Greetings from our sickbeds where 1/2 of our church seems to have caught a spring virus!
So, if I could sum up these last 2 months, I would say they have been unusually international, which is always an enriching (and fatiguing) time for us:
“Those who prophesy strengthen the community.” I Cor 14.4
Last year, the director of Bethel Christian School came through for a visit to see if there was a connection to be made with our school here. We enjoyed a meal with him between Americans, but that was the extent of our connection. This year a small group of students wanted to come to start an exchange program, but their only available week was during our school’s vacation time. So the Kleins, a family in the church and school who organized the trip, had them come to minister at the church over the weekend. They decided to work on a relational connection and then enjoy a week of tourism, which was exciting for Jeremy, the team leader, because he is also their history teacher and it was his first time in Europe. And since he was raised in Montreal, he wasn’t afraid to dust off his childhood French!
We ended up housing him and one of his Canadian students. Because families from all over the world attend the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, their Christian school has kids from many nations. One of the boys is from the Netherlands. It was amazing to have five normal 8th graders who were very comfortable hearing the Lord’s voice and unafraid to offer it to others. They gave short teachings Sat. night and Sunday morning, offered words of knowledge to church members, handed out prophetic drawings while sight-seeing and taught the basics of prophecy to my Sunday school class.
In the natural, it didn’t look very anointed: the 3 girls were jet-lagged, using posters in English, needing Olivia to translate, and not making much eye contact to keep the kids attention. My biggest fear is bored kids and I started getting nervous. Then just when they wanted to start “activating” the kids, they were called to go back to the adults. With a sigh of relief, I jumped up and started quizzing the kids to see if they had retained anything at all. They had and they were all ready to have a go. I had not had much success in leading them in “listening to God” exercises in the past, but those girls had deposited their anointing after all. Following Jeremy’s model that encouraged taking risks in a safe environment in order to practice and grow, we practiced prophesying over each child in 4 different ways. And they all participated fully. For the first time. It was beautiful.
The team and the Klein family also blessed the church with some manual labor, tackling the invasive Japanese knot weed that is trying to convert our parking lot into a bamboo jungle. I was also waiting on their arrival to tackle 3 big trashcans filled with stinky unsorted garbage that someone had anonymously parked in our parking lot. They would never be emptied because they weren’t legal bins registered with the city. The only solution was to transfer the trash to our bins and pay for the extra weight ourselves. And because they had been outside for a few months, they had also filled with putrefying rainwater. They were so heavy that I could not tip them over. At least the men could take care of that for me, but surprisingly, no one else was as motivated as I was to open and sort 15 bags of trash in order to keep the weight down! (Recycling reduces weight charges and is not weighed.)
So like the Little Red Hen, I did it all by myself. At least the sun was shining and I was not all alone. The Klein children were at least willing to hold open recycling bags for me so I could practice my shooting skills at the same time. I filled 6 of those and 2 hours later had a dozen smallish trash bags piled next to the giant pile of knot weed. I was promised that the bins would be gone within 24 hrs so that this would not be a recurring event. And they were. Whew!
“ In that day Egypt and Assyria [Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey] will be connected by a highway, and the Egyptians and Assyrians will move freely back and forth between their lands, and they shall worship the same God. And Israel will be their ally; the three will be together, and Israel will be a blessing to them. 25 For the Lord will bless Egypt and Iraq because of their friendship with Israel. He will say, “Blessed be Egypt, my people; blessed be Assyria, the land I have made; blessed be Israel, my inheritance!.” Is 19.23-25
The next international experience was a conference at the beautiful Basel House of Prayer to learn more about God’s view of the Middle East as laid out in Isaiah 19, shedding a lot of light on the refugee crisis. There are entire ministries working and praying to see this beautiful prophecy of reconciliation come true and we wanted a deeper understanding.
“Keep the fire on the altar burning day and night.” Lev. 6:3
Over the next 3 days, local Syrian refugees told their stories and got prayer. A Jordanian who is starting an Arab-speaking church for them in Basel, translated. A German pastor who had personally counseled Angela Merkel to keep welcoming the refugees despite protests (and who could pass for Burl Ives) contributed with authority as an early pioneer of this reconciliation movement. A messianic Jewish rabbi from Tel Aviv prayed the Sabbath blessing over us. The assistant pastor of the largest evangelical church in Cairo led a worship set, partly in Arabic. Then the main speaker, Tom Craig, honored everyone’s work and shared on his book, which we are now reading.
Praying with the German staff before worship.
We were reminded that Jesus is the only answer to the Middle East mess and God is even able to redeem war by getting Muslims to Europe where they are being saved by the thousands. (Unfortunately, it is only the bad news that gets reported because the good news is too dangerous to release publicly!) In between sessions, we were praying and worshiping and getting to know the staff there. David was thrilled when they adopted him as their drummer for the weekend. We also ran into one of our intercessors who came down from Italy and had a delightful Vietnamese lunch and prayer time together.
“I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.” Ps 108.3
The final international moment was last Sunday when 30 (French-speaking) Congolese children and their chaperones entered our sanctuary and worshiped with us and for us with African abandon. Their Christian school is the fruit of seeds planted by our pastor many years ago. Our typically passive French kids looked on wide-eyed at these kids dressed to the nines, sang accapella and who knew how to sit still and listen to their team leader preach a fiery message on prayer. (It’s a good thing because I couldn’t have fit them all in our Sunday school room!!)
Congolese worship
Love, Angela