Fun in the Philippines: Part One

My heart is overflowing with the events of the last several weeks. I recently returned from a mission’s trip with around 40 other radical revivalists to the Philippines. I fell in love with both the Filipino people and the ministry team I had the honor and privilege of traveling and ministering with. One of the first things I noticed about the Filipino people is that they are full of warmth and love. In fact, they are so generous with their hospitality that I found myself feeling like I was being treated like royalty! The Filipino’s captured the heart of honor and love in their hospitality and for that I’m so grateful.

I must also tell you how wonderful the ministry team I served with is! They are all filled with so much joy that the entire trip felt like a big party – even when we were so tired be it from jet lag or long ministry days.  It didn’t matter what was going on, our days were filled with laughter. In fact, whenever something went completely different than we planned, we chose to laugh at it. That’s what happens when you get a group of people together who are crazy in love with Jesus and filled with His presence. And since God is in a good mood and He resides in us, it seems fitting that laughter be our first instinct don’t you think? The unity among our team was extraordinary and such a blessing!

I watched each team member daily love extravagantly whether it be loving fellow team members or loving the Filipino people. I realized this pure love that was flowing out of them wasn’t from a place of strife. Rather it is the essence of who they are because God resides in each of them. It came easily and from hearts filled with purity and overflowing with love. One of my biggest takeaways from this trip is simply this: love never fails. My own heart actually received inner healing as I received love from my team members.  And as a result of their love, God’s grace, and perfect timing, I believe I blossomed and the full fragrance within me was able to be released as I ministered.  When the atmosphere is charged with honor, love, respect, freedom, kindness, and patience, one can’t help but have the best drawn out of them. It’s an atmosphere I want to carry with me wherever I go. I am forever marked by the love I experienced from my team members whom I now call dear friends. I believe it’s safe to say so were the Filipino’s we had the privilege of ministering to.

There are so many testimonies I can share with you from this trip it’s hard to know where to begin! Or yestimonies as we call them in my weekly outreach Sidewalk Sunday School.  A yestimony is something good God does that we say yes to so He can do it again! So as I share these stories with you, know that they can all be repeated in your own life if you’re in need of a similar miracle. Nothing is impossible with God!

One of the first opportunities we had to minister was at a Church So Blessed Conference. Our team leaders had asked us to ask God for some words of knowledge about what He wanted to heal during the service and then to draw a picture of the body part that we received a word of knowledge about. I hadn’t really received many words of knowledge before this trip as it was a rather new gift of the Spirit for me.  But it’s really simple. You just ask God about what He’s healing and He shows you. Sometimes you see a picture of it, other times it’s an impression, and some people actually sense pain or even heat in their body that wasn’t there before so they know it’s a word of knowledge for someone else. Another way is to simply scan the body in your mind’s eye and see what God hi-lights as you scan.

So I saw a picture of a jaw in my mind and drew that. After we drew our pictures, we announced them to the congregation and had anyone who needed healing for that particular problem come forward. But we didn’t pray for them the way you would typically think of praying. That is something I love about prayer language – it just doesn’t fit into a little box! Believe it or not, English isn’t God’s first language. :) So instead of praying in English, we placed our artwork on the body part that needed healing (if appropriate) and then laughed over it for about thirty seconds or so.  And we saw many people be healed from various ailments! There were too many to count. I had a line of people come up for prayer for their jaws and I saw God heal several of them simply by putting the artwork on their jaw and laughing!

One of my favorite memories of this day was when I had the impression that someone had a problem with their chin. I however discredited this word of knowledge and quickly thought I was simply making it up. In my mind it sounded ridiculous so I talked myself out of it. Boy was I wrong! God was setting me up for a lesson though. I was shocked when I heard my teammate Anna call out that her word of knowledge -  that someone had something wrong with their chin. No one responded right away. Kevin Dedmon who was leading the service received more words of knowledge about this person. He began to say that the chin injury was accident related. It took a while for the young woman to come forward. It turns out she had a scar on her chin and when she was a little girl she had been abused and thrown around. Often times her hair would be pulled so hard that her head was very sensitive and she was unable to pull her hair back in any way. After she received prayer, God healed the sensitivity in her head and she was able to pull her hair back into a pony tail! It didn’t stop there though. She also had physical repercussions on the top of her head from being thrown around. I’m not sure if it was an indentation or if it was a bump on the top of her head, but after prayer, her head shape was back to normal! She then said she wanted to be taller. It’s common for us at Bethel to pray for someone who has one leg longer than the other one and we’ll see their back come into alignment and their one leg grow to the length of the other. This young woman didn’t have any problem with one leg being longer than the other…she just wanted to be taller. So a few people on our team prayed for her and a few days later one of our team members received a text saying that she had grown two inches since we had prayed for her! I love how God cares for the desires of our hearts! This whole situation taught me that I do hear clearly from God, and to not second guess things – even when it sounds crazy in my own mind. To think – God did all of these things for this young woman and it all began with a simple word of knowledge about a chin!

Later in the day, during this same conference, we all had an opportunity to teach a workshop on our chosen topic. I helped teach the SOZO workshop. SOZO means saved, healed, and delivered and the purpose of SOZO is to connect you with God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit. There are several tools to help this process along and that was what we were teaching. Often times forgiveness is one of the key tools used during SOZO. While the focus on SOZO is inner healing, it’s not uncommon to see physical healings take place simply because of forgiveness and emotional healing taking place. After the session was over, I was approached by a young woman who wanted me to pray for her. After talking with her for a bit, I learned that she felt like her relationship with God was disconnected because she had given herself to her boyfriend, and she was feeling ashamed and guilty. So I led her through a prayer to receive forgiveness from God and also a prayer of forgiving herself. As we prayed, shame and guilt could stay no longer because Jesus paid for that on the cross! In fact, she mentioned that when we were praying she saw a picture in her mind of the cross and then she saw God come and embrace her. Their connection had been restored! Praise God! That’s what SOZO is all about. I also remembered that God loves to restore his children’s virginity so we asked God to do that so that when the day comes for her to celebrate unity with her husband; all will be redeemed and restored. There have been many testimonies of how God has done that for others – I’m trusting He’ll do the same for this precious young woman.

Another hi-light from this day was getting to hang out with the kids and paint their faces! They were precious and it was wonderful to get to love on them and tell them so! One little girl stole my heart. She sat down for me to paint a flower on her face and before I knew it she was speaking encouraging words over me! I thought – wait a minute – I’m the one who’s here to speak encouraging words over you! But that’s how the body of Christ works, right? We get to encourage one another – it’s a two way street of giving and receiving. What a beautiful gift! We talked for quite a while and exchanged drawings with each other.  I told her I would treasure her drawing always and she responded that her heart would be broken if she ever lost my drawing. What a precious girl!

There are more stories to come! But for now, I’ll let you ponder these. God did so much it’s hard to capture it all. But I’m going to do my best to share as many hi-lights as I can. To be continued…