“Silly Christians,” Joe says with a smirk.

Joe (name changed) had been mocking Bear for the last week. Bear lives in Joe’s dorm and is attempting to bring the gospel to his fellow Native American students at Haskell University, home to representatives of almost 130 different tribal nations from around the United States. Bear is a student missionary sent from Student CPx this last year.  Bear understands the need for students to carry the gospel into his college campus – Bear gave his life to Jesus and was baptized after a Student CPx student befriended him two years ago. To read Bear’s incredible story, click here.

An hour later, we see Joe again on campus. I’m filled with faith for this guy.

“Hey, man,” I say as I point my finger at him. “God’s got a great destiny for your life if you’ll stop running from him.”

He smirks at me and walks away.  Yes, I feel powerful and mighty.

Twenty feet later, he suddenly stops in his tracks.

Joe turns around, walks back up the sidewalk, and comes up to Bear and I, with his gaze toward the ground.

Joe lights up a Marlboro Red cigarette and says, “Ok, I guess I’ll talk to you guys for a minute. Tell me more.”

We ask Joe some questions about his experiences with Jesus, the church, and Christianity. We tell Joe the simple story of how we came to believe in Jesus and how He changed our lives.

“Woah! I’ve got goose bumps!” Joe says as he responds to hearing our personal stories about Jesus. (When you tell a personal story of how Jesus has influenced you, it carries power. It’s almost like the Holy Spirit flows in a special way to others when you tell them stories of how you’ve experienced Jesus.)

Joe wasn’t ready to become a follower of Jesus yet, but his hunger was apparent. We prayed for Joe right there on the sidewalk, certain we would encounter him again really soon, especially since Bear is attempting to start simple church community in his residence hall where Joe and he live.

30 minutes later Bear and I walk to the Pow Wow grounds on campus. We’re carrying a large Native drum my good friend Will loaned me. Five of us gather to worship God. 2 of the students aren’t followers of Jesus yet. This is where the different tribes gather for festivals. This is where I first prayed with a student at Haskell to become a follower of Jesus a couple years ago.

I turn to the small group sitting around the drum.

“Have you ever heard the story of why Jesus came to earth?” I say.

“No, not really.”

I tell the gospel story, short and simple. God sent Jesus to call all nations and tribes into right relationship with the Creator and with each other. I tell briefly who He is.  What He did. What He wants from us now….Then we invite students to worship God and Jesus on the drum.

We start to play.

We don’t know what we’re doing.  I know that every movement among unreached people groups is accompanied by new forms of worship with styles and instruments that fit their culture. It seems as I’ve traveled the United States the last few years I’ve met a lot of pagans (I mean that in a nice way; I like pagans). Why not try something creative and different to reach them? I wonder.  But it still feels a little silly to be sitting here playing this drum.

“Eeeeeya ya yaaaaaah!!!!!” Bear lets out a Native warrior cry to heaven at the top of his lungs.

I think I see a residence hall window shatter.

I’m scared. I think the devil might be, too. I feel like Kevin Costner walking into the Indian camp for the first time. I close my eyes and focus on Jesus, diverting my attention from the fact that it must look funny for a very obviously white guy to be playing a drum in the middle of this Pow Wow circle.

The time on the drum flows into some time of offering up prayers to God. We then take turns praying and prophesying over each other. It was simple. It wasn’t fancy.  It’s just five of us. Encountering God on the drum. Singing songs to Jesus. Learning Jesus words. Praying and prophesying over each other.

I go home feeling like it was a semi-victory. I was hoping for more people. But it felt like good was done, friendships were strengthened, the Holy Spirit was present, and the gospel was spreading.

I’m reminded that every big thing God builds starts small.  Every tree starts with a seed. Today we must re-learn the power of seeds - and equip people to spread them where they need to be planted the most.

Jesus talked a lot about seeds. He said the kingdom of God is like a man who went out and sowed seeds. I can’t help but think we need a massive restoration of understanding the power of “seed movements” – how the gospel spreads through lots of little seeds.  I’m afraid we too often value the big over the small, the famous over the obscure, the flashy over the authentic, the conference over the prayer meeting, the large church over lots of small churches (that might grow into others).

Jesus became a seed, died, and bore much fruit.

Will you allow God to make you a seed to a dark place on your campus or in your city that needs Jesus?

Your work may not be immediately noticed (seeds seldom are). But God just might use you to plant seeds that grow into a movement that brings light to the dark places that need Jesus the most.

-- Erik

(Original blog at http://erikfish.wordpress.com/)

Who are you God? I guess I thought you were the God who created people with a calling. An assignment. A task.

I thought your relationship with me was like professor-student, master-servant, boss-employee. I wouldn’t have said I thought that. But I guess I thought it in my heart. Even though in my head I knew that we were supposed to be daddy-daughter, lover-beloved, dweller-dwelling place.

I guess I thought that since you created me with certain giftings and brought my life into a certain purpose, you had an expectation on my life. I guess I had an expectation on my life. And other people did too.

You enabled me to do things that you don’t enable everyone to do. People spoke it over me over and over again. You have a call on your life to be sent out. I thought I’m like a spring. Compress it in one place and it will have to be sprung out.  The tension never ceases. The tension to be released, to be sent out, to go. I knew it was true. It was in my heart to do.

To do. There is reality in that. We have an assignment to do. We have it in our hearts to do. We come alive when we do. We end up dead if we never do.

But there is a higher reality than doing. It’s being. You didn’t make me to do. You made me to be.

To be with you. That’s all I have to do.

But somehow I thought to do would cause me to be. With you. When really I had it backwards. So I set out to do my task. They all said I was sent. I knew I was sent. So they sent me out and I went. I prepared myself for a journey, leaving everything behind. I left my house. I left my town. I left my friends. And I went. Your calling was in my head. Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Come after me. And I said Goodbye officially.

I went but it wasn’t easy. Confusion settled in. Peace moved out. There in the heartache, the strangeness, the sense of poverty, I ran to your feet. To be. Finally.

And you spoke to me loud. You said, “You’re called, but you’re too young to forsake all.” You offended me. I remembered what you said about what it means to follow you. It means to forsake all. I remembered what you were doing throughout the world with youth. No one is too young for your call.

Then you showed me me. I was surprised to see me. A whitewashed tomb. Exterior shining beautifully, giving off the perception: Extraordinary. But interior full of rotting bones. Dead. Decaying.

Lauren, I care about your heart more than your calling.

Okay. I will stay. I won’t go traveling across the nation. I won’t go to new places. I will stay. I looked in your eyes and you loved me anyway.

That’s when it hit me. My God loves me. Even if all I ever do is be.

That’s when it hit me. I’m accepted not because of what I do. Jesus did it in my place. This is what we call grace. God thinks I’m awesome when I’m just sitting there.

I sat there looking at you refusing to do. Because all I wanted now was to be with you. God who are you?

Only once in your Word do you tell us to strive. You say, “Strive to enter my Rest.” You are the God who ended your doing with resting. Not because you needed it. But because it’s who you are. You were. You are. You are to come. You fulfill the verb To Be.

You made people in your own image. You made us like you. You made us to be. To be partners with you in your being. Oh God, now I know with all my heart, I was made for you. I was made to be with you. I love you God. I love you. I don’t know anybody else like you. You love me so real.

“Be in me, and I in you, and you will bear much fruit.”

If I don’t stay here with you, I will accomplish nothing.

“Be in my love.”

In your love I will be.

I met Jessica last summer in a Texas Government class at ACC. I offered her a ride home one day after class, and that was how our friendship began. We began studying together a couple times a week. Soon I met her roommates Lily, Pearla, and her sister Joyce. I love all these chicas so much!

Last February, God gave me a dream about Lily. In the dream, there were about 30 Latino students together in a living room, and Lily was leading them as a house church. After I dreamt this, I called Lily right away asking to meet up. We got together and I shared the dream with her and told her God was calling her as a spiritual leader in the Hispanic community. I think she was a little surprised because she didn’t really know God at the time. But this led me and these roommates to start meeting up to read God’s Word and get to know him.

Lily has really gotten to know God over the past few months, and she has a close relationship with Jesus now. She said that she prays to him and trusts him in every life difficulty, and he always comes through! Just last week, Jesus worked an amazing miracle in her life. Her legs were a little bit uneven lengths, and this was causing pain in one of her feet. We prayed in the name of Jesus and her leg grew out so that her legs are even now! Praise God!

Last night Jessica and Lily met up with me, Meghan, and Grace, and we read through John 4. It was so powerful and Lily and Jessica had great insight into the Word. God was really highlighting the distinction between spiritual water and spiritual food in this passage. We must drink the living water, which is being filled with the Spirit (John 7:37-39), but we must also eat the food, which is doing God’s work. Our lives should be a balance between these two things.

We went back to their apartment, and got to drink some living water as we prayed together. Then we got to eat some good food from God when Lily decided to get baptized! She was buried with Jesus and raised up with him! Hallelujah!

Pray for this sister as she moves to College Station this week… Lily, wherever you go, Jesus goes with you!

We live in a church culture that underestimates the value and power of baptism. Every single example you will find in the book of Acts, as soon as someone put their faith in Jesus, they were baptized. Now we have to go through this long process of filling out a “baptism application” form and wait for a date to be baptized by the pastor in a church. Well the only thing on my baptism application form is I have decided to follow Jesus, check! And the authority to baptize? Who has it? Who gives it? This is what Jesus said:

Jesus came and told his disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

If only the clergy can baptize, then only the clergy can fulfill the Great Commission. If that is the case, we have a serious lack in the number of workers and we all need to get ordained!

This week, some of us from the All Nations and SCPx family helped out at InterCP’s Missions Leadership Training. These young Korean American students are giving up a year of their lives to go live in the Middle East and to share about the straight path to the Kingdom of God through Isa al Masih (Jesus the Messiah). These close friends of mine challenge me every time I am around them because they are so all-or-nothing for Jesus, ready to take up their cross and follow him, and filled with the Father’s deep heart of compassion for the nations. You want to see some mighty prayer take place? Give an InterCP person a map. Praise God for the great work of mobilization that he is doing through this group!

As we shared last week about church planting strategies and the multiplying dna within the seed of the Kingdom of God, we realized that these students had never been released to baptize new believers! Not only that, but many of them had never been baptized themselves. Erik had them go outside immediately to be baptized, and as they dedicated themselves in obedience to God, heaven opened over us!

One of my favorite quotes: “As soon as the works of the Scriptures are taken out of the hands of the common people and put into the hands of trained professionals, a movement ceases to move forward.” – Erik Fish at the Las Vegas Baptisms

 

 

You ask God, “What is Your will for my life?”

Sometimes God responds, “What is in your heart?”

 

Does the Lord care about your heart?

Does He care about the things your heart desires?

Yes!

 

As my children grow, I often ask them, “What do you want to do when you’re older?” I look to see how God has uniquely shaped them – their gifts, the things they’re passionate about – and the things that concern them about the world they hope to change.

 

Fathers watch for the dreams of their child’s heart, and encourage them to go for it.

 

As your heart is set on loving Jesus, He shapes the desires of your heart. As you keep Jesus first in your life, pursuing these desires of your heart is an act of faith in the God who designed you in His image.

 

This is a season to dream with God. The world is shaped by those with the courage to risk failure and reputation to pursue the God-shaped design of their heart.

 

In the beginning, God told the first people (paraphrased), “Be fruitful and multiply. Tend the garden. Fill the earth…just don’t eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

 

God had some general instructions, but He left a tremendous amount of freedom up to Adam and Eve to decide how to tend the garden and where to go as they pursued God’s challenge for them to fill the earth. He left a lot up to them for how to dream and imagine and shape the garden and the earth according to the design God put inside them – their initiative and creativity would reflect His very nature. They abused this freedom and disobeyed the one thing He told them not to do. But God wasn’t done yet. He started a process of redemption in history to restore in us what was lost in the garden.

 

So, what did God want to restore that was lost in the garden? It’s a theological question humans have wrestled with for millennia. Early on God saw fit to give His people a complex system of laws in order to stay in covenant relationship with Him. Why did He do this? Paul says the Law was our tutor to bring us to Christ. I believe part of the reason for the Law was to show us that living by a system of rules and laws can never bring us to freedom and restore God’s dream for the planet.  Waiting for explicit commands sometimes can inhibit us from pursuing things God’s already planted in our heart to pursue.

 

When Christ died and rose again, what did He accomplish? Did He set us free to dream with God again out of a transformed heart?  Or did He just start a new system of Laws?

Today, God is restoring this aspect of dreaming with Him to see the world filled with people who dare to accomplish great things for God out of the passions of their heart.

 

The last year, my wife and I have been on an interesting adventure. We’ve experienced divine leading, supernatural open doors, specific direction, and times of waiting on the Lord. We’ve laid our lives before the Lord and said, “We’ll go anywhere you want to send us.”

 

The funny thing is, often we don’t sense God saying anything about where to go next. As we’ve prayed and sought God, we started to experience a part of God’s nature we had never experienced before.

 

We felt the Lord saying,

 

“What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? What do you dream about? You can do anything. You can go anywhere.”

 

“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

(Psalm 37:4)

 

Here’s the conclusion we’ve come to:

“When your heart is set to obey the Lord, and He gives no specific direction, it’s time to press toward the desires of your heart.”

 

What is in your heart?

 

There are seasons when we must wait on the Lord for specific instructions. We should always be tuned to alter our plans according to His specific leading. But here’s the side of God I believe He is calling many of us to know in this season: When you delight yourself in the Lord, pressing into the desires of your heart is an act of faith.

 

Do we actually believe God is big enough to give us the desires of our heart, protect us wherever we go, and that pursuing the desires of our heart is actually a journey into encountering Him in deeper ways?

 

For the world, we have good news to offer. If you delight yourself in the Lord, you’ll discover the dreams of your heart are already in His will for you.

 

This is an hour for dreaming and going. This is an hour for you to respond in faith and honor God by praying and responding out of the dreams of your heart.

           

If your heart is set on loving God and obeying Him, then I want to ask you,

 

“What do you dream of?

Where do you want to go?

What do you want to do?

 

Dream with God and trust Him to shepherd you as your pursue the dreams of your heart!

 

-- Erik

 

From Here to the Nations

The student church movement is about all of us being blessed by partaking of the Great Commission. The Great Commission is mentioned about a thousand times throughout Scripture (if you have eyes to see), but each time it makes it clear that we are to take the Gospel those BOTH near and FAR (e.g. Acts 1:8). So, I want to ask you today: What are you doing to make sure that the Gospel gets taken to those close to you? AND What you are you doing to make sure that the Gospel gets taken to those far away from you - those on the other side of the world? This movement of student churches realizes that the local neighborhood and the nations are not mutually exclusive - they are two sides of a coin.

Here are some ideas on how you might start to get involved in the nations:

1. Pray - What do you know? Prayer really does move heaven and earth. Make it a point to pray for the world each time you get together. Not sure where to start,

• Try this web site: http://www.operationworld.org/ It will give you a country to pray for each day. Begin to make it a part of your spriritual disciplines to learn about the world and pray for it.
• Pray through the daily news as you watch it or pray through the international headlines in a newspaper.
• Ask the people in your church which countries they are interested in. You might not even know why you are interested in them. Begin to pray for those places. Begin to notice when those places pop up in your life. What is the Lord saying to you about those countries?

2. Go short-term - You can go on a summer trip or a winter break trip. Perhaps you and the students in your simple church would like to plan a trip together. Perhaps some of you would like to help out financially to send a fellow student to another country. We can help train you and organize you through Global Storm, if you need some help getting going. Going cross-cultural is a rewarding and challenging experience. So, we can give you some cross-cultural training before you go and help direct you towards projects that are helpful and where you can really make a difference.

3. Give financially - I know you're college students and don't have much money. That's OK. When I was in college, our whole group together adopted one child overseas through a sponshorship program. I think I contributed about 50 cents/week to the fund. With all of us chipping in, we were able to make a difference in the life of one little girl. You might also consider contributing financially to a missionary serving the people you are interested in. Missionaries won't care if your offering is small in terms of dollar amount; they will see the huge heart behind it.

4. Find the world at your doorstep - You are on a college campus! How many countries walk by you each day? Take a chance and get to know some of those international students. Most of them are interested in you and Jesus. Maybe take some time and be deliberate in asking them lots of questions about their culture. Begin to learn one or two words of their language from them each time you meet. Learn how to greet them politely in their language. You will have fun, and you will likely get invited to go with them back to their country some day. Wouldn't that be fun? To go to another country and stay in someone's home? By the way, convince Mom and Dad to let your new friend come to stay in your American home. Your new friend will be blessed to see what every day American life is like.

Be Creative! Share here on the web site how you decide to get involved in the lives of those far away.

Some of you might not know that the movement of student church planters has gone worldwide already. Student CPx trainings have been done in Taiwan and Costa Rica over the course of the past year. I just found out that the students in Taiwan have started 13 churches so far this school year! Now, many of them want to be trained to reach the nations after graduation. This is just a beginning in Asia. The training we did really only impacted students from one small city in southern Taiwan and it has led to 13 churches already! What would it look like if students from America and Asia teamed up to reach the world? I think it would be pretty awesome.

Watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30rWm84z-zg



On February 12, 2010, the president of Haiti, President Preval, called the nation to 3 days of fasting and prayer in place of the celebration of Marti Gras. Over a million people showed up in the main square. From 6am to 6pm they cried out to God to heal their nation and repented of their sins. The Prime Minister came but could not address the crowd; he could only weep for an hour. Then President Preval came and the pastors laid hands on him and prayed for him. Over 3000 people were saved, and 101 of those had been voodoo priests.



I can imagine someone who doesn’t know God watching this video and thinking, what is this? These people experience a devastating earthquake. They lose friends and family members. They lose houses, jobs, and possessions. The whole nation is in upheaval. Why are they worshiping God? Why are they praying to the God who allowed this to happen? Why are people coming to faith in Christ? Why are they not enraged at God?



I can imagine this person who doesn’t know God thinking maybe these people are acting out of fear. They are afraid God will do it again and send more natural disasters, so they are praying to avoid his wrath. They are praying to appease his anger. But if you watch the video, you know that cannot be. There is no fear in their faces. There is Love. Hope. Desperation. Reverence. Brokenness. But no fear.



I can imagine a theologian thinking these people are worshiping God because they know he is worthy to be worshiped. The heavens are his, the earth is his, he can do as he wishes, and no matter the circumstances, he is worthy to be praised. Maybe that is true in some cases. And it is certainly true about God that he is worthy. But I don’t that’s why the people worship…



The reason they worship him is because they love him. They cannot help but stay in his presence. They cannot help but raise their arms in praise. I bet their arms were about to fall off after three days in the air. But I doubt anyone noticed or cared. They have to praise him.



But why do they love him when such horrors have come upon their people?



When all your physical comforts are taken from you in a second, and you are left without shelter, without food, without hygiene; when all your emotional comforts are taken from you and you are left without family, without home; when all that you have left is your own physical body keeping your soul on this earth, and even that physical body is perhaps broken and hurting, what will you turn to? What will you do with the next second of time when there is nothing that can be done, to undo the horrors, to go back to how it was before? What can you do but worship God? What can you do but cry out to him? Where can your soul turn but straight to where it always belonged, in the hands of your loving Father? What can you think to do except what was always inherent within you, to lift your eyes to God, and rend your heart bare before his eyes? And when his presence meets you in that moment, when repentance breaks off the bondages of many years, when you hear his Spirit weep along with your groaning soul, yet adorn you with an unknown shelter, an unknown strength, an unknown love, what will you do but worship him more, and resolve in your heart to never leave this place? Where else can you go? And what else can you do? And why, now that you are in his arms, would you want to go somewhere else or do something else even if you had everything back? There is nothing better than him. It is clearer than ever before. They love him because they cannot help but love him.



And so these people that have been broken, that have lost everything, that have suffered much devastation, have only this now. That God is still their God. And that God loves them. And strangely, they find that that is more than enough. That is life itself.



Beneath the peaceful blue skies, one million people are soaked in the rain of the Holy Spirit. In the midst of the silence, two million arms lift the weight of God’s glory. At a loss for words, their hands wave praises to the only God. The seconds feel like hours worth of revelation. The hours feel like only seconds have gone by. By the time the sun sets, the legs are shaky, the arms are numb, the eyes are falling into sleep. But the spirit says not enough. I’m satisfied, and it’s not enough. More of the presence of God. More time doing nothing but gazing. Doing nothing but worshiping. Doing nothing but waiting on him to speak. I cannot leave this posture of worship. It is what I was made for. It is where I belong. It is at once ecstasy and rest. Like nothing else in the world.



So the onlookers will marvel. They will guess, they will theorize, but they will never understand. Until they taste the presence of God for themselves. And then they will look at this earthquake, they will look at this revival, and they will say, GLORY BE TO GOD! FOREVER AND EVER! And no explanation is needed.

Jesus moves so quickly I can't even believe it!

I'm in a class called "Shamanism." It's about these Shamans (healers) who practice spiritual healing through making voyages into the spirit world and partnering with animal spirits to suck out sickness from a person's body. Yeah I know, crazy! But real. And very demonic. I was gonna leave the class. I remember telling people about it.... the response was "you should be careful" and "are you gonna drop?" It's dangerous to be in a place like that right? Well I prayed about it and Jesus was like, um hello, how else are these people gonna see me if the light never invades the darkness? So I stayed in the class. I have never been so alert in class before. haha. Because I have to pray in tongues the whole time! We actually watch videos of  Shamans healing people in class, and listen to recordings of trance-inducing drum patterns to see if they bring people into a trance. It is so freaky, and I can smell the demons. Everyone in that class is all about the spiritual realm. One guy practices witchcraft. One girl is a fourth-generation Shaman. Others have had near-possession experiences and crazy spiritual encounters.

Well, after class, I would always walk with people and try to get to know them a little bit. We would have conversations about our spiritual encounters. Everyone was so intrigued by hearing all this that we decided we should get coffee once a week after class to share more about our spiritual experiences.

So this past Wednesday I had coffee with a girl name Raelea. She is one of the most loving people I have ever met. Light beams out of her. I just knew she was a person of peace! She told me all about her beliefs that all religions are the same truth, and about harmony with the universe, and she told me her spiritual story. Then I shared my spiritual story about Jesus. She was completely in awe of my relationship with Jesus- especially the part about him talking with me! She kept saying, "That's so beautiful!" And from then on, she was all questions about Jesus, for the next two hours! We talked about everything. What Jesus did at the cross, how he rose again, what will happen at the second coming, who the beast is (because she had read revelation), when satan will be bound, who is going to hell, who the Holy Spirit is and why he came, etc! It was sooooooo intense. Then she started thanking me and saying that I couldn't even understand how amazing this conversation was, that she was a changed person. She said, "if you die tomorrow, it will be okay, because you have changed someone's life." She said that the past three of years of searching out spiritual Light have just accumulated in this moment, and she sees that Jesus is the fulfillment of all great spiritual truth! And she says she is now a follower of Jesus! Whaaattt! And then she starts talking about how we should "spread the word" through music! Because she is a musician. I'm like yeah! that is my dream! So we start walking to the Campus House of Prayer so that I can play a song I wrote.

On the way the Holy Spirit prompts me to boldly say, "Jesus is the only truth. All the other religions are lies." At first she has a hard time with this, but then she slowly recognizes the truth in this. (But she is back and forth on this, still struggling with the hell factor, understandably.) She asks, "What about Shamanism class?" I answer, "It's demonic." She gasps and says, "I knew it! I really felt that it was evil this whole time!" Then she figures out that I went there as a missionary and she is thanking me so much. "Thank you for coming to class to save me!" haha.

We get to the prayer house, and eventually, my prayer family comes in (because we pray there every night). Raelea stays to pray with us. We decide to prophesy over her. She is completely blown away by every picture/word that is given to her. She goes, "Guys, that was spoooot- on!" Thank God for my wonderful family that is so filled up with the Holy Spirit that they are ready at every moment to rock someone out with prophecy! Love you guyssss! Then we pray for baptism of the Holy Spirit over her. Then we prophesy over our brother Martin, and she gets a word for him! Yes Lord!

Ok so that is just Day One. It gets crazier the next day. I go over to her apartment to read the Bible with her. Her roommate Tiffany is there, and she is all wanting to talk with me because apparently Raelea came home the night before and was all excited and said she had the craziest night of her life! And that she met a "crazy Prophet girl." BWAHA! Tiffany is asking me all these questions because she is suspicious of me because she is churched, and it sounds to her like I'm part of a cult. (makes sense that is sounded that way because I used a lot of free spirit talk with Raelea "oh I'm not part of a religion, I just go with the flow of the Spirit" lol.) She says she doesn't go to church here in Austin because all the Christians "don't do anything," as in they don't go out, they don't smoke pot, they don't get drunk. She asks me if I smoke or get drunk. I say I get drunk on the Holy Spirit. So then she is asking me all these questions about the Holy Spirit. Anyway, the three of us end up reading through a lot of Acts. The Word of God speaks for itself, and Tiffany wants to get baptized in the Holy Spirit! I pray over her, and then she says she feels a peace like she has never felt in her whole life. And then the Lord releases a word for her that speaks directly and speficically into her life. And she is all flipped out and wanting to get her walk with God right again.

I don't remember why I start sharing healing stories from India. Tiffany goes, "Oh my god she should pray for Bob!" I'm like, who's Bob? Bob is Raelea's ex-boyfriend who broke BOTH of his arms 10 days ago while playing football on a UNICYCLE! Craaazy! So Raelea calls him and re-shares the India healing stories and asks if her friend can come over and pray for him. He's like, "sure if she doesn't mind weed." So we go to Bob's place. It is THE place. The crackhouse. People are walking in and out of the door without warning. Picking up and dropping off drugs. Everyone is sitting on the couches in a circle, listening to chill music, nodding heads and singing lyrics and smoking pot. I don't know the lyrics so I just nod my head and enjoy the Holy Spirit. Then eventually Bob remembers why we are there, and he asks, "um were y'all wanting to help me get better or something?" So I ask to lay hands and pray for him. Raelea and Tiffany come over and lay hands too without me telling them to do that! He takes his left arm (his worst arm) out of the sling, and I command the bone to be healed in Jesus' name. I don't have to ask because I see it on his face but I ask how he feels. He is tripping out. He is trying to explain the crazy sensation he feels all over his body. then he stretches out his arm and it almost straightens completely! Then the pain starts coming back. So I pray again. Again he feels the Holy Spirit. But there is still some pain left. But Raelea, Tiffany, and Bob definitely all have faith that something just happened. They agree that it is going to heal over night.

As we leave both the girls are sooo excited. they just had their first adventure with Jesus! And today I called Raelea, and apparently Bob texted her and said that his arm felt amazingly better this morning! Praise Jesus! He is turning that crackhouse into his kingdom house!

So this experience was amazing for me because I experienced for the first time what it means to go "from house to house proclaiming the gospel". It is not door-to-door evangelism like some people interpret it. It's just doing church with people in their homes and letting the news spread through natural networks of friends.

Please be in prayer for Raelea. She is under a lot of spiritual warfare because she is a vital person of peace for a difficult-to-reach community- artists, musicians, hippies, universalists- these are her friends. Satan is attacking her with all these other "cool" beliefs because she tends to think everything spiritual is cool and really good. At the same time she is really touched by Jesus. I'm praying that she will want to get baptized soon (she almost got baptized that first night but something held her back). That will really solidify her faith. 

Praise the Lord for what he's doing! THis is not just with me, we are seeing breakthrough in so many different communities! Crazy stories, like Meghan's brother wanting to read the Bible. I attribute it to the increase of prayer this semester. God gives us the grace to pray 2-3 hours together every night and we are being empowered by the Holy Spirit like never before. Jesus, Lord of Lords, is so MIGHTY! his GLORY is invading the earth! Hallelujah!