This is my last post about my spring break trip! It's longer but its got some awesome testimonies of the power of God so make it to the end! I wrote this in my journal on Monday March 7, 2011 from the airplane when going from Phoenix to LA.
-------------------------------------------
Haha ok wow. There is Internet on my flight and I’m getting distracted but Heavs yea!! Last 2 nights were SICK!!!! I’ll start with Saturday night. Crazy busy. Greg said he hadn’t seen it that busy in several years. I went into Carnival with Greg, Harmony and a few others. We totally got wrecked by the Holy Spirit and His joy on the way over to Looney Bean (a coffee shop located inside the gates of Carnival, YWAM Mazatlan is friends with the owners). It was great. Then we worshipped at Looney Bean. Outside the fireworks went off, they completely destroyed me (in a good way). At one point Josh (a DTS student), Harmony and I got on our knees in the middle of the huge crowd and just cried out repentance on behalf of the bloodshed. Also Dan (another DTS student), Josh and I went through the crowd praying for people as we passed them. It was really loud so we could be loud which was great. We were constantly just praising God or lifting up His name. It was a lot of fun. Near the end of the night we were exiting Carnival and Josh had to go back to Looney Bean to get something we had left behind. So the rest of us as we waited ended up seeing 3 salvations. One guy was working the gate and the Holy Spirit gave me a word of knowledge about his back hurting. I told our group I wanted to pray for him and David (DTS student) said he had felt the same so we went over to talk to him. We introduced ourselves to the guy (Roman) and I asked if he had backpain. He was surprised and said yes he does. I asked if we could pray for him and he said yes. We then prayed for God to heal his back. His back was healed and he accepted Christ within a few minutes.
Sunday was crazy. In the afternoon we did evangelism during the parade. I was with two other girls. We didn’t even make it down Las Palmas (the street the base is on) before we ran into Francisco who was selling chips. I had seen him the other day when I was doing security at Casa del Marino (the building where we based our Carnival ministry) and said hi but didn’t think much of it. Anyway so he our attention and is like I want to give you a bag of chips as a gift from my heart. So I was like cool but can we pray for you in return. Somehow we got from there to him crying about how he’d been addicted to drugs and weed and how he wanted to take that time and money and spend it with his family but he couldn’t break the addiction. We told him about Jesus and the power he has to break the power of sin and he accepted Jesus and we broke the spirit of addiction off his life. By the end he was super happy and was giving us hugs and stuff.
Then Rikka wanted to talk to the police officers standing about 10 yards up the hill so we did. I got a word of knowledge about one of the officer’s knee. He was like who told you that. I told him Jesus did and that Jesus wanted to heal him. So we prayed for him and God healed his knee and his throat. This man was already a Christian but his friend was not and though his friend did not accept Christ he did confess and interest and a desire to go to church.
Alright now the good stuff. Haha as if the above wasn’t good. In prayer we had been getting words about how it was the 4th night. The 3rd night had been hard and we all felt the 4th would be better. Worship confirmed that, we went super deep into the presence of God. When we met up as a prayer team after, I felt led to go into Carnival but wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. Tasha, Megan, Heather, and David felt the same. So we headed into Carnival not sure what to do. 2 days before some of us from the prayer team including Tom and Jessy had gone into Carnival to pray. Tom felt this one spot next to the beer stand across from the devil’s cave was significant especially for healing including the deaf and the blind. So we anointed it with oil and prayed over the spot. I sat down and prayed that he person who sat there would encounter Jesus. This was also right below the high place we took on Friday night with worship and below the place on Ice Box Hill where we pray all the time.
Anyway I felt like on Sunday night we were to go to this spot but I didn’t know what we should do. On the way we ran into a blind guy and prayed but nothing happened. We were kind of disappointed but moved on. Eventually we came in sight of the spot so we stopped to ask God what we should do there. All we really got was dance. So we went over there with the intention of dancing. However, when we got over there I felt like we should talk to this dude so we did. Heather ended up talking to him and he got saved. But they were talking for a while so I got bored. I saw these 2 guys sitting on the curb so I grabbed Tasha and we went and said hi. Remembering what we had done earlier I asked if either of them had any pain in their body and one of them said yes. I asked him if it was in his back (because that’s where I felt the Holy Spirit said it was) and he said yes. So we prayed and he stood up to test it out, he was healed! Then he asked us to pray for his wrist. We did and it got healed. Then he asked us to pray for the pain in his legs. We did and those got healed and he got up and did a little dance. By this point the other guy wanted prayer. He had us pray for his throat because it hurt to talk, he also had a really raspy voice. We prayed and it got better. He then had us pray for his ears because he was hard of hearing. His ears got healed and he could hear better! By this time people around were kind of watching what was going on so we went around asking people if they needed healing. And if we weren’t asking them, they were asking us pointing to various parts of their bodies asking for prayer. At one point this girl who was with her husband called me over. I grabbed Heather and we prayed for her cough, it went away and she got saved. I also got to pray for one of the guys working the beer stand. He said his hands and his feet hurt but that he was working. I told him that was OK he could keep working and I would just stand there and pray for him without laying hands on him or anything. So I did and he got healed. He ended up getting saved the next night. At another point, we were just preaching the gospel and describing how these things were possible and the blind dude we had previously prayed for runs right into us. Literally. Were like OK let’s pray again because by this time our faith was pretty much exploding. So we prayed for him several times. He went from seeing nothing but black, to seeing the color blue, to seeing multiple colors, to by the time we were done praying for him he could see colors and flashes of light. He also said he was going to go to church to get more prayer. So yea it was pretty crazy. In all we saw 18 healings and 2 salvations at this spot in about a couple hours.
Healings we saw:
• 2 throats
• Should pain
• 2 knees
• Hands and feet
• Wrist pain/limited movement
• Pain in the arm
• Partial deafness
• 2 necks
• A cough
• Leg pain
• Back pain
• Pain in both legs
• Pinched nerve on leg
• Blind man from seeing nothing to seeing colors and flashes of light
Everybody we prayed for got at least partially healed. Later I also realized that right where I had sat and prayed a couple days earlier was right where the 1st guy we talked to was sitting as well as the girl with the cough (at different times). Both got saved. We also later found out the whole time this was going on the team on Ice Box Hill was right above us praying even though they couldn’t see what was going on. Also the prayer team back at Casa said they had a crazy night with the heavens just open. The evangelists also had a good night with around 75 people saved that night I think. Also a side note, the next night a group went into Carnival and prayed for a man who couldn’t talk and after they prayed he was able to say words such as gracias.
One thing that was awesome is all week I kind of felt like prayer wasn’t really doing much but by the end it could not have been more obvious how important the prayer team is. There were stories of people just dropping their beer and leaving Carnival. One guy traded his marijuana in for our tracts. Both got saved. When you have that much prayer and spiritual warfare going on the heavens are just open, people are ready, and evangelism is easy.
So yea spring break was awesome. God is good. And it is time to start having stuff like this be part of regular daily Christian life. Hope you all enjoyed the stories, and I hope that you understand that Jesus wants to use YOU to heal the sick and bring salvation to those around you. Be blessed.
Chris
This is a video the YWAM Mazatlan media team made with a couple Carnaval testimonies.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Carnaval Stories 2011
Alright on to Mexico! This is a portion of my journal entry on March 5, 2011
-----------------------------
Saturday already. Only a couple more days here in Mazatlan. It’s been awesome though. After the first 24 hours or so where it was really weird, its really just been so good to be home. That’s something that’s really hit me is that I actually have a home in Mazatlan and even if some things about the base change, I will always have a home here on the Pacific Ocean. That’s just awesome!
Carnival has been awesome so far. We’re done with 2 days of outreach and I’ll be here for 2 of the remaining 4 nights. The first night we went out evangelizing. My little group of 5 saw 9 salvations in the first couple hours!! The first was this couple selling gum, candy, and cigarettes outside of the Carnival gates. They had been in a car accident on the way to Mazatlan and had lost a lot of their stuff. Also the guy had twisted his ankle. So we talked, prayed and prophesied over them and their business. God healed the guy’s ankle and they both got saved! It was cool because they both kind of got saved separately but still together. Laura and I were talking to the woman while Mark and Ben and Montse were talked to the man. The LORD gave me a word for the woman about not giving up on dreams and she said she had a lot of business dreams so we prayed and released favor upon her and her husband and asked God to open up doors for them in the area of business.
We also prayed for this little boy Josue who was a small child with only one lung. We prayed that God would do a creative miracle and release a new lung from the storehouses of heaven. While we were praying, his mom got saved and tons of people gathered around curious as to what was going on and some of them received Jesus as LORD and savior as well.
Last night I led a team into Carnival. We walked all the way through to the other gate and back. I really had to fight the lie that we weren’t doing anything because we weren’t doing any evangelism, though we did see one salvation and we prayed for a few healings. It was however really intense intercession and spiritual warfare the whole night. I think one of the things God is growing me in is to be obedient to Him and do what needs to be done rather than just wanting cool stories. He’s also just reminding me the importance of prayer and spiritual warfare. However I think God is also being really faithful in also giving me rest while I am here. I’ve gotten to go to the beach twice and have time to spend with the LORD so it’s been great.
-----------------------------
Saturday already. Only a couple more days here in Mazatlan. It’s been awesome though. After the first 24 hours or so where it was really weird, its really just been so good to be home. That’s something that’s really hit me is that I actually have a home in Mazatlan and even if some things about the base change, I will always have a home here on the Pacific Ocean. That’s just awesome!
Carnival has been awesome so far. We’re done with 2 days of outreach and I’ll be here for 2 of the remaining 4 nights. The first night we went out evangelizing. My little group of 5 saw 9 salvations in the first couple hours!! The first was this couple selling gum, candy, and cigarettes outside of the Carnival gates. They had been in a car accident on the way to Mazatlan and had lost a lot of their stuff. Also the guy had twisted his ankle. So we talked, prayed and prophesied over them and their business. God healed the guy’s ankle and they both got saved! It was cool because they both kind of got saved separately but still together. Laura and I were talking to the woman while Mark and Ben and Montse were talked to the man. The LORD gave me a word for the woman about not giving up on dreams and she said she had a lot of business dreams so we prayed and released favor upon her and her husband and asked God to open up doors for them in the area of business.
We also prayed for this little boy Josue who was a small child with only one lung. We prayed that God would do a creative miracle and release a new lung from the storehouses of heaven. While we were praying, his mom got saved and tons of people gathered around curious as to what was going on and some of them received Jesus as LORD and savior as well.
Last night I led a team into Carnival. We walked all the way through to the other gate and back. I really had to fight the lie that we weren’t doing anything because we weren’t doing any evangelism, though we did see one salvation and we prayed for a few healings. It was however really intense intercession and spiritual warfare the whole night. I think one of the things God is growing me in is to be obedient to Him and do what needs to be done rather than just wanting cool stories. He’s also just reminding me the importance of prayer and spiritual warfare. However I think God is also being really faithful in also giving me rest while I am here. I’ve gotten to go to the beach twice and have time to spend with the LORD so it’s been great.
 |
| Our Prayer Gazebo |
 |
| YWAM Mazatlan and the Pacific Ocean |
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Just Normal Life
So it’s been about a week since I got back from my spring break trip to California and Mexico. I have to admit that it was probably the best spring break I have ever had. Not only did I get to see many friends, but I got to encounter Jesus and in just amazing unbelievable ways. Over the next few days I’m going to be posting stories, videos and typed up journal entries from my trip. I do this not to glorify how awesome my life is (even though its pretty awesome), but to give testimony to the powerful name of Jesus. I would hope that these testimonies more than anything encourage you to see that the impossible is possible anywhere and everywhere and that God wants to do the impossible through you. Anything I or the other people in these stories have done you can do because the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives inside of you just as He lives inside of me (Romans 8:11).
Ok so for this entry I want to describe a little bit about my time at Bethel Church. My first stop over spring break was to a small city (more like town) in northern California called Redding. In this town there is this church called Bethel (http://www.ibethel.org/site/). I’m sure most of you have heard of it and if you haven’t its time you have (If you haven't heard of Bethel maybe you've heard of Jesus Culture or Bill Johnson both from there). For about a year and a half I have been reading, hearing, and watching stories that are coming out of this church. Stories of miracles, of the blind seeing and the deaf hearing, the lame walking, stories of generosity and miraculous provision. Getting to go and visit Bethel was something that I’ve wanted to do for a while now and it was definitely an honor.
At Bethel Church they have a ministry school called the School of Supernatural Ministry. I currently know 6 people who are doing this school. Therefore my trip had a two-fold purpose, visit my friends and see the church. Neither disappointed. While I was there, there was a conference going on where I got to hear the likes of Bob Jones and Graham Cooke speak. I got to worship while Kim Walker-Smith was leading. I also got to attend the healing rooms on Saturday morning where I stood in line for 2 hours just to get into the room because there were so many people waiting in line in order to receive healing. It didn’t bother me though as people were getting healed in line as well. I was able to strike up conversation with two other ladies and we prayed and prophesied over each other. When I finally did get to the front of the line I got to experience so much joy. I got to see a leg grow out, people walking without their previous needed canes, and many, many people laughing from the joy of the LORD. On Sunday I got to attend a regular church service and hear Bill Johnson speak. On Sunday night I went to the Twin View Campus where they have a worship service every week and my friend Hunter who is a second year student was leading worship. It was incredible; I got a lot of breakthrough that night.
Despite all the cool things I experienced and saw I think the thing I got out of the most from being at Bethel was how normal everything was. I was seeing and experiencing abnormal supernatural stuff but it was so normal. Like this is what the regular Christian life should look like and this is a place where it does. These people weren’t any different than you and I, the church wasn’t even very big (much smaller than I expected), they were just people living in the reality of a Heavenly Kingdom that is not only amazing, but it is available now. Another thing I loved about Bethel was the way they honor other people. They know how to honor the Spirit of the LORD upon other people and to receive from each other and to respect each other. They also are the only place I’ve been to that has the structure of the church (outlined by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:28 and Ephesians 4:11) figured out. They have men and woman operating in all 5 of the fivefold positions and all know and do their role wonderfully resulting in the Kingdom being brought to earth.
To wrap up my time in Redding, it was really a great time of refreshing after a very tiring and exhausting Winter Quarter in college. I got to go snowboarding and to watch Megamind and go on Adventure Time with Jake Oie. It was great.
Ok so for this entry I want to describe a little bit about my time at Bethel Church. My first stop over spring break was to a small city (more like town) in northern California called Redding. In this town there is this church called Bethel (http://www.ibethel.org/site/). I’m sure most of you have heard of it and if you haven’t its time you have (If you haven't heard of Bethel maybe you've heard of Jesus Culture or Bill Johnson both from there). For about a year and a half I have been reading, hearing, and watching stories that are coming out of this church. Stories of miracles, of the blind seeing and the deaf hearing, the lame walking, stories of generosity and miraculous provision. Getting to go and visit Bethel was something that I’ve wanted to do for a while now and it was definitely an honor.
At Bethel Church they have a ministry school called the School of Supernatural Ministry. I currently know 6 people who are doing this school. Therefore my trip had a two-fold purpose, visit my friends and see the church. Neither disappointed. While I was there, there was a conference going on where I got to hear the likes of Bob Jones and Graham Cooke speak. I got to worship while Kim Walker-Smith was leading. I also got to attend the healing rooms on Saturday morning where I stood in line for 2 hours just to get into the room because there were so many people waiting in line in order to receive healing. It didn’t bother me though as people were getting healed in line as well. I was able to strike up conversation with two other ladies and we prayed and prophesied over each other. When I finally did get to the front of the line I got to experience so much joy. I got to see a leg grow out, people walking without their previous needed canes, and many, many people laughing from the joy of the LORD. On Sunday I got to attend a regular church service and hear Bill Johnson speak. On Sunday night I went to the Twin View Campus where they have a worship service every week and my friend Hunter who is a second year student was leading worship. It was incredible; I got a lot of breakthrough that night.
Despite all the cool things I experienced and saw I think the thing I got out of the most from being at Bethel was how normal everything was. I was seeing and experiencing abnormal supernatural stuff but it was so normal. Like this is what the regular Christian life should look like and this is a place where it does. These people weren’t any different than you and I, the church wasn’t even very big (much smaller than I expected), they were just people living in the reality of a Heavenly Kingdom that is not only amazing, but it is available now. Another thing I loved about Bethel was the way they honor other people. They know how to honor the Spirit of the LORD upon other people and to receive from each other and to respect each other. They also are the only place I’ve been to that has the structure of the church (outlined by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:28 and Ephesians 4:11) figured out. They have men and woman operating in all 5 of the fivefold positions and all know and do their role wonderfully resulting in the Kingdom being brought to earth.
To wrap up my time in Redding, it was really a great time of refreshing after a very tiring and exhausting Winter Quarter in college. I got to go snowboarding and to watch Megamind and go on Adventure Time with Jake Oie. It was great.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)