Love Wins in the Smokey Mountains

The next place we ministered in the Philippines rocked my world beyond anything I was expecting. We split our teams into three different groups. One group went to Davao where they ministered for the next week, another team went to minister to some local government officials in Manila, and I went with a group to minister to the Filipino Metro Ministries Team in Manila and then to some people that actually live in the trash dumps.

Metro Ministries founded the kid’s outreach, Sidewalk Sunday School, that I was involved in all last year. They basically take the Good News to kids on the streets and lavish love on them. We decided to go love on the Filipino Metro Ministries team and bring them encouragement. After all, these are people who give of themselves daily in really difficult situations such as seeing children and their parents live in a local trash dump called Smokey Mountains.  During our ministry time to the Metro team, we worshiped together, we prophesied and prayed over the staff there, and then we served them by washing their feet. It was a special time for all of us.

When we finished our time at Metro Ministries, a couple of their staff members took us to the trash dumps to minister. I had no idea what to expect. My initial thoughts were simply that people gathered at the trash dumps daily to salvage anything they could. However, I was soon to learn that people didn’t just come daily - they actually lived there. Upon our arrival I saw piles of dirt and trash covered with a swirl of flies. The people had actually built their “homes” out of the trash from plywood and various other materials. Many of the people that live there don’t know any different as they’ve never left the trash dumps.

Soon after we arrived we had the opportunity to pray for a man who worked at the trash dumps. He was having trouble seeing clearly and after we prayed for him, his blurry vision was completely cleared up! Praise God for His healing touch!

As we walked deeper into the dump, we went through a smoky area where they burn the trash.  I realized that in the direct line of this polluted smoke were homes where people lived. We were informed that many of them develop lung issues because of the smoke. So that’s why they call this particular dumpster, Smokey Mountains. It is nothing like the beautiful Smoky Mountains of Tennessee where mountains of earth are covered by the beauty of mist and fog. No, this place is actually covered with mountains of burning garbage…and the people who live there are impacted by it daily. It makes my heart so sad to think of these devastating living circumstances.

After walking a little while, we came to an 83 year old woman’s home that was made out of plywood and hoisted on stilts. Her name was Emily and she was immobile because the muscles in her legs were so weak. She had also broken either her arm, wrist or hand. The exact area that was broken was lost in translation. She cried as she shared that she was asking God to either take her or to heal her if He had a purpose for her to live. We prayed for her to be healed and she felt improvement in her arm. The pain lessened – praise God! After we prayed for her she said that tomorrow she would walk and the next day she would go to church! She had so much spunk and resilience even in a very difficult spot. As I sat there and listened to her, I realized she had an incredible heart of gratitude and faith. She shared with us that she would go to the Dr. for her wrist on Monday but she didn’t have the money to pay the Dr. or even to purchase food. We prayed for her financial needs as well. She shared of how every time she has prayed for food, someone came along with provision. Even with her disabilities she cared for a little baby whose mom was only a teenager. I was struck by how her daily life is full of dependence on God’ provision for her needs at a level that is beyond anything I’ve ever known. I feel like I can learn a lot from this woman who is full of resilience and the ability to strengthen herself in the Lord.

When we finished praying and talking with Emily, we walked a little further to a body of water where kids were swimming. The Metro Staff person explained that this water served as the kids play area as well as the public bathroom. I stood there watching them play in this filthy water and smelled the stench of human waste wafting off the very water they were enjoying so much. It was then that the tears started to flow. But I quickly composed myself because we had kids to go love on. At this point, I became aware of the fact that I was in shock. My heart for justice rose up. But I was also aware that at the end of the day, love wins. Love always wins. I may not have been able to take each of those kids home with me, but I could love them in that moment…that one moment I was given with them.

So our team did just that. The guys on our team quickly became human jungle gyms as the kids climbed on their backs and were swung around in circles. We all held their hands and hugged them. We prayed for their infected eyes and smoke filled lungs. We made balloon art for them and shared smiles with them. Even in the midst of their circumstances, I found the children to be quick to smile and many of them had life in their eyes. It was another reminder to me of how much one can be poor in the natural but so rich in spirit. We did a drama for the children and several of the kids accepted Jesus as their Savior! I’m sure all of heaven was rejoicing!

It was difficult to love them and then leave them. I definitely let the tears flow once we had left. The kids were so hungry for love.  And love is what we gave them…the best gift of all. Why? Because love never fails. As Heidi Baker says, “love looks like something”. On this day it looked like playing with kids covered in dirt, hugging them, and sharing the Good News with them. On another day it may look like something else entirely different. But love always looks like something…and love always wins. And so I will forever choose love.

All photos are compliments of one of my fellow teammates:
Heidi Fehr.

Fun in the Philippines: Part Two

Our first Sunday in the Philippines was one of the biggest hi-lights of the whole trip for me and one I will not soon forget. Our team of 42 was split up into 9 teams that dispersed to different churches all over the city of Manila. I was placed with our fearless leader and activator extraordinaire, Lindsay Coil. She is actually Filipino and is married to Matt Coil whom she met while he was serving as a missionary in the Philippines. They currently reside in Redding and Lindsay serves as Eric Johnson’s administrative assistant. Eric is Bill Johnson’s son and one of the senior leaders here at Bethel. Lindsay is a girl after my own heart when it comes to administration and being organized! I applaud her, and really all of our team leaders, for doing such a fabulous job of keeping our team informed regarding our schedule and various other details. Lindsay even created a binder with our team member’s information, team meeting notes, packing list, and schedule for our time in the Philippines. Call me crazy – but this binder made me very happy! If I ever had a question, my answer was often found in this delightful notebook.

Lindsay and Matt had been building a relationship with Hosea Praise Church over the last couple of years so it was a privilege and honor to be invited to minister to them again. The name of the church reflects them well! As our team of 5 (Lindsay, Mark, Sam, Christina, and I) were praying before church and asking God what He was wanting to do in the service, we all sensed we were about to enter a very big praise party – quite appropriate for Palm Sunday. And boy did we ever! If there’s one thing that encompasses the Church in the Philippines, it’s that they are true worshippers. I think God is so pleased with them because of their hearts of pure worship. In fact, Hosea Praise Church has had angel feathers and gemstones from heaven fall during their worship services. Honestly, I had been hoping to see these gemstones fall from heaven while I was there – who wouldn’t? We didn’t see that this time but I’m still hoping to experience that someday here on earth. Perhaps such a thing sounds crazy and unthinkable to you. I know – I’ve come to realize some things God does are a mystery though. As the father of Bethel Church, Bill Johnson, says, “it’s a sign that makes you wonder.” The first time I had seen anything like this was when I watched the documentary, Finger of God. The director of the film, Darren Wilson, travelled around the world capturing what God is miraculously doing – including gemstones falling from heaven, gold dust appearing during services (which has happened several times over the past year here at Bethel – we like to call it a glory cloud), and other amazing healing testimonies. He actually didn’t intend to make the film. He had no budget for it, didn’t have any connections, and had never made a feature film before. The documentary itself is a miracle considering all of this! God certainly paved the way for him to produce the film and capture phenomenal miracles on video thus revealing the heart of God for all of us. I highly recommend viewing this documentary if you haven’t seen it yet.

We met some very friendly members of the church upon our arrival at Hosea Praise Church whom we enjoyed chatting with for a bit before the service started. It didn’t take them long to nickname a couple of my team members. Sam was deemed to be Justin Bieber, and once they heard Christina sing and play the piano, they called her Kim Walker. I think Sam and Christina liked their new nicknames. J Soon after we arrived I asked God to hi-light a church member to me to help me doing a prophetic painting during the worship. Let me pause here lest you are wondering what prophesy means. Prophesy is a gift of the Holy Spirit and very simply put, it means I ask God what’s on his heart to say and then I release that through whatever means He’s leading me to release it whether it be through art, acts, dance, or words, etc. If you want to do a more in depth study on prophesy, a good place to start is with Kris Vallotton’s book, Basic Training for the Prophetic Ministry.  He leads you through several scripture verses that help unpack this wonderful gift of the Spirit. I have done prophetic paintings before – but never in front of a congregation and never in partnership with someone.  A young lady named Michelle stood out to me so I asked her if she would like to paint together. She was absolutely delighted to do so. Later she informed me she had never painted before but one would never know from her excited yes to my request.  Her willingness and excitement to do something new encompassed such childlike faith – absent of all fear – which allowed her to have so much fun as we painted together. Oh that I may respond in the same way whenever I receive an invitation to do something new for the Lord! I had actually dreamed about a painting a couple nights prior and in it, there was a field of purple flowers. So we painted that together and the main message I felt God was saying through it was simply that it’s a season of multiplication for Hosea Praise Church. The interesting thing is that they are in the process of getting a new and larger church building. It will be exciting to see how God multiplies their church and their kingdom work! Christina also did a prophetic art piece and found out after she was finished that someone in the congregation had actually had a dream with her painting in it! It’s interesting that both of our paintings were tied into dreams. I love how God speaks in so many different ways!

Lindsay shared an encouraging word and called all the teachers to the front so that we could pray and prophesy over them since they are the ones leading the leaders of the next generation. She felt strongly that we should pour into them – so we blessed them and watched God love them through our prayers. Sam shared some prophetic art with one of the pastors and you could tell the pastor was really moved by it. In fact he was so touched by it; he ended up on up kneeling on the ground. Mark released and encouraging word about thankfulness and then sang a song over the congregation. It was evident that what Mark was sharing what was on God’s heart for the morning. Christina played the keys and sang a powerful prophetic song over the church. I’ve found that when Christina sings, the Presence of God falls in the room. It certainly did during this service! God has given her a huge destiny with her voice, and I’m so excited to see where He takes her! She also sang Let It Rain for me while I prophetically danced for a young woman in the congregation. That was a first for me! I had danced before the Lord in the privacy of my own home – but definitely not in front of a church congregation. Thankfully, the Lord honored my willingness to step out in this new area of ministry for me and really blessed this young lady. Praise God! I shared Isaiah 35 with her as I felt that was the Scripture God was giving her and simply hi-lighted a few things in the chapter that were for her. It was a truly beautiful moment.

We also had an opportunity to share words of knowledge about what God was healing. The beautiful thing about Hosea Praise Church is that they have taken what Lindsay and Matt have taught them about healing in the last few years and have run with it! So much so that the church didn’t have that many sick people. Why? Because they’ve taught their congregation how to pray for each other when they’re ill! They see God heal them on a regular basis because of that. There were a few words of knowledge we received though, and I received the clearest word of knowledge I’ve ever had before. I was scanning the image of a body in my mind’s eye and as I did, I saw a bright light – almost like and explosion of light on the left shoulder. So I asked if there was anyone there with pain in their left shoulder. And sure enough – the pastor’s Mom came forward for prayer! She was only able to raise her arm half way before we prayed. Then after we prayed she was able to raise her arm all the way up above her head! God is so good! After that I prayed for an older lady who was suffering from leukemia. While I was praying for her she fell back under the power of God (don’t worry someone caught her and helped her into a chair). I asked her what was going on and with tears streaming down her face she said that she couldn’t explain it but that her knees felt week and she couldn’t stand any longer. I told her it was OK because she was just being touched by God because He loves her so much.

And then the worship team started playing again and we concluded the entire morning praising God for all He had done. I thought that we had an amazing time of worship earlier in the morning, but the worship at the end of the service went to an entirely new level – it was indeed the praise party we had anticipated and the perfect way to end our time there.

Stay tuned…more to come in the days ahead! J

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…