Holy Spirit Moving!

Travel, Travel, Travel

Our YWAM Kauai team set off on December 5 for our outreach phase: three months in Asia. Ten minutes before midnight that Monday, our plane left from Lihue, Hawaii and landed the next morning in Seattle, Washington. We spent our daylong layover exploring Pike’s Place and falling in love with the snow-capped mountains, touristy fish tosses, and overpriced gondolas.

A little after 5 Tuesday evening we flew from Seattle to Dubai. This flight was 14 hours long, and because of the time differences we landed at night on Wednesday. Our layover in Dubai was only supposed to be five hours long, but by midnight (when we were supposed to board), the announcements were for every flight except ours. Turns out there was a delay, and we were to wait another four hours before boarding our plane. It was actually a blessing, though. We had made a friend, Gabe from Delaware, who kept us entertained and weathered the delay with us. Plus I didn’t sleep much on the flight from Seattle because of how little space we had on the plane, so I was super grateful to lay on the floor at the Dubai airport and sleep for two hours. I felt so refreshed afterwards! Thank You, Jesus!

We boarded our plane in Dubai around 4 am on Thursday morning and waited for takeoff. Suddenly a few flight attendants and security men came on board and took a guy off our plane. Talk about entertaining! After that, the pilot announced that because of weather there would be another delay in actually getting off the ground, so we would be stuck there an extra hour. Fortunately, we got free snacks because of our delay! God helped so much in giving me a positive spirit. Plus, His timing is best anyway.

We finally arrived at our final location somewhere close to 11 am on Thursday, December 8. We were so relieved! After getting our hiking backpacks and getting our visas (and spotting monkeys on the roof of the airport!), our contact met us and arranged for us to take taxis to our house. I sat in the front (on the left side!) and watched in amazement as we weaved in and out of completely chaotic traffic. The lanes on the roads are nothing more than suggestions; people on motorcycles and in trucks and buses are constantly honking their horns and driving this way and that – not to mention the cows sprinkled here and there in the road!

We finally arrived at our house and walked into our rooms. All of us students thought we would be sleeping on the floor the whole time, but we found out excitedly that we had beds! And (at certain times) hot water! Talk about grateful hearts. We went out to eat supper, then came home and crashed. I think I slept 13 hours that night, recovering from the restless nods on and off the planes from the past few days.

Prophecy

On Friday we explored the city a little bit and mostly rested. There were scheduled times of worship at the guest house we stayed at, so at 2 pm we joined a few members of the iHop team to worship our Father and intercede. After an hour of prayer/intercession, one of the iHop members told us that the next hour was set aside for personal devotions. During this time I felt God telling me to write prophetic words for each member of our team, so I tore notecards into strips, wrote our names on the backs, and shuffled them. Without looking at the names on the back, I asked God what He wanted to say to each person. Most of the time He answered by showing me a picture. For one of the words, however, God gave me a tingly feeling on my head, and the interpretation was that Holy Spirit wanted to have a tangible experience with this person. This word ended up being for one of my leaders, Jared. After I wrote all the words and handed them out, Jared told me that he had been praying for that experience for a long time now. I thought that was neat, but I didn’t ponder it for very long. We went out for dinner again, then we came back to the house to gather all of our belongings to leave the next day.

More Travel

Saturday morning at 6 we brought our backpacks down and loaded them into and onto a bus, which took us to another bus, which took us on the eight hour, bumpy drive into another town. After the bus dropped us off, we got on another bus to take us closer to the neighborhood we were staying at. This bus dropped us off and we walked beside a lake, around a mountain, and up a dusty rock road until we finally came to our guest house. We unpacked in our rooms, went out for dinner, and once again crashed in our beds (yay beds!).

Finally on Saturday morning we were settled into our home for the next few weeks. After breakfast, we went to our contacts’ house for orientation. We learned about the ministries we serve in, logistics, and guidelines. Then two of my teammates led us in worship. After worship, our contact Haeli told us we were free to leave, but she and her husband Sydney were going to do intercession. Eager for more, we all decided to stay, and boy am I glad we did!

Upper Room Experience

Haeli opened us up in prayer, then she softly played the ukulele as we continued praying. I felt the Lord urging me to pray for a release of His Truth and to rebuke the enemy’s lies he has spoken over us. We kept praying and worshiping, then we heard Sydney praying for Jared in the next room. Suddenly Haeli told us to pray for Jared, so we all at the same time started declaring God’s Truth and lifting him up in prayer. After a moment, we heard Jared laughing – He had been filled with the Holy Spirit!

At the sound of God’s victory, we started laughing and kept singing praises to our Father. After a few minutes, Jared and Sydney came back in our room, and Jared said he needed to share something, but he wasn’t sure if he would be able to because he didn’t know if Holy Spirit was done with him yet. We eagerly waited to see what he would say. After starting and stopped a few times, he eventually shared what was on his heart: he hadn’t been filled with the Holy Spirit in months, but he had been praying for that for a while. The enemy was speaking to him and telling him that he couldn’t be a good leader, and he was feeling really down and spiritually dry. But God! He encouraged me for giving him the prophetic word a few days earlier, and we all cheered and worshiped. The atmosphere was that of celebration!

We continued worshiping, and my teammate Laura asked if we could pray for her ankle, which has been injured for most of our DTS. We all started praying for her, and our other teammate Naomi started crying. Naomi never cries, so we knew this had to be the Holy Spirit. Laura got up and left temporarily to check her ankle, and we prayed for Bailey’s sore throat, then it was healed instantly! We also prayed for healing for Natalie’s knees. Laura came back in and said that her ankle still hurt, so we prayed for her again. This time when we prayed for her, Naomi burst into laughter, and I started laughing, and Emily started laughing. Natalie burst out speaking in tongues, and we all were filled with Holy Spirit joy, in tears and laughs. For a good long moment we were all just caught up in God’s goodness and His Holy Spirit.

Emily and I continued laughing for probably between 30-45 minutes. We eventually went into the kitchen because the rest of the team was praying for other things and we couldn’t stop giggling. I would think God was done with me, so I would try to calm down, and the laughing would start over again. Eventually God showed me a picture of something He wants me to find in Pokhara, then I felt Him release me.

Holy Spirit kept moving on Emily for a little while, then she came back into the group prayer room and said God told her that we need to pray for her because somebody was going to get a word for her. We laid hands on her and prayed, and a few of us got words for her in regards to what’s next after YWAM.

Our time at Sydney and Haeli’s eventually came to a close, and we all sat together, contemplating everything Holy Spirit had just done in us. This was an exciting moment of equipping for the ministry we were to do in Nepal.

Monday Treasure Hunt

The next day after breakfast we had a time of intercession, then we got into groups of three for a treasure hunt. In a spiritual treasure hunt, we ask God for pictures of what He wants us to find that day for ministry. In my group, Bailey got a picture of a bouquet of handpicked flowers, yellow and purple. I got a picture of a building with a triangle tin roof and a round window. Laura got a picture of a little boy sitting in tall grass. After getting a few more pictures, we wrote them down and left the house to find God’s treasures.

After walking around for about an hour, a Nepali man stopped us and asked, “What are you looking for? I can tell you are looking for something.” I told him we were looking for treasure. At first he thought I said “charger,” so he informed us where to get different kinds of chargers. We explained that we were talking about treasures, and we told him that God had given us pictures of a few things to find. He had never heard of a god that gives pictures to people before, but he knew a place where we could find flowers, so he invited us to go to his jewelry store so he could call his friend.

We followed our new Nepali friend, Raj, down the street and stopped at his jewelry store, then he brought us across the road to his friend’s restaurant. In the alley by the restaurant were marigolds, other yellow flowers, and purple flowers. Raj said we could take whatever flowers we wanted, so Bailey picked a few and held them together. After gathering them, she told us that they looked just like the flowers from the picture God gave her!

We stood there a few minutes talking to Raj about God, and he asked if we would like to sit and drink malasa tea and talk more about God. Of course we said yes!

We went back to Raj’s jewelry store and sat down, drinking tea and telling him all about the God that loves him. He let us pray for him and he asked us to get words for him, so we did. We talked to him for about an hour, and in the end I promised to find him a Bible. (Our friend Tomas gave me a Nepali New Testament just this morning, so I will give it to Raj next time I see him!)

As for the other pictures, they are each unfolding in unique ways. I might post an update about them whenever I feel God leading me to!

Ministry in the Slums of Pohkara

The next day, Tuesday, December 13, we went to the slums to do ministry. Our team split up, and we followed our translator, Sanju, into a small room. We prayed for a paralyzed man, then talked to his mom, Sethi (Say-tee). We prayed for her and God gave me a picture of a tin roof, and the interpretation was that God wants to protect her, to be her shelter, and to have her in His home. After talking with her for a while, we learned that Sethi was afraid of being a Christian because her neighbors were Hindu, and her husband was not a believer. Hannah, our other leader, reminded Sethi what God had said through the word He gave me. She had not ever heard the gospel before, so with her permission, Bailey shared the gospel through Sanju’s translation while the rest of our group interceded. We spoke with her for a long time, and at the end she accepted Jesus and agreed to forsake all other gods!

We then prayed for her husband, Krishna, and not even five minutes later he walked through the door! He told us that his family is made of believers, but he cannot accept Christ because his mom became a believer and then walked away from the faith. This seemed to weigh really heavily on Krishna’s heart. We interceded for him as well, and for Sethi’s daughter, whose husband beats her. Although the latter two did not come to any decision about Jesus, we are continuing to pray for them and we are going back next week!

Prayer Needs

So God has already poured out so much of His love, and we have only been gone from Hawaii for a little over a week. The enemy is not ready for all that God is going to do in hearts over the next few months!

Continued prayer requests: