Summer Travel

(Actually written July 18, 2010)

Well here I am in South Dakota now. It’s been a very busy three weeks. Since I’ve been back in the states I haven’t been home for a weekend yet (and won’t be until August), I’ve road tripped to Chicago, Kansas City, and now South Dakota. Life is crazy when travel is involved. It is cool being to so many different places in such a short amount of time but it really messes with your head, to think that in 3 weeks I’ve been from Mazatlan to Minnesota to Chicago to Kansas City to South Dakota and on Saturday I leave for Panama. Crazy.

Of my road trips I do want to share a little bit about my trip to Kansas City. My friend Jake and I got the opportunity to visit IHOP for a few days. We got to go to 3 Awakening meetings and visited the prayer room on 3 other occasions worshipping with 2 of Misty Edward’s sets and 1 set of the nightwatch. It was a really great 3 days and I definitely encountered God. I think the first day was kind of weird mostly because my focus was on IHOP maybe a little more than it was on Jesus. However the next 2 days were spent getting filled with joy, worshipping, praying for others, hearing testimonies of healings, and just resting in the LORD’s presence. One exciting encounter I had was that when one guy prayed for me I got gold dust on my hands so that was pretty neat.

Since I’ve been home I feel like though I’m really busy in the physical, spiritually things are going really slow. Part of it is I’m not handed revelation on a platter 20 hours a week and don’t have 5-6 hours of evangelism and 8 hours of prayer and worship built into my schedule. However, I have been going to feed the homeless on Wednesdays. One time we went down we saw a woman get partially healed of arthritis and another guy who could barely walk get his knee touched so that he could walk pretty much normal. Also have been going to Twin Cities House of Prayer (TCHOP) quite a bit so that is fantastic.

That’s about it for now in terms of a life update. I leave for YWAM Rockford on Thursday and our team leaves for Panama on Saturday. Keep our high school students and myself in your prayers as we will be doing things such as evangelism, Vacation Bible School (we’re teaching on the Holy Spirit!), and other kids ministries. Pray that our students would be bold, that they would receive God’s heart for others and move out of that to reach this great nation. Also that we as leaders can set a good example and encourage the students to step out of their comfort zones.

God bless everyone!

Jake Engen and I at an Awakening meeting at IHOP

New Things

Hey everyone! Hope you are all doing well and enjoying the wonderful life that God blesses us with each and everyday. I certainly am. I finished up my WISE school last Friday at YWAM Mazatlan and got back in the states on Monday June 28.

I’ve done a terrible job at keeping my blog up the last couple months and I apologize for that. I hope to be posting quite frequently now that I’m home and I try to expand more on WISE school and include various musings about what I learned and things that God brought me through.

The last 3 months of my life have been quite interesting. It is hard for me to describe WISE school and how it went. In many ways it was exactly what I expected yet in many it just wasn’t. Classes were great; we had speakers from all over the place and many various organizations such as Global Awakening, Wisdom’s House, YWAM and others. We had topics such as Prophetic Worship, Spiritual Warfare, Prophetic Evangelism, the book of Daniel, Prophetic Lifestyle, Healing Evangelism and many others. We also got the chance to do a lot of evangelism in Mazatlan, we visited orphanages, we prayed over the streets, we saw people healed in Centro, and we worshiped in restaurants. We took a trip to Durango and helped out with a church and we spent a week in the mountains learning about solitude and silence.

One of the highlights for me was probably our trip to Mexiquillo (the mountains). Just being able to hike off by myself and spend 7 hours alone with the LORD in silence enjoying His beautiful creation was just amazing. God spoke so much to me about my identity, my future, and about things I was going through at the time. It really gave me a true encounter with what God means when He says "Be still, and know that I am God. (Psalms 46:10)

It is weird to think that I will not be living in Mazatlan anymore. I do plan to go back many times throughout my life maybe even as soon as next March for their Carnaval outreach. However it is time for me to move onto a new season of my life. God is calling me to college in the fall in Rochester, New York at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT – www.rit.edu). I will be studying film and hopefully business alongside of that. I know God has great plans for me as I press forward to take what I’ve learned and start impacting the 7 spheres of society, particularly the spheres of business and media.

However before school, God has one more pit stop for me. From July 22-31 I will be a leader on my church’s high school mission trip to the country of Panama. We will be working with YWAM doing various kinds of evangelism, kids’ ministry, and serving. While I’m excited to go to Panama I am just as excited to work with the youth from my generation and to pour into them and help them to take hold of their faith and step out into the power of the gospel. I would again appreciate your prayers for this trip. First off for myself that God would help me be a leader not just as a name but in my actions. Secondly pray for the youth coming along that they would encounter God as they serve Him. And finally for the country of Panama and the people that we are reaching out to that they would see the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.

I want to thank you all again for all your support whether it has been through prayer, encouragement, or money. For Panama I am still short about $700 and am trusting the LORD to provide. If you do feel God calling you to give you can write a check out to North Heights Lutheran Church and send it to:

Chris Brands
1302 Folsom St.
St. Paul, MN 55117

Thanks again for all your support, may “the LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. (Num 6:24-26) Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
(Jude 1:24-25)

God bless!

Brother Chris Brands

My WISE school at our Graduation Ceremony