The anticipation builds!

When Lou Engle came into school to talk about Azusa Now towards the beginning of school I felt goosebumps, this was something so exciting and I was blessed to be alive, to be at BSSM for just such a time as this. Since then my excitement and anticipation has continued to rise and now our trip to LA is only a couple of weeks away!

So what is Azusa Now?

There are times which Scripture describes as "full" — periods of unusual ripeness in which God unleashes His prophetic purpose across the earth.  Such days of faith and expectation often come during periods of crisis or widespread uncertainty. For 15 years, amidst massive cultural decay, Lou Engle and TheCall have sought to proclaim the bold, uncompromising message of consecration to Jesus. Like John the Baptist, we have cried out, "Prepare the way of the Lord!"

Yet the last statement of John was not "Prepare the way," but "Behold the Lamb!" If there was truly a John Movement, then a Jesus Movement is surely coming! Believing that decades of globe-spanning prayer have saturated the heavens, we will boldly ask God for the rain of revival on April 9th, 2016. We will consecrate an entire day — 15 hours — for the purpose of unity, miracles, healing, and the proclamation of the gospel. Our rally cry: Come, Holy Spirit! Instead of 120 in the Upper Room, we seek to gather as many as 120,000 in one place and one accord to simply exalt Jesus. And for inspiration, we turn to the most powerful expression of revival in modern times: the historic Azusa Street Revival of 1906. (From http://www.thecall.com/azusa)

So on April 4^th around 2000 BSSM students head down to LA for 5 days of street ministry before the big event itself on the 9^th. On the 9^th there will also be around 1000 of the local Bethel Church family joining us for the event. The event is also being supported by lots of local LA churches, YWAM, Christ for the Nations and other great organisations. It is going to be an amazing event.

Over recent weeks God has been speaking to me about Azusa Now being the beginning of something we have never seen, that is, worldwide revival. It excites me that about 6 weeks after Azusa Now students from all around America and the world will have graduated and be heading home and they will all be carrying the seeds of what they saw and were part of at Azusa. They will be carrying testimony home to add to the beautiful expressions of revival that God is doing throughout the earth, not because what they have is better but because it will enhance what God is already doing. How exciting is that! I truly am so blessed to be able to be a part of this and feel so privileged that God called me for such a time as this. We really do live in the most exciting of times.

So my Revival Group and 5 others (about 400 people or thereabouts) are in the South West area of LA and this has the Coliseum in, LAX (the airport), Venice Beach, 4 Universities and lots, lots more. It is a very diverse area with lots of cultures across ethnicities and social class and there are lots of different things planned for the 4 days before Azusa Now for us to impact the area and the people who live there.

There are 4 other areas that the other revival groups will be impacting before we all come together to be the ministry team for the event itself and they are expecting at least 80,000 people to attend. It's mad, I cannot imagine what 80,000 people looks like, never mind if the event is full and there are 120,000 people. I just know that it is going to be an amazing day and am truly looking forward to worshipping God there and seeing what he wants to do.

Other reasons I am excited are:

Recently, when I was fundraising for the trip, one of my leaders sent me a message that encouraged me even more than I already was. Those who know me know that I am excitable! Talking about Azusa and thinking about it, even writing this blog gives me goosebumps, I just know we are going to see God come and move in powerful ways. He wants to show LA that he is real and that he loves them and we get to partner with that, how awesome! However, the thing that got me more excited was that this leader had been in LA with his wife about 3 years ago and God had told them to go to Azusa Street and get on their knees and pray, 'God do it again, revival breakout!'. This they did. Then this year they have met another couple who God had do the exact same thing last year. Love it, God has been preparing the way for this for a long, long time and I know that no matter how excited I am, he is more!

One of the biggest things that gets me excited about Azusa Now is that it is all about unity. The church coming together, the nations coming together, believers coming together to say that God is Sovereign and to invite him to have his way. It is so beautiful! All we need to do is go, listen to his voice, see what he is doing and join in with him and we will see him do extraordinary things through us, his people.

How amazing is it that BSSM decided to cancel all their ministry trips (they normally do over 70 trips to over 40 nations and many, many wonderful testimonies are brought back) and send all their students to Azusa Now. That means that all those testimonies that are usually a part of the trips around the world are all going to focussed around the LA area, one city in one country. With all my heart, I do not believe that this can happen and LA remain the same, even if the seeds are not easy to see at first, they will grow and LA will never be the same again after the 9^th April and the few days before.

In case you have not noticed yet, I'm a little excited about this trip! I would love for you to partner with us in prayer to invite God to come and invade and do what he wants to do. For him to prepare hearts for what he has in store for them and to make us bold witnesses for him. As we get closer to the event I hope to be able to tell you more of the detail of what we will be doing for more specific prayer. But for now, thanks for reading and I truly appreciate your prayers!

Be blessed.

Stuff and more stuff with a little bit of honour!

So it's been a while since my last blog and I have been busy, including being on a ministry trip with Bill Johnson to Pennsylvania which was a real privilege to be part of. As well as that I have had school, a visit from a friend from New Zealand, the Prophetic Conference and much, much more. I love my life though!

God has challenged me though to see my time alone as important and precious, just like I see my time with everyone else. I put time in my diary for me but then someone wants to meet or there is an opportunity to do something and my time goes out the window. So, as I write this blog, I am having a day of silence! For those of you who know me, you know this is a challenge! Thankfully, what Papa calls us to he gives us the grace for and so far so good!

This time is about me recognising how important my time is and how much I appreciate having some alone time. I love people and am very intentional in relationship but I do this best when I am intentional with me too! Papa knows this and knows it is difficult to meet with others when you are silent so for today and the next 3 Fridays I will be in silence, just me and God. Blessed indeed!

The ministry trip with Bill was such a blessing though it was a whirlwind trip. We left on Wednesday morning to land in New Jersey late Wednesday night (as it is the east coast there is a 3 hour time difference). We then travelled to our hotel which was also in New Jersey but we ministered for 2 days in Washington Crossing (famous for Washington's crossing of the Delaware in 1776 which was a turning point in the American Revolutionary War) in a beautiful United Methodist Church. We got to spend a few hours in Princeton (the most English looking town here that I have seen, though a real mix of building materials and styles!) before flying home on the Saturday. Busy but such fun.

I prayed for a beautiful older lady who had scoliosis and problems with her lower back. After I had prayed she said that she had felt her spine move and her leg grow. I had not even prayed about her leg! The next morning she came and found me to tell me that she had slept the night before for the first time in many years. Thank you Jesus!

The second day I got to pray for a man who had no sense of smell and he saw no change. However, about 10 minutes later he came back to find me very excited, as he had been going to leave he had realised that the was smelling things. How awesome is our God! Thank you Jesus!

The team I went with were amazing and we had a great time together praying and prophesying and because I am Papa's favourite, we even got some snow! I truly did feel so blessed.

Since my last post I have been thinking with Papa about what it means to honour the men and women in my life and facing up to some of the ways that I have dishonoured them in the past. I have realised that by choosing to dishonour them I have bought into society's view instead of God's view. No more! Now I choose to honour my brothers and sisters as the sons and daughters of God that they are and to see them as God sees them, as his treasure.

My question then, is how do we honour one another as God intended? I don't think I have the answer to this one yet but I have a few ideas and the ones I have challenge my old thinking dramatically! One of the things Papa has said to me is that to honour the men around me I need to honour how he created them and the attribute he chose to demonstrate this with was that they are protectors! This rattled me to begin with as I like to think that I can protect myself, I have worked with some very difficult and violent people in the past and have always been alright.

As Papa began to explain to me though I began to realise that I was not only dishonouring men but also myself when I did not recognise this quality in them. Very humbling! He said that when I allow a man to protect me (whether it be a need for actual protection or him doing something that cares for my wellbeing) then I am allowing him to say that I am worth being protected, I am allowing him to honour the identity as a woman that God has given me. It is not about whether I am capable of protecting myself or not but about the honour I deserve as a daughter of the King. Wow! On the same note, when I allow a man to protect me I am honouring the God given identity he carries as a protector. I love it!

Together, as men and women, we reflect the glory of God and we need to learn how to honestly and fearlessly honour one another in the identities that we have been given. We are good gifts to each other if we choose to be and can encourage and support one another through any trial or circumstance. This is just the beginning of the journey for me but I am committed to travelling this road and learning to honour the men and the women in my life as God intended. Here's looking to the next lesson!

The honour journey is all linked in with my heart to see the end of the sex industry and specifically, at present, to see sex tourism become something that is not considered an okay holiday vacation but more on this as God brings me more clarity on my next steps. For now, I just want to keep the conversation going anyway I can, so if you have thoughts on how we can honour men and women well or on why we should or even why you think it matters, then I would love to hear from you, Please comment below.

Until the next time when I hope to talk a little about our upcoming trip to Azusa Now in LA, so exciting! I am now fully paid up and ready to go, so a big thank you to everyone who has contributed to this. It truly is going to be a life changing event for many.

I hope you enjoyed reading, bless you all.