Trevor's Firefall Zine

South American Leaders drumming on Big Thunder

During the big last evening session, I was invited to bring Big Thunder (our Pow wow drum) up on stage with  all of the Brazilian and country leaders behind it, probably close to 20 and then I explained to the audience, that in the native culture the elders would gather around the pow wow drum and chant letting out war cries etc.

We had enough drum sticks for 7 of us to gather around and begin drumming and let out our own war cries and declaring things in the spiritual realm.

Then one by one they would switched off with different leaders, so everyone had a chance and let me tell you there was some pretty fierce drumming. I told them each to focus on one of the enemies works, that they would like to see torn down while they were drumming and I believe many were.

PinGODaqua ( a drop of water) - my favorite band in Brazil

They are kind of a reggae, rock, hip hop, rap group

Here are some videos of them

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/pingodagua-01/501122639

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/pingodagua-02/2820229371?icid=acvsv1

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/pingo-dagua-o-diabo-e-maconheiro/1879330774

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/cabra-safado-pingo-dagua/2040212182?icid=acvsv1

Also, I went downtown and heard a great worship band in a large area called Regis Danese, You tube is amazing because here is one of the key songs that night. You can only see it when there a flashes of light but the place is packed to the rafters and the Brazilian young people are singing at the top of their lungs. The place was just electric with the presence of the Holy Spirit  http://video.aol.com/video-detail/o-passense-regis-danese-e-banda-em-uberlandia-no-utc-record/2322055909?icid=acvsv3

How to Recognize and train Young Apostles

Download young_apostles_powerpoint2.ppt

Crisis in Kisii, Kenya

  Here is a Jan. 17/08 news report, of the situation in Kisii, Kenya, where our good friends Pastor Onesmus and Jenifer's church and ministry is. The pictures in this post are from them feeding the people who have turned up to their church for safety.

Joseph Ombui, standing in his barely stocked shop, looks anxiously at his customers every time he responds, "Out of stock. Please try next week." That has been the situation in Kisii town - about 380 km west of the capital Nairobi - since Dec. 30 when the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) chairman declared President Mwai Kibaki winner of the controversial presidential elections. That Sunday evening, hell descended on the small town. Some youths barricaded roads and stoned vehicles, while others set ablaze businesses to express their anger about what they felt was a stolen election. The protests led to the closure of main roads into the town -- shutting out any supplies.

"We get potatoes and other fresh produce from the Kericho route [in the neighbouring Kalenjin community], but that is closed. Fish came from Kisumu [the main town in the region], but that road is also closed. Now we are just hoping that things will be normal soon," explains a sad Ombui.

Not far from Ombui's shop, Mary Moraa stands next to the shell of what used to be the kiosk where she had spent her days selling clothes, soft drinks, and telephone airtime to customers. "It was my livelihood. Now it is all gone. I have nothing," she said, rubbing her blood-shot eyes.

Moraa just like many Kenyans had voted for candidates of their choice and expected things to move on smoothly as they always did during previous elections. That is why when she went home on Dec. 29, she closed her shop with the merchandise inside, knowing it would be business as usual on the following Monday when she next opened the shop. She does not work on Sundays. "But issues with presidential vote tallying and the chaos that ensued had different plans for me," she told IPS in Kisii.

Observers during the elections, the ECK chairman, and some of ECK commissioners have said the presidential vote tallying was fraudulent.

Amos Ongige, a hardware merchant in Kisii, has been driving his trucks either to the safety of the police station in town or to his home every evening for fear of arsonists setting them ablaze or thugs taking advantage of the situation and plundering them. Before now, he left them at his business yard and went home at the end of the day, with just two watchmen keeping guard.

Life is no longer that simple in this town. "The very fear of what will happen to me or my business gives me nightmares," Ongige told IPS. "I don't know what tomorrow has for us -- my workers, family and I. If this instability and uncertainty goes on in the country, then we will all be reduced to paupers," he said.

Hopelessness seems to be the mood in the town. Most business people have taken a wait-and-see attitude. Their workers have not been asked to report back to work after the Christmas holidays.

Although the town did not suffer the intensity of destruction of businesses and looting witnessed in other towns, business people lost millions of shillings in the few days following the announcement of results in the election.

The town ran out of fuel for about five days, and when finally companies started bringing it in from depots in Kisumu -- a neighbouring town also in western Kenya -- under police escort, merchants doubled the price of fuel at the pump.

Furious public transport drivers asked those unwilling to pay the new fares to alight from their vehicles, but because there were few vehicles on the roads passengers often paid without complaining.

Joseph Makori, one of these drivers, explained to IPS: "Just three days ago we were buying diesel at 71 shillings [about 1 dollar] per litre, but today I bought at three times that price. What then am I expected to do to remain in business?"

Jennifer Mokeira, a vegetable seller who commutes to Kisii town every day to sell vegetables -- especially to those travelling to Nairobi -- complained that she had to pay three times the fare she normally paid.

"This eats into my profit. To make business sense, I have had to double the cost of vegetables. But customers are not buying, and since many people are not travelling to Nairobi, most of my vegetables get spoilt." Mokeira told IPS. "Until things get better, I am not going to do this business any more," she said.

The town also ran out of telephone airtime within hours of the post-election violence. Without proper communication, panic struck business people and their customers. "We were relying on rumours, and fear gripped us," wholesaler in the town told IPS. "From what I gathered, I was certain arsonists were coming any time to raze down my shop," the wholesaler said.

The shortage of telephone airtime was so serious that the three operators in the country -- Safaricom, Celtel Kenya, and Telkom Kenya -- reported a combined loss of 15 million dollars due to distribution breakdowns following the post-election unrest around the country.

In Kisii town, residents may for now have to adjust their diets as fish, potatoes, and other basic commodities do not reach them.

If the roads to the town are not opened, "the thriving town may soon give way to destruction, starvation and hopelessness," said Faith Kenanda, an hotelier whose customers do not fight for seats to sample her dishes any more.

Pastor Bob Birch remembered

Pastor Bob Birch just passed away on Dec. 4th 2007 and as well as being the pastor of two key churches in the history of Vancouver, "St. Margrets" and "Burnaby Christian Fellowship (BCF)", the founder of the "Watchmen for the Nations" and a patriarch in the church of Canada he was my mentor for 22 years and a good friend. To give a tribute of his life would take a whole book, which has been written by Beth Carson "Pastor Bob: A Statesman of Prayer for Canada" so here I am just going to give a short tribute of my time with him

The first time I saw him was back in the early seventies, when I was still a non-christian, my friends and I went out to the “Easter Be-in”, (which was a big hippie festival that happened all over Stanley Park during the Easter Weekend). As we were walking up the road from Third Beach band stage, I looked back at the beach and there was a huge group of people near the edge of the water, watching as people were being baptized in the ocean. It had a profound effect on me, because I could see the power of what was happening, so much so, that I called all my friends back, saying that they needed to see this. It wasn’t until years later in a conversation with Pastor Bob, that I found out that he was the pastor out in the ocean baptising the people. Because of this experience I was years later baptized in the ocean as well.

Then in June 1985, I was at a pastors prayer meeting with Pastor Bob and George Mallone at BCF and right near the end of the meeting, I heard the Lord say, “Go ask Pastor Bob to train you as Elijah trained Elisha”. I said yah right, I am only a young assistant pastor and there are all sorts of older senior pastors who would give anything to be trained by Pastor Bob, so why would he even consider it, so I just dismissed it.

However, when I left at the end of the meeting and went out to my car, I couldn’t drive away, the Lord just wouldn’t let me go. So, I sat there battling with him for about 20 mins. and finally I said, okay fine, I’ll go in and ask him, he’ll tell me no and that will be that.

So, I came back in and went to the secretary and she called him and told me that Pastor Bob did have some free time and I was taken back to his office. I sat down and explained to him all that I heard and to my incredible surprise he said, “Well, the Lord has just told me that I need to start training up some young men, so yes, I will do it.

That began 22 years of amazingly profound mentoring.

Here are some of the highlights

1)       The first thing we did, was to go for long walks down along the Frazer River and we discovered that we both liked to spend a lot of time just waiting on the Lord and he loaned me a book by George Bevington which was incredible.

2)       In Aug. 85’ we started to get together on Tues. nights at BCF and would just wait on the Lord in silence for 2 or 3 hours and then share what the Lord had shown us. There were 2 other men who also joined us during those long times of being quiet before Him.

3)       On one of those Tues. nights together, I had a profound vision where I felt the Lord fashion me into an arrow and He shot me out over Western Canada. As I was flying through the air, I heard the Lord say “Stony Plain, Alberta, I said, “no Stony Plain is in Manitoba" and I heard back, “No Stony Plain, Alberta” and then I hit the ground. I checked it out a map and sure enough Stony Plain is in Alberta. (I was thinking of Stony Mountain, Manitoba) After praying about it, I discerned that He wanted me to take a team and do Spirit Led evangelism for a week, which we did in Aug. 86’ and had an amazing time of prophetic evangelism.

4)      In Oct. 85’ he invited a me and a bunch of pastors to join him and we drove out to the DeRoche Prayer Center, for the first of many days in prayer together over the next few years. 

5)       In Dec. 86, he invited me to join him and attend the Yonggo Cho, Benny Hinn & Reinhard Bonke, Conference in Seattle.

6)       In Sept. 87’, after Judy and I had spent time in prayer with him about our vision, we began Worldshakers Christian Growth Center and he came and spoke in our service (for the first of many times) when we were still at the Carpenters Hall. He also sent us monthly financial support, which was key in that first year in us getting off the ground.

7)       In the summer of 88’ he invited me to come and be apart of the team which would come to be known as the “Watchmen for the Nations”. We met first of all at BCF and then at Open Bible chapel 3 days a week for 2 to 3 hours each time for close to a year.

8)       In Sept. 88’ he came and spoke at our building dedication on 12th New West. In May 89’ he came with David Damien and Allan Gillman and did a prophetic Presbytery with the people in our church.

9)   In May 89’ he came with David Damien and Allan Gillman and did a prophetic Presbytery with the people in our church.

10)    At Missionsfest 90’ he was speaking in one of the large meetings and he called me up to share about what we were doing among the poor and needy.   

11)    In May 90’ he came at our invitation and marched with us in the New West Hyack parade.

12)    In Sept 91 he came and spoke at our 4^th Anniversary

13)    He invited me to go with him on a ministry trip to Hazelton, BC.

14)    In Feb. 93 he came out to one of our alterative services and gave us a prophecy about the heavy alternative music, we then had him come back and put it down on recording tape and combined it with music and put it on our first CD.

15)    In Sept 97 he came and shared at our 10^th Anniversary

16)    Around 98’ or 99’ he came out and was part of another prophetic Presbytery for the people in our church, we met at West Coast Fellowship, so that it wouldn’t be a long journey for him.

17) Even though he was doing very little ministry from this point on, I would regularily go and visit with him at his home in East Vancouver and share with him all that we were doing as a church and all about the growing alternative ministry called the Underground Railroad.

18) On one of those visits I gave him the "12 Coals of Fire" book, that I threw at the Wittenberg door in Germany, that Luther had posted the 95 thesis on.

I am profoundly thankful for all 4 of my spiritual mentors over the past 35 years of my life as a believer.

Paul Stewart,(1972-75)

John Pope, (1975-78),

Howard McIlveen, (1978-85)

Pastor Bob Birch (1985-2007).

 

My brush with Death

I realized that although most of you who check this, already know about my medical ordeal through my emails and Dave Mclain's blog, however, there may be some of you who don't know the story so here it is in a nutshell

Aug 7 - On our way down to conference in San Francisco where I was speaking, I became aware that I had an infected bug bite on my right side. Twice during the drive down I stopped to put a hot water and salt compress on it, hoping to draw out the infection.

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Aug 8 - I wasn't feeling very well, so during the day instead of going with David & Todd to scout out the area, I stayed back at the hostel and rested. That night after I spoke on the panel, (far right at the table, behind Arthur Blessit with the cross) I was not feeling well at all and left the meeting hall half way through to lay down. During the night I was having problems breathing.

Aug 9 - In the early morning (between 5-7am) I asked Dave if he could please take me to the hospital. We went to Saint Francis Memorial, which was just 4 blocks away. We went into Emergency and I remember walking in and giving my medical cards and being lead into a treatment room, and then I passed out.

The next thing I remember is 5 days later, having the intubation tube pulled from my throat and being told by my wife and daughter Rebecca, that I had come extremely close to death. The doctors had kept me in a semi coma for those 5 days. I am told that this is what happened during those days:

Aug 9 (afternoon) - Doctors were trying to determine what type of infection I had, they did a CT Scan on me and multiple blood tests. One of the tests came back saying that the infection had spread into my blood. My daughter Rebecca was told by the ER manager to fly down to San Fran as soon as possible, as they did not expect me to make it through the night. My kidneys were shutting down, almost non-functioning at the time. I was rushed in to surgery and a portion of my right side was removed, as it had become severely infected and was now just dead tissue, and they were trying to stop the infection from growing further.

They were treating me for tick bite fever and a general antibiotic for the infection, but were unaware that my daughter Grace had just tested positive for a Streptococcus infection on her skin. Once the doctors found this out they started me on a full array of antibiotics specifically for this.

Aug 10 - My vitals had been erratic all night and continued to worry the doctors throughout the day. My heart rate nearly reached 200bpm, blood pressure at one point was 180/160, and temperature was consistently high. My organs were all starting to shut down and my lungs were on the verge of developing pneumonia. It was not looking good. The doctors were not sure if they should attempt more surgery, or just wait to see how the antibiotics worked.

Aug 11 - Doctors were still contemplating more surgery, but kept it as a last resort. They were trying to determine if the infection had spread to the fascial layer of my skin (this is the layer just before muscles and organs). If so then it had become necrotizing fasciitis (commonly known as the "flesh-eating bacteria") and they were not sure if they could keep up with the infection before it over took me. My wife Judy arrived and laid hands on me and prayed for my recovery, my vitals gradually begin to improve throughout the day, my heart rate getting down to 120.

Aug 12 - The doctors are checking my surgical wound every few hours to monitor growth of the infection, it has slowed down and they are hoping not to do any more surgery. My vitals are getting better throughout the day, but
it is still a roller coaster ride. The doctors confirm that the infection has touched the fascial layer but do not think it has penetrated *into* the layer (this is crucial).

Aug 13 - At this point the doctors decide not to do another surgery, as my vitals are getting better and the infection growth has slowed down enough that the antibiotics should be able to stop it completely. They remove  the intubation tube. and I woke up not knowing how close I was to not making it.

Aug 14 - The gradual process of healing began and they were keeping me hydrated, full of antibiotics and getting complete wound care to keep it clean and free of bacteria.

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Aug. 25 After healing up for another 11 days in St. Francis hospital they then flew me up to Vancouver on an air ambulance and then by normal ambulance to Surrey Memorial Hospital where 4 days later they surgically closed my wound.

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Aug. 27th - I got back to Vancouver just in time for the birth of our second grandaughter at 10:53 pm, Aug.27. Evie gave birth to Adeleh Joy Macpherson, a beautiful 6lbs 9oz little girl. On Wednesday night they came up for a visit and she is just so cute.

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Sept.11 - I was finally released to come home today, after the extra week  in the hospital of IV antibiotics because after my surgery, I unfortunately got a different infection that they had to treat before I could be sent home.

I realized why this was such a scary experience for me, it is because I am used to being in the front of battle with something to do, when under attack. But this time I was totally out of it and needed to count on others in the body of Christ, to step in and pray me through it. I have heard from people that I was on prayer lists all over the world and Dave said that some days there were over 200 hits a day of people checking the blog site to see how to pray.

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I am thankful for all of God's people who prayed and as I end most of my letters, that I am still in His Grip!!!!!!!!

Teaching on the Seed By Alfred Stevens

Teaching on the Seed

In Luke 8 v 11; Jesus said “The seed is the word of God”. Now look at the parable of the growing seed in Mark 8 Verse 26-29.  Highlight verse 28: “For the earth yields crops by its self, first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.”  Now please let us move to Josh 12 v 24: “Most assuredly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it produces much grain.”

Please compare the scripture in Genesis 3 v 15, speaking about the seed and head. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed, He shall bruise your heel and you shall bruise his heel.”  To understand this prophecy, you must first know what “head” God was talking about.  The head of the seed of the serpent;   Enmity represents the conflict between the seed of Satan and the seed of the woman which is God’s people born from the word of God or Jesus Christ, the word of God made flesh.  Conflict is the tension people feel when they are pulled in two different directions by opposing forces.  In this case the seed of Satan and the seed of the woman will both desire the same thing, but only one can have it.  So the other will imitate the other at times.  This is the key to this message.  We know Satan always tries to copy the method God uses to describe the kingdom of God.  So just as in Mark 4 v 26; so the kingdom of Satan is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, however the seed the enemy scatters is “wiles” meaning plans or designs, suggestions, schemes or even ideas.  I call them “tares” of the devil; (As in Matthew 13 v 24-30).

Ministry trip to Kenya, Part 2

While I was in Kisii, I had a number of opportunities for ministry. The primary one was the 3 day Conference on Deliverance with pastors and leaders. This went amazingly well, even though it had to all be translated into Swahili and they were very hungry for this teaching and interested in actually getting deliverance. It's not that they don't have deliverance over there, in fact the largest church in Kisii is called the Deliverance Church. When I explained, however, the difference of this process from what they had normally experienced, that basically we would be removing all of the roots as well as the top of the weed, rather than just cutting off the top of the weed they were very interested. They are very aware that there are alot of generational curses that affect them and so when I told them that we would be going back to deal with the generational work that came down the bloodline and getting all of the roots involved they got quite excited to know that these things could be dealt with and they could get free of them.

The first day I taught on the deliverance process and covered all of the scriptures involved and then used Onesmus as a guinea pig and did a deliverance on him with everyone watching. When we were done I knew that this training was going to be effective when the overseer in that area was the first one to volunteer for the next deliverance. That took alot of humility and set a really good example for all of the other pastors. As well as doing more teaching each day we also did two deliverances each day with people watching and learning. I did a thorough job of training Onesmus and his 2 right hand men Daniel and Philip so that they can carry on training the other pastors and leaders who want to learn how to do deliverance.

On the Saturday, the youth from 15 different churches were getting together and at the last minute the Overseer came and asked if I would speak to them, with the hope that I could share something with them that would keep them from walking away from their faith. I felt honored to be asked and said yes and gave them a message about how David, Mary and Joseph were all young people from peasnat families in small towns and yet they found favor in the sight of God and became a King, the mother of Jesus and Prime minister.

Next I taught the pastors that they needed to look to God instead of looking to the North American church to meet their needs and that the Chinese church is a better model for them than the NA church, before I did the Ordination Service.

The ordinations turned out to be more of an impartation service for the pastors to go up to the next level of being Apostolic Pastors, since most of them had already been ordained.

Before I went, had asked a number of prophetic people from different churches in Canada and the States, if they would pray and see if they had words for the 27 pastors who had requested ordination and we recieved words from 8 different prophets. I then printed out those words on each of the ordination certificates that we were going to give them. A number of the 27 weren't able to make it to the service, so Onesmus was going to give them the certificates afterwards, however, we also had 17 more pastors who turned up and wanted to be ordained and so I asked the Lord to put me into prophetic mode and by His grace I prophesied over each of the extra pastors. This went on for a number of hours and I was quite exhausted by the time we were done. 

On Sunday we took the 1 3/4 trip up to Onesmus' church and I preached at their morning service and got to meet his congregation which was great. Then after a couple of hour rest we took a taxi down to the center of town to catch the 7:30 pm night bus, which should have gotten us into Nairobi at 4am, in time for the 45 min. taxi ride to the airport, so I could be there at 5:50am for my flight home.

However, just past half way to Nairobi, the bus had a flat tire which seemed like it was going to take along time (in fact, we found out afterwards that the bus didn't get in until 6:30am). Another bus pulled up to see what was wrong and Onesmus went over and asked if I could transfer over to that bus, in order to make sure I got to the airport on time. The driver who I think was a Christian, said yes, but that only Onesmus, Philip and I were allowed on and Daniel and Jennifer and Mica who had come to see me off, weren't allowed to transfer over. We ended up getting to the airport right at 6am and it was just enough time to go through all of the lines and make my plane. Yeah!!!   

Ministry trip to Kenya, Part 1

On July 13th I left Vancouver for a 27 hour plane ride to Nairobi International Airport to begin my 10 ministry trip in  west Kenya. When I flew in at 9pm on July 14th I was greeted by the host Pastor Onesmus Mark Omesa and his good friend and collegue Pastor Daniel Moses. We found a hotel in downtown Nairobi, because we had to wait until the next morning to get a bus to Kisii where his churches are.

In Kenya there are two main ways of transportation, either the large, colourful buses or the one of the thousands and thousands of white 14 passenger vans. 

For our 6 1/2 hour trip out to Kisii we took this 14 pass. van and on the way back we took one of the large buses and which we even had a chicken as a passenger.

The roads are extremely bumpy anywhere outside of Nairobi and all of the drivers have their PHD's (pot hole drivers) (:~)). And instead of seeing a bear or deer crossing the road we saw a whole group of baboons crossing the road as we decended from the plateau down into the Rift Valley.

I had a wonderful time with my host pastor Onesmus and his family. Here is a picture of his wife Jennifer, who was very hospitable and very giving and his Momma who is a very  strong woman of God and given to dreams and revelations. They also have two children Shalla and Mica. 

Also, here is a picture of George, (Onesmus's brother) Onesmus, Daniel and Onesmus assistant pastor Philip with Mica in the middle.

The pastors that I did the deliverance conference with all had churches up in the Kegogi region of Kisii which was up in the hills around the the main center of the region, called Kisii town, which is where Onesmus's place was.

So each day we had to drive for 1 1/2 hours on roads like this, that were very, very bumpy and one day I had to even drive them, which was very intense, because one wrong turn or mis-caculation you could tear off the undercarrige of your car. Which actually did happen on the day I drove. At some point we tore open the gas  line, that had been repaired that morning and were losing gas, fortunately we made it back close enough to town before we ran out of gas and Onesmus was able to walk and find a gas station and get some gas.

Here I am with a number of people from Onesmus church and a bunch of the children from the Sunday service. The kids are wonderful and very polite. Also Onesmus invited me to come to  therir family home which is in Kegogi and his brother George brought out some barbeque chips and chocholate chip cookies much to my surprise and delight.

In Kenya Trip Part 2 I will talk more about the ministry that took place.

Here is what I saw in my Dream

Amazing stories of how God is using chlidren

1. God uses Indonesian children in healing revival

Indonesia is experiencing miracles! In the area where three Christian school-girls were brutally beheaded 18 months ago and over 15,000 homes and shops were razed to the ground, three children are being used in a special way to bring the Gospel to many people. Since January 2007, Selvin, an 8 year old girl, Presbyterian, has been used in a healing revival in the Poso District with up to 30,000 people at a time - Muslims, Hindus, Christians - attending, getting saved and healed. Now another two children have begun. Moko, an 8 year old Presbyterian boy has been touched by the Lord and is preaching the Gospel powerfully and last week was invited by the Mayor of Toraja (South Sulawesi) to come and conduct revival meetings with 40,000 attending. Another young girl, 11 year old Maria, a Pentecostal, has begun preaching a message of national repentance and repentance in the churches. All of this in the area greatly impacted by a massive persecution that began at Christmas 1998 and continued on through last year. Now it seems that the prayers of many for this area from around the world are being realized. Tens of thousands have been saved.

Source: Annette Hammond


2. Children's revival sweeps northern Thailand

Christians say spiritual revival has come to the northern Thailand village of Suplang because of the dedication of Karen tribal children. Not only do they gather to praise and worship God each day, but they also pray for the healing of adults and children. Christians started praying for revival here about 10 years ago, but they say noticeable change only came when 12,000 Karen gathered for a reconciliation camp last year. "People started to confess the sins of the village, and commit the village to the Lord," Sydney Jariyaphruttipong, a Thai pastor, said. "Eighty families, out of 85 are now Christians. People confess their sins openly. Children start to see visions of heaven. There's a clear change in their lives."

Source: Jay Esteban, CBN News Asia


3. Remarkable revival among children in Shillong, India

Since several months a revival is going on in India's northeastern state of Meghalaya. The most unique feature of this revival is the way God is using children to speak to churches, pastors, leaders and parents. Thousands of children have been affected and have brought, on many occasions, their own parents back to a relationship with God. In many cases even divorced or separated couples have been reconciled through their children. In other cases whole congregations have been brought to conviction of their sins through the revelations the children received.

Children at the revival video clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz5In54DLpY

Source: Barkos Warjri, www.shillongrevival.com


4. Jesus heals foster children

"My wife Marilyn and I have several friends who foster children," reports church planter Steve Hill from the Netherlands. "They are miracle workers! They are God's special heroes! One couple we know adopted twin boys who had been severely damaged due to the crack cocaine used by their mother. Yes they adopted them! And they were at an age to be grandparents, the age when most are thinking about cruises, cottages and retirement. The medical authorities told them they were crazy to adopt the boys since they would never be normal. They said the one little guy would never walk, talk, see or even toilet train."

"When we met them the boys were about five years old and doing much better than the doctors had prophesied! Both were walking, talking and seeing although the little guy had stopped growing and wore glasses as thick as old fashioned coke bottles. We all prayed and the little guy started growing again! Then one morning he came to breakfast without his glasses. The mom asked him to go and get his glasses. He said, "Mom, since Jesus came into my room last night, I do not need glasses!" And that was the truth! A trip to the eye doctor confirmed that his eyes were completely healed."

Source: Steve Hill, Harvest Now


5. China: 10,000 children trained to be cross-cultural missionaries

Peter Wagner sent us this report from a recent trip to Hong Kong, where he met with leaders of the underground church in mainland China:

"M told that he learned only by experience how to plant churches. He had never met a foreigner, to say nothing of a missionary. He didn't have a Bible or any other book. His only methodology was to pray and seek the Lord. God poured out miraculous signs and wonders as he planted churches. In the costal city alone they have 1,500 services every Sunday. The dynamic lady in charge of the Sunday School children of 10 years of age and under, named Eden, 37, has 10,000 children under her leadership with a total of 100,000 in the whole Sunday School. The 10,000 regularly hold all Friday night prayer meetings, praying for missions. The 10,000 children all come. Her target is the 465 million Chinese under 15 years of age. She trains her Sunday School children to be cross-cultural missionaries. This year she will be doing three national conferences for principals of Sunday Schools only."

Source: C. Peter Wagner, ICA

A Season Of Opening Old Wounds

Here is an excellent word by a very good friend of mine Dave Mclain and you may want to keep track of his upcoming words on his blog Telegram from a Pilgrim

A Season Of Opening Old Wounds

Some time ago, I was working on a cedar picnic table, and I got a sliver in my hand. It was a busy day, so I didn’t get a chance to pull it out right away, and I forgot about it. Over the next several days, the spot swelled up and became painful until I got a sharp knife and cut the spot open and dug out the piece of wood.

Later, I cut my other hand, and I was “too busy” to stop and slap a bandage on it, so of course it got sawdust and dirt and germs in it before I was through with the picnic table, but the damage had been done. This wound also swelled up and got tender, and I had to open it up, but there was no chunk of cedar to pull out.

A lot of God’s people are like my hands were: we’re wounded, but the wounds are hidden, buried because we didn’t deal with the issues when they were fresh. We have two kinds of wounds: some have slivers in them, foreign stuff that doesn’t belong in our lives, and some are just infected with lies or accusations or bitterness.

The pressing problem with healing old wounds is that they must first be opened. If we’re looking at our wound or our soul, then we encounter the pain first; Click here if you would like to read the rest

Our Caribbean trip

As many of you know we went through the 3 year long struggle with Judy's employer to cover her disability wage losses and during that time we purposely didn't do anything for our anniversaries and birthdays, with the idea that when the court case was finalized, we do something really big as a celebration. So on April 9th we set sail on the Sun Princess for a 10 day Caribbean cruise. (ooolala (:~)) It is a combination anniversary, rest, holiday and mini sabbatical. Here are some of the islands we went to and some of our highlights.

Our first stop was the Dutch Island of Curacao and there Judy went on an excusion to explore  Curacao’s Jewish heritage and visit Mikve Emmanuel  Israel, the oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere, built in 1732. Intolerance and the Inquisition drove Iberian Jews first to Brazil, then to Curacao. She also went and saw Beth Haim Cemetery, consecrated in 1659.

I went on a tour around the island which made stops out on the windswept coast on the windward side and one of the calm bays and beaches on the leeward side. They  also taught us about the histroy of the island which involved being the center of the West Indies slave trade. The Dutch decided to become the brokers for the slave trade and brought over 550,000 slaves from Western Africa and sold them to the nations and islands of the West Indies. (click on the pictures to see a larger version) 

From there we went to Isla Margarita and island of Venusuela where Judy went on a historical tour and shopping spree and I took a tour to see a re-creation of a traditional Margarita village, the Tacuantar Museum. We saw hand-built adobe houses and shops, and displays of daily activities that were part of the Margariteños life in years gone by. Then we drove to the town of Juan Griego which is located along a beautiful bay. It was an interesting combination of fishermen’s  boats and the hustle and bustle of a modern city. The up to Fort La Galera for a superb panoramic picture of the bay, then to Playa Caribe, one of Margarita’s beautiful beaches.  

In Barbados we decided to for go any tours and instead took a taxi to downtown  and did some sightseeing and shopping 

Our next stop was Dominica an English rainforest island. Here Judy and I took a tour that took us to the village of Laudat, nestled 2,000 feet above sea level in the Trois Piton Mountains, where we took an aerial tram (you can just barely see it in the middle of the picture) for a 90-minute trip through the rain forest. The rain forest is home to over 172 species of birds, including the endangered jaco and sisserou parrots.

We got off of the tram near the end and walked across a 275-foot long suspension bridge, across a deep gorge and  then re-boarded  the tram a little lower down to go back  to down the base station, only this time we were higher than on the way up and got to go through the canopy of the rainforest.

This was definetly the best  highlight of the whole trip for both of us.

Then it was off to St Thomas where again Judy opted for the shopping while I went on a tour  to Magens Bay which is hailed as one of the top 10 beaches in the world by the National Geographic Society. On the way we drove up to Drake’s Seat which offers a stunning view of Magens Bay.

Our final stop was at Princess Cays which is a beach that the The Princess Crusie Lines owns in the Bahamas. It is basically like a cruise ship on land.

We finished off by taking a Air boat ride through the Everglades when we got back to Ft.  Lauderdale, which was really cool. We even had an aligator come right up to the side of our boat and open it's mouth full of teeth. Judy was right on the side where it came up and she was maybe 2 or 3 feet away and then as the boat floated by it it came up to where I was on the side, 2 rows ahead of Judy and likewise was just about 2 or 3 feet away. It was really cool.

A cool experience in prophetic evangelism

On Wed. I went out with Sam Emerson, a young pastor from here in Surrey, to teach him about prophetic evangelism. We started with a bit of teaching and then drove around the area a bit and then parked and prayed. We were asking if there was someone that the Lord wanted us to talk to and asked if He would show us what the person looked like, where they were and what message did He want us to give him.

After waiting on the Lord for maybe 10 mins. we had each gotten an assignment. Sam saw a guy with a green shirt on and the word God had for him was that, "if you hear the word of the Lord today, do not harden your heart." As to where he would be he thought maybe the liquor store that we had recently drove by, but wasn't sure. Our basic belief was that the Lord knew when we would be these different places, so the timoing would be when we got there.

I saw a guy about 27 or 28, with curly hair and long side burns and he was wearing a blue puffy jacket, I heard that he would be in the Canadian Tire Parking lot, and His word to him was, "You have ben in the Way for a long time but you have lost your vision because of things not working out and discouragement and now you have just begun to fill up your life with everyday life". I then asked the Lord what his vision is and I saw him standing on a stage teaching a large crowd. However, timing wise it isn't until in the flow of the next major move of God and that is why it hasn't worked until now. I heard that right now he is to be preparing for that time and he should have 35 key teaching ready to go.

So we drove to the liquor store and wait outside for about 10 minutes, there was no guy with a green shirt. I asked Sam if he was sure that it was a guy because a car pulled up beside us with a woman in a green shirt. The reason I asked is because in the past we have found that like learning a new laguage, sometimes we get the right gist, but miss a few of the details. But no he was sure that it was a man. So realizing that we might have just missed one of the details (ie place) we prayed for him and then drove on to the  Canadian Tire Parking lot. After sitting there for about 5 mins. a guy came walking out of the store and was walking right towards us and he was about 27 or 28, with curly hair and long side burns and he was wearing a blue jacket, but it wasn't puffy. Even though the jacket wasn't puffy there was enough that was  right so we got out of the car and walked up to him and since the chances of him being a christian in Surrey is extremely slim I figure if I started by asking him if he was a christian would be an easy way to confirm if I sould tell him more.

So I asked and sure enough he was a Christian. So I told him that I was a pastor and had been praying and told him the details of what I had seen. I told him the first part and changed it slightly so it didn't sound to harsh and asked him if that was true. He said no I think I am doing alright with my calling, but didn't seem totally convinced. I said okay, well here is the vision that I saw and told him about being on stage teaching. I again asked if that was true and he said no I don't think so. So I said okay no problem we are just learning how to do this, can I pray for you before we go and he said yes and so I prayed for him and as he walked away I said well I guess we missed it and Sam said, I am no so sure, when you were speaking the words to him I really felt the confirmation of the Spirit and he didn't see m real convincing when he said no. In fact it might be true, but he doesn't even realize that he has lost it. Then Sam I was wondering if I should have given him what I got and I asked why and then it dawned on me, was his shirt green? Sam said with a smile on his face, yes.

Oh wow, that kind of makes sense, because Sam when you told me the word that He gave you, it seemed kind of incomplete, if it wasn't along with His word. So if it was to go along with what I gave him, that would really make sense and so we prayed for him along those lines. Cool eh?

   

Why I aim for Reformation

This is an excellent piece written by Marc van der Woude on why he is looking for more than just the Emerging Church. This really describes how I feel about the church as well. There is much that is happening in the Emerging church that is good, but there is so much more that God wants the church to be http://marcsmessages.typepad.com/mm3/2007/03/why_i_aim_for_a.html#more