address and phone # and asked us to contact him. The guy who got his back healed, Alex, came to me specifically and told me that he had been so impacted that God would heal his back, and keep it healed, that he gave his heart to Jesus. I gave him my phone # and email address and as soon as he gets back into the states he will contact me to find a good church that is near him.
Friday:
Presented the drama, "Set Me Free" by casting crowns in church. During ministry time a friend of mine prayed for a lady with breast cancer and in began to get quite hot and dissolve. A guy's foot got healed of something. I prayed for a man with metal plates in his legs and I am believing that he got healed, he could not check it out at that time. A lot of people got touched that night.
Saturday:
In the evening we went to pedestrian only street named Revolution Street. We had people on a stage doing music and dance and preaching stuff. When I was not dancing or doing a drama on stage some friends and I went around praying for people. A couple people got saved, backs and legs got healed. One lady had recently had brain surgery to remove brain tumours. She got completely healed after falling into a trance and seeing Jesus. Her husband got healed of a herniated testicle. So much happened that night, God showed up hardcore.
Sunday:
At church that morning I helped out with kids ministry. I taught the kids on healing, there were two that were 'sick,' a little boy had a hurt thumb and a girl had trouble breathing for some reason. After teaching them that Jesus healed because He loved them so much and that they can pray very simply to see Him do it I let the kids pray for each other and both of the 'sick' kids got healed!
Monday:
Monday morning we left Tijuana to go back home, we stopped in Orange County for one last service that night. At the service, among other things, a man who had been trapped in a wheel chair for more than a year and required others to feed him jumped up by the power of God and ran around the building. Amazing.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Mission Trip
Hey guys, cool stuff has been happening these past 2 weeks or so, but it's all quite personal God stuff so I'm not telling. I do have some exciting news though. Next Tuesday I'm going to Tijuana, Mexico on a mission trip for a week. I'm expecting some big things to happen. Hospitals cleared out, people raised from the dead etc. I'm quite excited and I'll tell you all about it when I get back.
P.S. I had my interview for the Bethel second year program last Sunday, went pretty well. It's looking like I'll be coming back to Redding, CA again next year. I'll find out for sure on the 14th of April.
P.S. I had my interview for the Bethel second year program last Sunday, went pretty well. It's looking like I'll be coming back to Redding, CA again next year. I'll find out for sure on the 14th of April.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Prophetic Role Plays
So, this last Saturday I had one of the funnest treasure hunts that I've ever had. I was helping lead the teaching time that we have every time before we go out and my job was to teach healing. After talking about how to pray the other leaders decided to do a role play to show the other how it's done. I pretended like I had chest pain and black shoes (they were both wearing black shoes) on my list. We went through the conversation and God started showing up while we were role playing, He gave me a some real information about Alexander's (another leader) past and he felt a real heat in his chest when I prayed for him. It was all so profound that I said that this would happen during our hunt and it did. About 3/4 of the way through the treasure hunt I saw two teenager guys sitting by a fountain and I knew that they were the treasures that God would have me talk to. The encounter I had with them was strikingly similar to earlier. The one on the left was the one that I was praying for, emotional chest pains as opposed to physical ones, the other guy was disinterested at first but was intrigued as we talked, and the Holy Spirit came upon both of them, with a supernatural warmth. It was all quite cool and I loved it. God is so cool.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Different Manefestation of the Supernatural
Hey there folks,
I'm really sorry that I haven't been updating these past 2 weeks, bad form on my part for sure.
The reasoning for my lack of blogging have been two-fold. First is, laziness. It takes effort.
Secondly miracles haven't seemed to have been happening these past few weeks. That doesn't mean that God hasn't been doing anything, but that I haven't noticed many large outward signs akin to the ones I've been recording for your benefit. All that said, people are still getting healed, I'm having crazy visions where I go on adventures with Jesus, the gospel is being preached and people are entering the kingdom, and inheritance, of God.
In essence what I'm trying to say is that the outward crazy stuff has taken a bit of a back seat these last few weeks in my life. More centre stage has been my theology and personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
I will be posting on a more regular basis from here on out, I hope. But the content of the blog may contain some more personal parts of my life, which I bet some of those reading were hoping for. Anyway, God bless.
Boy I miss N.S. and I miss all my friends/family back home. I'll see you guys soon!
I'm really sorry that I haven't been updating these past 2 weeks, bad form on my part for sure.
The reasoning for my lack of blogging have been two-fold. First is, laziness. It takes effort.
Secondly miracles haven't seemed to have been happening these past few weeks. That doesn't mean that God hasn't been doing anything, but that I haven't noticed many large outward signs akin to the ones I've been recording for your benefit. All that said, people are still getting healed, I'm having crazy visions where I go on adventures with Jesus, the gospel is being preached and people are entering the kingdom, and inheritance, of God.
In essence what I'm trying to say is that the outward crazy stuff has taken a bit of a back seat these last few weeks in my life. More centre stage has been my theology and personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
I will be posting on a more regular basis from here on out, I hope. But the content of the blog may contain some more personal parts of my life, which I bet some of those reading were hoping for. Anyway, God bless.
Boy I miss N.S. and I miss all my friends/family back home. I'll see you guys soon!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Life continues
This last Saturday the same leader who asked me to preach the week before asked me to help him lead a treasure hunting outreach, where we get clues from God as to who He wants us to talk to and then find them. It went great, there was a group from Washington that came down and I was able to release boldness over one of them and "show them the ropes" of talking to strangers about God.
Tuesday was my birthday! On that day I some cool gifts, mostly from God's hand. Holy Spirit came to me in the morning, I saw Him in a vision, and gave me a present, the whirlwinds of heaven. These are for the use of transporting through the Spirit, something I've wanted to do for a long time. Pretty soon, I'm not sure when, I'll be showing up back in Nova Scotia for a supernatural visit. When I do you know I'll do everything I can to let everyone know!
Another gift that I received, on the more natural side, but no less wonderful. My teacher at Bethel who teaches dance also teaches on the technical side of things and she offered me a scholarship to take as many classes as I want free of charge! I'm going to start break-dancing on Monday, if I have time I'll through in some ballet and modern as well.
God is so good! Life continues to get better and better as I have greater revelations of His love for us all. Be blessed!
P.S. One of the new phenomenon that's been happening here at Bethel have been shadow healings. As far as I've heard more than twenty people in the last few weeks have been healed from the passing shadow of believers. What is that!?
Tuesday was my birthday! On that day I some cool gifts, mostly from God's hand. Holy Spirit came to me in the morning, I saw Him in a vision, and gave me a present, the whirlwinds of heaven. These are for the use of transporting through the Spirit, something I've wanted to do for a long time. Pretty soon, I'm not sure when, I'll be showing up back in Nova Scotia for a supernatural visit. When I do you know I'll do everything I can to let everyone know!
Another gift that I received, on the more natural side, but no less wonderful. My teacher at Bethel who teaches dance also teaches on the technical side of things and she offered me a scholarship to take as many classes as I want free of charge! I'm going to start break-dancing on Monday, if I have time I'll through in some ballet and modern as well.
God is so good! Life continues to get better and better as I have greater revelations of His love for us all. Be blessed!
P.S. One of the new phenomenon that's been happening here at Bethel have been shadow healings. As far as I've heard more than twenty people in the last few weeks have been healed from the passing shadow of believers. What is that!?
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Some general life updates.
Nothing absolutely extraordinary happened this last week, that is, unless supernatural healing is extraordinary! On Saturday my community outreach group did a block party, free food and entertainment whilst we build relationships and pray for people, and I was asked to preach. It was my first time preaching to a non-church crowd and I was quite nervous, but I did it and I didn't do to bad. At least, no one said I did bad and I felt that God was satisfied with how I did.
On Sunday after church I felt like someone had pain in their ribcage or chest area and I announced it, a friend of mine called me over and told me that the pain was actually in his back where the ribcage meets the spine, and that he wants me to pray for him. as I laid my hand on his back he felt as if my hand were on fire it was so warm, I prayed a couple times and the pain completely left, first in the lower portion then in the upper.
On Sunday after church I felt like someone had pain in their ribcage or chest area and I announced it, a friend of mine called me over and told me that the pain was actually in his back where the ribcage meets the spine, and that he wants me to pray for him. as I laid my hand on his back he felt as if my hand were on fire it was so warm, I prayed a couple times and the pain completely left, first in the lower portion then in the upper.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Grace healings
I went to a John Crowder conference on the 29th of January, 10 hours round trip in one day but it was worth it. In the aftermath of these meetings I have realised that God actually wants to heal people. I don't have to convince Him to do it cause Jesus paid the price and it's already done! I realised that before, even though I thought that God wanted to heal them, I felt I had to somehow work for it, pray hard or work with some sort of halfway anointing to garner enough favour with God so that people would get healed when I prayed for them. What ridiculousness that is! Ever since this revelation I've pretty much been healing everyone I'm praying for, cause I know God wants to do it. At church yesterday someone came to me about neck pain, got completely healed. (Maybe the tiniest bit of stiffness left, I'm not sure) Today, while I was playing soccer I prayed for a friends thumb/hand, got healed as well. (Maybe a little bit left, I'm not sure)
Before I was pressing in with prayer so that I could see miracles like teleportation and walking on water. I'm not pressing in any more, I'll just believe and see it happen. I'm ready to experience some Supernatural Craziness!
Before I was pressing in with prayer so that I could see miracles like teleportation and walking on water. I'm not pressing in any more, I'll just believe and see it happen. I'm ready to experience some Supernatural Craziness!
Sunday, January 23, 2011
God and Gambling
Here I share a quaint little story of my including God whilst doing the secular, in this case, playing poker. Before I share it though I'd like to make a couple things clear. First, I only put three dollars in and I would gladly of put that in simply for the experience. Second, this testimony is a little subjective so I'm not expecting it to be used as a proof of God's reality, like the previous stories could be. Third, it wasn't cheating cause I cleared what I did with everyone else.
I was invited by a friend to play some poker with him and his friends, I decided that I would play the game completely dependant on the voice of God, when to fold and when raise. It was so good! As far as I remember, every time I heard that my hand would lose it would be worse, and every time I heard I'd win I would indeed, be the winner of that hand. There are two mini stories that come to mind. At one point I prayed to God that I would win the next hand, then I get dealt and Ace and queen of the same suit. I was really excited but it turned out that the dealer messed up somehow and those cards had to be scrapped. In the next deal I got a 9 and 5, and everyone else was betting real high, all that I was hearing from God was Him reminding me that I had prayed, and my friend was pressuring me to fold cause of the high bets. I did, but it turned out that I would have had two pair and no one else had anything! In the second story I had an opportunity to win a whole lot if I almost went all in, I asked God about it and all I heard was, "I love you, go for it." I went and ended up totally losing, with the consoling revelation that I didn't actually have to win. Those three dollars were a paltry sum to pay for the amount I learned about God's voice this last evening.
I was invited by a friend to play some poker with him and his friends, I decided that I would play the game completely dependant on the voice of God, when to fold and when raise. It was so good! As far as I remember, every time I heard that my hand would lose it would be worse, and every time I heard I'd win I would indeed, be the winner of that hand. There are two mini stories that come to mind. At one point I prayed to God that I would win the next hand, then I get dealt and Ace and queen of the same suit. I was really excited but it turned out that the dealer messed up somehow and those cards had to be scrapped. In the next deal I got a 9 and 5, and everyone else was betting real high, all that I was hearing from God was Him reminding me that I had prayed, and my friend was pressuring me to fold cause of the high bets. I did, but it turned out that I would have had two pair and no one else had anything! In the second story I had an opportunity to win a whole lot if I almost went all in, I asked God about it and all I heard was, "I love you, go for it." I went and ended up totally losing, with the consoling revelation that I didn't actually have to win. Those three dollars were a paltry sum to pay for the amount I learned about God's voice this last evening.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
God just loves to heal
Last Thursday I went on outreach into my community and whilst I was on my way to a specific house me and my friends came upon a trio of teenagers just off from high-school. Turns out they were all Christians and had visited Bethel a few times, so we were just able to prophecy over them and tell them who they were in God's eyes. After a while of talking with them, I had left and came back, we discovered that one of them had broken his hand punching a wall a couple days earlier, he couldn't even close his hand! We prayed for him real quick and he clenched his fist like it was nobody's business, all pain was gone! A few minutes later our group leader came over and told us that as he was visiting a house they were greeted by a guy from the floor because his neck hurt too much not to lay down. After they prayed for him he was able to sit up just fine!
Monday, January 10, 2011
I'm posting!
As promised, here is the second weekly post of mine.
This week was an amazing one. When I got back I realized how much I had missed being in Redding. Vacation is nice but I thoroughly enjoy having my own place to chilax and put myself in order. Anyway, on to supernatural craziness.
Last Thursday I went out on community activation, where a group of us students go into a specific part of Redding's community and build relationships with people whilst sharing the love of God with them. Before we went out I started to have an overwhelming sensation that God wanted to demonstrate His power that afternoon and I was reminded of an old lady in our community that was in a real bad place, she needed a walker and breathing tubes up her nose, bad news. So I decided that I would dedicate my time that day to hanging with her and helping anyway I could. When my friends and I got there it turned out that she was taking a nap, but a family was staying in her house helping her so we talked with them. I struck up a conversation with the 13 year old son (Alberto) and started prophesying (telling him what God thought of him/his destiny in life) and praying for him. Then my group leader came in and asked Alberto if he wanted to be taller. He said yes so, after measuring him against a wall, we sat him down and commanded his legs to grow. After doing this and measuring him against the wall again he was undeniably taller, at least 3/4 of an inch! Pretty amazing. On top of that, while this was going on my friends led Alberto's sister to receive Jesus! And this was only my first week back, there's four more months of this stuff!
This week was an amazing one. When I got back I realized how much I had missed being in Redding. Vacation is nice but I thoroughly enjoy having my own place to chilax and put myself in order. Anyway, on to supernatural craziness.
Last Thursday I went out on community activation, where a group of us students go into a specific part of Redding's community and build relationships with people whilst sharing the love of God with them. Before we went out I started to have an overwhelming sensation that God wanted to demonstrate His power that afternoon and I was reminded of an old lady in our community that was in a real bad place, she needed a walker and breathing tubes up her nose, bad news. So I decided that I would dedicate my time that day to hanging with her and helping anyway I could. When my friends and I got there it turned out that she was taking a nap, but a family was staying in her house helping her so we talked with them. I struck up a conversation with the 13 year old son (Alberto) and started prophesying (telling him what God thought of him/his destiny in life) and praying for him. Then my group leader came in and asked Alberto if he wanted to be taller. He said yes so, after measuring him against a wall, we sat him down and commanded his legs to grow. After doing this and measuring him against the wall again he was undeniably taller, at least 3/4 of an inch! Pretty amazing. On top of that, while this was going on my friends led Alberto's sister to receive Jesus! And this was only my first week back, there's four more months of this stuff!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
The Blog
Ok, I have to say that I'm all out ashamed of how little I have posted on this blog. So I am making a new year's resolution to post a post about the stuff God's doing in my life and through my life at least once a week. I have no school Mondays so I think I'll be able to grab the time to do it then. You have my promise, I won't let you guys down.
Some supernatural crazyness for this post.
This Christmas break I went to Jamaica for a family reunion. While I was there it was very windy and I discovered about half-way through the trip that it had been that way since September and was hurting the tourist economy, nobody wanted to go out if it was cold and windy. So I rounded up some family members that night and we went out on the beach and commanded the wind to stop in Jesus name. The next morning it was significantly more calm. So far I'm not sure if it was just a fluke (I don't think it was) or if our prayers/declarations actually changed the weather. I'm going to contact our Jamaican friend in a couple weeks to check out how much less windy it has become.
Some supernatural crazyness for this post.
This Christmas break I went to Jamaica for a family reunion. While I was there it was very windy and I discovered about half-way through the trip that it had been that way since September and was hurting the tourist economy, nobody wanted to go out if it was cold and windy. So I rounded up some family members that night and we went out on the beach and commanded the wind to stop in Jesus name. The next morning it was significantly more calm. So far I'm not sure if it was just a fluke (I don't think it was) or if our prayers/declarations actually changed the weather. I'm going to contact our Jamaican friend in a couple weeks to check out how much less windy it has become.
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