Praying for the Sick

This morning I was talking with a friend of mine originally from Iraq.  He was talking to me about how his foot was in extreme pain due to a soccer injury yesterday.  I think, based on the way he was speaking to me, that he wanted me to pray for him. 

Sounds like a good idea, huh? He’s in pain, I should be able to pray for him right? But is that the best course of action? Is that in his best interest? 

I told him instead, “place your hands on your foot and say ‘in the name of Jesus be healed!’” He tried it and nothing happened.  So I said, “now I want you to bind the spirits of pain and sickness and then say ‘in the name of Jesus be healed!’” Suddenly he was instantly healed!  He was overwhelmed with love for Jesus. 

Sometimes when we are evangelizing we can get caught up in wanting to be the one through whom Jesus brings the miracle.  Why? Often it is because we are not fully rooted in our own identity.  When we are rooted in our identity we can help others walk in to their identity.  This man is a dearly loved child of God, but he didn’t know of His standing with the Father.  He thought he needed a “Holy person” to pray for him.  Instead what he needed was a reminder that He can go directly to God.  

Next time when you are asked to pray for the sick. See if you can use it as an opportunity to coach another into walking in their true identity as a son or daughter of the King. 

What We Are Doing And How You Can Pray

Currently we are working through the details of acquiring Turkish/German Parallel New Testaments.  This project is in the works and details are being worked out.

How you can pray:

1. Funding for the project. It should (comparatively) small but please pray for more provision. 

2. Pray for a massive hunger among our people groups that they would crave the Word of God.

3. Pray for the smooth and effective distribution of these New Testaments and those who will receive them. 

Thank You For Your Many Prayers

Silent Auction and Pie By The Slice

New Fund Raiser--- details to be posted here soon!

GOER, SENDER, MOBILIZER

I realize that most of the people who read this blog may not be familiar with the inner workings of what I call the "missions world." There is a whole language, thought process, and network that is really amazing. I am done with assuming that I understand what is going on in the world around me. Instead I am learning to take everything that happens and bring it to The Lord and allow Him to tell me what is really happening. It has been an eye opening thing for me.

Among those familiar with the missions world there is the concept of "Goer, Sender, or Mobilizer." It goes like this: "God has called some to go, some to finance those who are called to go, and those whom God has called to help mobilize and prepare those who are called to go." Sounds reasonable right? Sounds logical right?

Well, I am not going to get into the business of right and wrong, but will instead speak to what The Lord has placed on my heart. I had spent a great deal of time wondering which role I am to play, but The Lord began to show me that these are not separate roles but one.

As a goer I am constantly casting vision to the heart of our Father and helping send those people out. That is what we do. The workers for the harvest are currently in the harvest! The workers we are told by Jesus to earnestly pray for are currently not believers right now. They do not yet know who they are in Christ!

Here is the picture The Lord showed me. On one hand you have a healthy plant with healthy fruit and healthy seed. The plant pollenates and the seed is spread by the wind, the rain, birds, insects, etc. And the healthy seed spreads greatly. On the other hand you have unhealthy plants producing very little fruit but a significant labor force trying to get the seed healthy to produce good seed and the seed to spread only to be frustrated. It is kind of like genetically modifying seed to get what appears to be a greater harvest only to see (after years) significant side effects and other issues that have arisen because of this.

Here is what I am saying. If you are called to go -- do not assume that you are not also called to give and mobilize. If you are called to give to those who are going do not assume that you are not also called to go and mobilize. If you are called to mobilize then do not assume then do not assume you are not called to go and not called to give to those going.

One last comment to the mobilizers of the world. What if the greatest resource and place to find those to mobilize is in the place that seems to have the least fruit --right now? What if you went forward as a harvester and then mobilized what you harvested?

Just some thoughts.

So Many Things Happening

This has been such a fun time. We are preparing for our growing team to leave for a short time in Berlin. As we move closer to departure time it seems that there are so many things happening that I just do not know where to start. It has been our conviction from the beginning that if God is who He says He is, in the Bible, then He is capable and willing to do great things. We take seriously our Lord's words that the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. So we began asking ourselves, "if we believed that the harvest is really that massive, how would we act?" The answer is that we would be begging Him for far more laborers than we currently have. So this is what we have been doing. We are asking Him for 50 people for our team. Can you grasp the magnitude of this? It is hard enough to get people to witness to their neighbor and we are going to convince people to leave all that they know and come do in another country? Well yes!

So we asked the One who has the destiny of all people in His hands! Suddenly, with virtually no effort on our part our team has swelled to 15 people with another 8 people in the process of praying! Can you get your mind around that? I am asking for it and I am struggling with it.

Now we have learned of 2 other families in our immediate locale who are mobilizing to go to Berlin! An interesting story from today was that while Keri was at a new family doctor for a sinus headache today, her doctor said he had heard about us and would be praying! He also provided names of others who are planning on going to Berlin for missions.

All in all it is a fun time. We are seeing The Lord do so many awesome things and we are so excited to be a part of it.