Back home from St. John's and have been processing the experience.
Since being home we have been preparing our house for potential buyers. Later today our home invasion begins and by Monday morning we will be looking through a stack of offers deciding who gets our house. In September, we are moving to Canmore to discover, develop and deploy young kingdom leaders from among the nations.
Yesterday morning, I was working the gardens and spraying down the outside of the house when I asked God if everything that happened in St. John's this past weekend was for real... was it all of Him!? At that moment two birds of prey circled in tandem above my house for three minutes. They were a type of hawk, one of which had a distinct split tail. After three minutes of them circling I said, "Thank-you" and they flew straight south until they were out of sight.
I'm writing this at 12:37 a.m. I have to get this out.
Last Thursday, on my way out to St. John's I stopped over in Halifax to see my Indian friend Kamal. We ate Indian food at 2:30 am and prayed together for a while. He saw me as a warrior with eagle feathers in my hair and my head held high as I went to St. John's. Three hours later he drove me to the Halifax airport to catch my morning flight.
Arriving in St. John's Mike picked me up and as we drove through town my heart filled with joy for the city. The city is wide open to God... The church needs to get ready. I had to get a couple of hours rest. At Mike's place I couldn't sleep. Lying down, I was having visions, half dreams and words from God for two hours... all stuff about St. John's and Newfoundland.
Friday night a bunch of young leaders joined us at a church to pray. God showed us a lot about the church and the land all around it. Then we went downtown to pray over George St. God stuff tends to happen amidst clubs and bars. We helped one desperate girl get four blocks out of harms way.
Saturday was a blur of activity. I climbed an ocean-side trail with Pete and while discussing his life an eagle swooped by (he had told me ealier he had a vision of an eagle the week before I arrived) ... We spent considerable time rolling bolders into the ocean. You could smell the sulphur and iron as they crashed and bashed their way into the sea.
That night, while preaching at the youth event the Holy Spirit moved in such deep conviction that when I asked young people with words from God to come to the mic, some adults thought they'd come first. They all ended up on the floor. They couldn't take the mic from my hands. God had them under such conviction they couldn't speak. Finally, the young people, one at a time, came and spoke up and then got on their knees to pray. The front of that church was like a hospital room.
Sunday a.m. I preached at a church for nearly an hour and a half. At the end of the service we had all the children gather around the front and everyone encirled them and prayed as I put water in all the children's hands. Sunday p.m. I preached at another church where all the young leaders I had been spending time with prayed over people. Quite a beautiful time.
It was after the Sunday evening service that I had a profound vision that took me off my feet. I was sitting on a chair chatting with an intercessor when it came on me hard and fast. I saw two islands just off the coast, like overlapping shoulders, and the face of a lion was between them, off on the horizon - far away. Then the lion came racing to shore so fast that I didn't have time to prepare myself. It took me right off my chair onto the floor. The visions continued for hours. I kept asking God to back off and give me some space to breathe... He did, but kept coming back after I got some rest.
Monday afternoon I was standing in the very place of my first vision. I had been running a trail for quite some time. I asked God where he wanted me to pray. He said, "500 more steps." So I ran 500 more steps and stopped at a bench overlooking the ocean. That's when I saw the two shoulder-like islands off shore. I told the three dead trees nearby that Jesus was coming from between the islands. Could they not see him? It's a good thing I was alone - talking to trees :)
A bunch of us were in that area praying all over some things that God had laid on some hearts. I ran back to the group and told them my story. Then I went off again to a bridge between two cliffs to pray some more. An older couple were crossing the bridge. The man passed by and the woman stopped to chat with me. She spoke some deep things. I asked her where she was from. She said, "New York." I said, "And where before that." And she said, "Bulgaria." And then I said, "And you are Jewish." She smiled widely and asked, "How did you know?" I told her I was a follower of Jesus Chirst and know his people when I see them. She told me about her ancestors in Jewish villages and I told her how at least one of my grandparents was from a Jewish village in Hungary. She told me a lot of stuff about my ancestors - even that they gave birth to the Celts (someone confirmed that for me later). I told her the story of the woman at the well... It was a profound conversation on a bridge.
I ran some more and found an eagle feather in a high crag and an old beam with nails which I brought back to the crew. They were praying on a big rock overlooking the ocean. As we prayed on that rock we could smell smoke. We prayed more. It began to rain. The thunder began answering us. It was too incredible to put into words. It was like we were tapping into something primal - deep in the heart of creation itself. God seemed to be speaking to us through the rain and thunder - and each other.
At one point in time one of our prayer warriors prayed something along the lines of an end of barrenness and about God opening wombs amidst his people for the sake of his children being born. At that moment I was looking East across the ocean and said, "God take your answer right across the nation." As I prayed I pointed to the Eastern horizon and turned quickly West with my hand over my head pointed West - lightning streaked across the sky in line with my finger and the person I was pointing at happened to fall on the ground right then. Everyone laughed at that one.
So much happened that afternoon... It would take a while to tell the whole story. That night many of us got together to pray throughout the night, until 6:30 a.m. I didn't sleep until I got home here the next night after two major flights. I'll never forget the look on the lady's face in executive class when she asked me what I did in St. John's. I told her that I had been up all night praying with a bunch of 20-somethings. She wouldn't stop asking questions :)
It's really late. Big day today.
Ordinary hands and tons of grace. This pic is my brother Andy in Lima, Peru with some boys cared for by Compassion Canada.
