In April I was blessed to go on a ministry trip to Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and wow… was it an unforgettable trip for me! This was my first opportunity to be the ministry team and really put into practice all that I had learned over the year, and the leaders of the trip Steven and Tracy Cooper were also my preaching teachers, so I knew that I had to be prepared to speak. A few days before the trip I went to Starbucks and I spent time with God and He gave me all kinds of stuff and I had no idea how to put it all together into one message but it turns out it wasn’t suppose to be one message but it was for multiple conversations with people and for the Q & A time. Papa God really did give me everything I needed, in advance and on the spot… it really helped me learn to trust Him more, and to trust that I do hear His voice.
When we arrived in Albuquerque our team met at the pastor’s home and then we all drove to the church plant in Santa Fe. At the first meeting in the Santa Fe church Cody Wahl, one of the team members and school pastors, came up to me and told me that God was going to point out a specific woman to minister to one on one that night, and to look for her. I had already started talking to the woman because she sat down across from me at the potluck dinner we continued talking even after the service started. She was asking me questions that God had given me the answers for while I was praying and preparing for the trip. Turns out that Danielle, Cody's wife who is also a pastor at school, had a dream about this same woman and saw what happened the next day. The woman asked a question during the Q & A time and Danielle knew who was supposed to answer and then how we were suppose to pray for the lady so Danielle orchestrated the team so it went exactly the way that God had shown her in her dream. The lady was able to receive so much freedom from things that she had been carrying since she was a child, it was beautiful to watch and be a part of God bringing His child freedom.
Another lady I connected with and had prayed and prophesied over the first night, we ended up ministering to the second day. It turns out she had fibromyalgia so Barbara Johnson, another team member and schoolmate, felt like we were supposed to pray with her to receive healing before we headed back to Albuquerque. We went into a quiet room to pray with her while the end of the last meeting in Santa Fe was wrapping up. It was awesome because God started to talk to me about what was really going on in her body; how there were emotional problems that stemmed from her childhood and were manifesting themselves in her health. In order for her body to receive healing we had to go after the root of her pain. Holy Spirit guided us through some memories and forgiveness and the woman experienced a physical release in her health as well as in her spirit. We received an email from her a few weeks after the trip with the progress she had made! Thank you Jesus!!!
Probably the coolest experience of this trip though was getting to know Crysti Naylor, who I roomed with the entire trip. God totally set up this amazing opportunity for healing the brokenness in the two of us that occurred when we lost our brothers as youth. We discovered this on the first night talking before bed in Santa Fe. Then the second night we stayed with this incredible couple in Albuquerque, they were also hosting three men in their living room that weekend, they gave us their bedroom while they slept on the floor in a sitting room. Both Crysti and I were exhausted that night but wanted to get to know the family we were staying with and the guests that were staying there too. I knew that God was doing something and that I was suppose to meet these people and discover His plan for randomly bringing us all together for that one night. Turns out after hours of conversing that one of those men had also tragically lost his brother as a young adult.
God had brought the three of us together all of whom had lost our brothers in relatively the same time period of our lives. We were able to share that pain with each other and pray and prophesy over each other and take another step in the grieving process, we even shared in a vision which was incredible. Truly a moment I'll never forget. We recognized God was doing something and chose to be a part of it and we were all blessed and received emotional healing. We knew that what God was doing with us wasn't just for us, so at the worship service that next morning, we called out words of knowledge and Crysti and I shared what God had done with us the night before and prayed over approximately a third of the congregation who had also lost loved ones tragically or suddenly. That was my favorite moment on the trip, Crysti and I were blessed and healed emotionally, we shared the testimony of Jesus in our lives and God did it again with the congregation. To me that is beautiful. That is an extravagant expression of His love. That is what being a child of God is about. Being His child is about seeing His goodness and love and sharing it with others so that we can all fall more in love with our Heavenly Father. He is beautiful, His love is extraordinary and it is moments like this that solidify my decision to go anywhere that He sends me because it is His love that moves my heart to live passionately for Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment