Holy Spirit Week

A few quick hits before I get started:

- I am now a regular at the McDonalds. I walked in this week and the cashier immediately said “Ice cream!” I was pretty pumped because I have never been at a regular at a restaurant before!

- A few of us guys watched Lion King this week. We figured it was appropriate since we’re in Africa. I forgot how good of a movie that is since it’s been over 10 years.

- I finally found a place to do pull ups this week, which is a relief! There are some monkey bars on a jungle gym behind the house that we are staying in. I was worried that my arms would turn to mush if I didn’t do any p-ups for 5 months. But now I don’t have to worry about that. Thanks Lord.

Well this past week was pretty crazy to say the least. The theme for the week was Holy Spirit week. We had a guy named Joe Ewen, from Scotland, come speak to us. After this week, I have a whole new view of the Holy Spirit and the power we have through the Holy Spirit. I have always had some doubt when in it comes to the spiritual gifts of prophesying and miraculous healing. I can be quick to think that that kind of stuff only happened in the Bible, but not anymore. So this week completely blew my mind when I not only witnessed those things, but also experienced them myself! I could write a ton on all the crazy stuff I saw this week, but I will just touch on a few of them.

- I was prophesied over more times this week, than I ever have been in my life! And what I loved about it was that it was so encouraging each time. And all of them seemed to have common themes, which shows me that they were truly from God. Some of the common themes I got were that God has finally got my full attention and will really start to blossom my faith now that He has it. I have been very laid-back about my faith, but this is a season to intensify my faith so I can take on a leadership role later on down the road. I also got three or four different prophecies talking about how I will be a spiritual father to many children from lots of different nations. (I have no clue what that’s all about.)

- We were also encouraged to try prophesying for others to encourage them and also to strengthen our own faith muscle. So I was prophesying for an awesome missionary guy from another country (I don’t think I can say where because of safety reasons), and as I was praying over him I got a vision of a river flowing between two islands. Gradually the river rose until it covered both islands. I honestly thought it was the dumbest thing, so I didn’t tell him but just kept praying. About a minute later, I got the same vision again so I sheepishly told him my vision. Later that evening he approached me and thanked me for the vision (“haha seriously?” was my first thought) and said that is spoke clearly to him. He said he had been debating about crossing a certain river to start planting house churches in a certain neighboring country, and that this vision made it clear that he should go! I was pretty pumped. It was super cool to think that God could use someone like ME to speak to a missionary.

- I was super impressed by Joe Ewen’s child-like faith in the Lord. One of the quotes he used all week was, “Whatever God reveals; He heals.” So whenever he would be in the middle of teaching and get a sudden ache in his right shoulder, he wouldn’t reach for the medicine cabinet, but he would stop teaching and ask who in the room has been dealing with right shoulder pain. I thought it was pretty weird at first, but there was always someone that stood up. So we would lay hands on that person and pray for them, and then they would be healed! It was insane. During one teaching session this week, Joe stopped what he was teaching and decided that there were lots of physical ailments in the room so we just needed a time for healing. So he told us to all start praying. Immediately my stomach got gripped with pain, and so I stood up and asked who was dealing with stomach pain. Sure enough, there was one girl, so we prayed for her and I’m pretty sure she is healed now (I haven’t talked with her yet). As the session rolled on, my stomach started feeling worse and worse, to the point of having to puke. So after trying to be a tough guy for 10 minutes, I finally set aside my pride and asked some people to pray for me. As they were praying for me, my stomach ache completely vanished! One of the first things I felt I had to do was ask the Lord to forgive me for doubting his power for so many years.

So like I said, this week was pretty mind-boggling for me (although it shouldn’t be, because all this stuff is in the Bible). I have never really had first hand witness of God’s power like I have this week, so it was very edifying for me. I’m very thankful the Lord allowed me to experience so much this week, and I’m hoping this will be a spring board for my faith in the years to come. I need to continue working on praying in the Spirit and learning to declare the authority and power we have in Jesus’ name. I’m super excited to see how far God’s power can reach when we have a child-like faith and trust in Him!