What I'm doing and how God's moving

Hi guys. I've realized that there are probably a lot of people out there wondering what on earth I'm doing and where on earth I'm doing it. So here's a quick post of what's been happening, how I've been seeing God move, what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

I'm still in the beautiful land of Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Chronicles of Narnia (that is New Zealand.) During my Discipleship Training School (DTS) with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) I started asking God "what's next?". After a long time of getting prayer from important people back home and asking for confirmation, it seemed like God was clearly saying that I was to stay and work at the base I did my school at. As of right now I'm pretty much the "fill in the gaps guy". I've worked in the registrar office, compiling flight, immunization, insurance, emergency contact information and a ton of other stuff so that students can go on outreach and be safe. I have been a lunch cook. I am currently working as a groundskeeper/maintenance man working on the upkeep of the YWAM base here in Tauranga. The base is currently switching gears from pioneering mode to settlement mode, and I feel that God has brought me here to help ease the transition by helping to do whatever is needed to keep the background work of the ministry going so that the more evident work of training and discipling students can continue uninterrupted.

Basically right now I'm running around getting information to help leaders with outreach and making sure we have all the necessary information if there were to be some sort of accident, and also: mowing, washing cars, cleaning, weeding, trimming, lifting, moving, building and the list goes on. But that's just what's in the job details. Part of what I do is also leading a small team to help me with the work that needs to be done around the base. We work together for about 2 hours every day, and we talk while we work, which often leads to some of the fun parts of my job.

Recently while talking with one of the students that works with me, I found out that he had a shoulder injury that has been causing him lots of pain and he didn't have full mobility in it. He had injured it playing football, and had surgery, but the surgery didn't really help the pain. He's had the injury for about two years and hasn't been able to play the sports that he loves. I got to share a bit of my testimony of how God has brought me from being in a place where I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs to being what I am now. (As a maintenance guy, I've had to chop up some trees, and move the discs to a shed to dry for fire wood. Some of the wood I'm moving is easily 100 pounds. YAY JESUS. :D ) He let me pray with him and after a few minutes of prayer, he was able to move his shoulder in ways that he was previously incapable of moving it. About 80% of his pain is gone, and nearly all of his mobility is back. I don't really get why it's not 100% healed, but I'm going to celebrate the 80% that was made better! After seeing this, another student asked us to pray for his back because he could barely bend over without being in terrible pain. The student who's shoulder was just healed and I prayed for his back and  when we asked him to test it out he got a smirk on his face. He had full flexibility and no pain. This is my Jesus. This is why I LOVE MY JOB.

On the school that came in July, a friend of mine sprained her back to the point where she had trouble walking, and could barely bend over. She was in and out of the hospital for medication for a week, but she was able to make it to friday morning intercession. The leader of the July school was there and asked to pray for healing for her, and she said that would be fine, but wasn't expecting much because we had already prayed for her for nearly 3 hours during the course of the week. I reached into my bible to get out some anointing oil a friend had given me so we could put James 5:14-15 into practice. She got up to stand in the middle of the room, quite slowly. Then we anointed her and prayed to our loving father, commanding the pain to go and flexibility to return. After what probably around 5 minutes of prayer, we asked her to try it out, to do something that she couldn't do before. She reached down and touched her toes without even thinking about it!

As base staff here at Marine Reach Training, I have the unique opportunity to speak into students lives as a friend. All students have one DTS staff member who will spend an hour or so with them a week to talk to them and is specifically there to disciple them. I'm at the base almost all the time, and when I talk to students it's because I want to be there, to talk to them, to laugh with them, to chill or do something crazy. Base staff often become good friends with the students and have an opportunity to speak into their lives as a friend, not as someone above them, but someone who has been through a lot of the same teachings, new experiences etc,  and wrestled with the same challenges. So while I'm installing hydraulic door closers, or building steps in the valley, or cutting down ugly hedges, I'm getting to sow into the lives of the students that work with me and see them change, and celebrate their victories with them.

Some quick stats of what happened with the July school's outreach. A team that went to Indonesia saw at least 35 people be discharged from the cancer ward/ICU because God used them to heal the christians, muslims, and hindu's that they prayed for, including a woman they were told that there was no point in prayer for, because she's a hopeless case. The Solomon team saw the eye's of the blind opened (not figuratively, I'm talking completely blind people being able to see because of the name of JESUS.) The Vanuatu team walked into a High Security prison without papers, into the place that not even family members are able to go, where they shared the love of God, and the worst of the worst gave their lives to Jesus. The Fiji team saw the demonically oppressed healed and set free, and people filled with the Holy Spirit as a result of partnering with Him to bring him to tired and weary villagers. The team that went to southeast Asia got to teach the growing church, and see orphans experience the love of God in such a tangible way that it changed the way the children saw themselves, others, and the way they lived. God is on the move, and this stuff isn't available to only the "spiritual elite". It's for those that believe to heal the sick, raise the dead, save the lost, and bring the light of the world into the darkest places. Go after God, and His Kingdom, AND NEVER LOOK BACK.

Outreach Stories V2

God answers prayers. My outreach was a lesson in learning to trust God to come through when you need Him to come through, and because my team was learning to lean on God and his promises and goodness, we saw him come through in some pretty cool ways. 

The day after we landed in Vi-tn-m we were trying to get to an open church where we had a contact to meet up with. Asian traffic is crazy, taxi drivers often don't know all the back alleys, and get confused. We also only had an address to go
on and there were two streets with the same name that were some distance apart. As a result, one of our taxis got lost in Ha-Noi having no idea where they are in a city where very few people speak english, and those that do often don't speak conversationally. After driving around for about an hour and paying way more than they were supposed to, one of my leaders and half of my team-mates were missing.

Having no other option than to just stop and pray, my leader Laura did just that, asking God to show them where they were, and how to get to where they needed to be. Literally seconds after praying, a white man passed on a bike, and pedalled back to where Laura was. He asked "Are you going to church?" and proceeded to tell her exactly where they were, where the church met, even down to where it was in the building.

Another time, my buddy Jed and I were trying to get back to our hotel with only a map with a few land marks and a general knowledge of what busses we need. Unfortunately, we couldn't figure out where the bus stop that we needed was and to make a long story short, we ended up in the bottom right corner of the map, and we needed to be in the top right corner of the map. We were walking down the street totally frustrated, having no idea where we were, and knowing that very few people in the city could speak English at all. I prayed, "God, please send us someone who can speak english and tell us where we are." desperate to figure out a way back so we could meet up with the rest of our team- mates without spending the little cash that I had on me. We were in front of a coffee shop, and a lady came to try and help us, but she couldn't speak english well enough to give us any clear directions. Then, a man drove up on his motor bike, came over and in clear English showed us where we were. We saw that there was supposed to be a bus station near us, and proceeded to walk away after getting our bearings. I looked back, expecting to see the man going to pick up a coffee, but instead I saw him get back on his bike and drive away. A perfect stranger stopped and helped us a minute after asking God for something that I thought was a little bit too big.

Since coming back from outreach I read in 1 Timothy "Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment." There isn't a whole ton of money in volunteering for YWAM, and I had enjoyed having a bike while I was in Vi-tN-m. As soon as my plane landed back in New Zealand I started asking Him for a bike, being encouraged by the scripture previously mentioned. 

The maintenance man (who is also my room-mate and great friend) needed help moving someone's stuff from their house to an accommodation near our base. He had been praying for a nice grill to cook on since before he left to work on the base. The woman we were helping to move asked, "Do you happen to know anyone who needs a nice grill?" My friend Ben just started laughing. He now has a grill to barbecue on. I saw this answer to prayer and sent up (rather selfishly) "Dad, where's my bike?". We were moving cabinets out of the garage, when I happened to look to it's side and noticed a bike leading against it. I asked, with hope rising in my heart, "Do you want us to load up the bike too?" She laughed and said, "No, that can be taken to the rubbish". She proceeded to tell me that it was just ugly and she didn't have room for her, so excitedly asked her if I could "take it off her hands for her", and she agreed. 

Even as I'm writing this God is showing his faithfulness. I was craving some Fish'n'Chips, but there wasn't any space in the vans to go and get some. A friend brought some back and gave it to me. Answered prayers are delicious and satisfying.

God bless, and may he show you his incredible favour and kindness as you seek to know his heart and see his face.

Outreach Stories Vol:1

Here is a story of what God did for and through my Prayer & Passion team while we were in Vietnam. This was the first time that a school from the YWAM Marine Reach base had gone into Vietnam, so the purpose of the trip was twofold. We were there first and foremost to share the Good News of Jesus and his Kingdom, but we were also there to create contacts and find out what future outreach teams have for options in serving the people and country of Vietnam. As a result of the latter, we went to many different ministries and didn't get much time to heavily sow into a ministry, but God still accomplished His will and purpose for us during our time there. 

One of the things that we did day and and day out was to go out on prayer walks. While my team and I were in Saigon (the old capitol of the south) we went around a large portion of the city praying and asking God to break through and touch people's hearts and minds. The vast majority of Vietnam is Buddhist, and is covered in pagoda's and temples. In almost every store front there are small altars with offerings of money, fruit, choco-pies, and Coca-Cola, and in most taxis and busses there are pictures or small statues of gods on the dashboards. There's a mentality of religiosity everywhere, most everyone worships something, be it Buda, other house-hold gods, ancestors, money or glamor. And where there are visible churches, they are generally quite tall, lofty, and filled with statues of saints, in almost identical fashion to how Buddhist temples are set up. It was quite heart breaking to see that the truth was available in the south, but it was so controlled that the understanding of relationship with God as a personal, loving father rarely saw the light of day. Christianity is generally just another thing you 'do', just like going to the temple or the pagoda. This is why we prayed so much, asking God to soften the hearts of the Vietnamese to the truth of the Gospel and the Kingdom of God. 

 

 

 

On one of our prayer walks, I had the chance to go to a major cathedral in Saigon. It was quite beautiful, but also sad because it was more of a tourist site than the house of the Lord. You could go in, and there were pews, but a lady stood in front of them at a gate so that ordinary site seers wouldn't be able to just go in and mess around. I felt strongly like I was supposed to go into the pews and pray that the revelation of God as a loving father would come to, and spread from this place. I walked up to the lady at the gate, asked if I could go in and pray (not knowing if I would be allowed) and she immediately opened it for me, and I went in to pray and intercede. After about 20 minutes, I felt like I was done and went back to my group. My teammates proceeded to tell me that they had tried to get in to the pews and pray as well, but the lady had stopped them and asked them if they were Catholic. When they said that they weren't, she denied them entrance. It was really cool to see that when you are obedient to what you hear God telling you to do, he opens doors for you to do it.

One day, as a result of a miscommunication, we did a prayer walk at a zoo. I went into thinking "why on earth are we doing a prayer walk HERE?", but felt God was saying, "Just do it, I have something important that I want to show you". Most of the time while I was in the zoo I was just sad. The animals had a very limited amount of space to move around in, nothing close to what they are supposed to have. They were all out of their natural habitat and had filthy living conditions. I didn't understand what God was speaking to me until the next day. We went to a large Open Church that day. It was very regimented, you sat, you stood, you sang, you sat again, you listened, and repeated. This was mostly because to stay an Open Church, there are certain guidelines that you have to abide by. There are certain things you can teach on, and things that you would get in major trouble for saying. And this is where the Zoo comes in. Just like all the animals in their cages, the Church in Vietnam has very little breathing room. They don't have the room to be what they were born to be; wild, crazy, Jesus lovers. Seeing that burdened my heart for them to experience the freedom, that as a westerner, I've come to expect my entire life.

The other side of the picture is where people have caught onto the precious truth that is worth dying for. Some of the people we met had been thrown interrogated, beaten, persecuted, and thrown into prison for the sake of the Gospel. So while persecution is terrible, it can also cause the truth to spread faster and more rapidly when people see how worthy our Lord and Savior is.